Multi-purpose stadium
Encyclopedia
Multi-purpose stadiums are a type of stadium
designed in such a way as to be easily used by multiple sports. While any stadium could potentially host more than one sport, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy that stresses multi-functionality over specificity. It is used most commonly in Canada and the United States
where the two most popular outdoor team sports, gridiron football
and baseball
, require radically different facilities. Football uses a rectangular field (Canadian football fields are larger than American ones) while baseball is played on a diamond
. This requires a particular design to accommodate both, usually an oval
. While building stadiums in this way means that sports teams and governments can share costs, it also imposes some challenges.
In North America, multi-purpose stadiums were built primarily during the 1960s and 1970s as shared home stadiums for Major League Baseball
and National Football League
or Canadian Football League
teams. Some stadiums were renovated to allow multi-purpose configurations during the 1980s. This type of stadium is associated with an era of suburbanization
, in which many sports teams followed their fans out of large cities into areas with cheaper, plentiful land. They were usually built near highways and had large parking lot
s but not often connected to public transit. As multi-purpose stadiums were rarely ideal for both sports usually housed in them, they fell out of favor by the 1990s. With the opening of the Truman Sports Complex
in Kansas City
, a model for purpose-built stadiums was laid down. Since Oriole Park at Camden Yards
opened in 1992, most major league sports stadiums have been built specifically for one sport.
Outside North America the term is rarely used since soccer is the only major outdoor team sport in many countries, in some countries soccer and rugby
can easily co-exist, with Australia
and South Africa
being notable examples. In other countries, such as England
and France
, teams rarely share facilities. In Australia, many sports grounds are suited to both Australian rules football
and cricket
, which both use oval fields.
hosted football
teams early on, and although the stadium was ostensibly designed for baseball
, its rectangular nature lent itself well to football. The original configuration of Yankee Stadium was specifically designed to accommodate football as well as track-and-field, in addition to its primary usage for baseball. Wrigley Field
, while originally built for baseball, also hosted the Chicago Bears
, just as Comiskey Park
hosted the Chicago Cardinals and Tiger Stadium
hosted the Detroit Lions
. Later venues such as Cleveland Stadium
and Baltimore Memorial Stadium
were built to accommodate both baseball and football.
In the 1960s, multi-purpose stadiums began replacing their baseball-only and football-only predecessors, now known as "Classics" or "Jewel Box" parks. The advantage to a multi-purpose stadium is that a singular infrastructure and piece of real estate can support both teams in terms of transportation and playing area, and money (often public money) that would have been spent to support infrastructure for two stadiums could be spent elsewhere. Also playing into the advent of the multi-purpose stadium was Americans' growing use of automobiles as a form of transportation, and therefore the need for professional sports stadiums to accommodate parking. As most cities lacked the space to construct the stadiums with necessary parking lots near their city centers, most multi-purpose stadiums were built in suburbs, away from the city centers but near freeways or highways.
A subset of the multipurpose stadiums were the so called "cookie-cutter stadiums" or "concrete donuts" which were all very similar in design. They featured a completely circular or nearly circular design, and accommodated both baseball and football by rotating sections of the box seat areas to fit . These fields often used artificial turf
. The first of these stadiums was RFK Stadium
. It was followed during the 1960s and 1970s by Shea Stadium
, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (later known by several corporate names, currently O.co Coliseum), the Astrodome, San Diego Stadium
(later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium), Riverfront Stadium, Busch Memorial Stadium
, Three Rivers Stadium
, Veterans Stadium
and the Kingdome
. Seven of these eleven stadiums have been demolished, most often by implosion; only RFK, the Astrodome, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, and San Diego remain.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
was unique in that it was one of the few air-supported dome stadiums
that was multi-purpose in practice, being convertible between football and baseball. Still home of the Minnesota Vikings
, it was also home to the Minnesota Twins
until 2009 and the Minnesota Golden Gophers
baseball team (NCAA, although repairs forced the team out for the 2011 season). Most other inflatable domes, like the Hoosier Dome
and Pontiac Silverdome
, were football-only stadiums.
During the height of the multi-purpose stadium construction era of the 1960s and 1970s, four baseball-only stadiums were constructed: Candlestick Park (1960), Dodger Stadium
(1962), Anaheim Stadium
(1966; now Angel Stadium of Anaheim), and Royals Stadium
(1973; now Kauffman Stadium). Anaheim Stadium was, however, renovated into a multi-purpose stadium in 1980 to accommodate the Los Angeles Rams'
move from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
, and renovated back into a baseball-only facility in 1997, three years after the Rams' departure for St. Louis
. Similarly, Candlestick Park was renovated into a multi-purpose stadium in 1970 to accommodate the San Francisco 49ers
' move from Kezar Stadium
and converted to football only after the San Francisco Giants
moved to their new ballpark
in 2000.
As of September 28, 2011, O.co Coliseum is the last multi-purpose stadium to serve as a full-time home to both an MLB team and an NFL team.
In Canada several large multi-sport stadiums were built during this style's heyday. However, unlike in the United States, there has never been an NFL team based primarily in Canada (though, currently the Buffalo Bills
play some home games
in Toronto) and there have only ever been two MLB teams, so teams from these leagues have not been the major impetus behind stadium construction (with the notable exception of Toronto). Instead stadiums were built primarily for Canadian Football League
teams and in order to host multi-sport event
s, such as the Olympics.
Three of Canada's largest stadiums from this era and type feature domed roofs or retractable roofs, namely BC Place
in Vancouver, SkyDome/Rogers Centre
in Toronto, and Olympic Stadium
in Montreal.
BC Place is capable of hosting baseball but has been primarily a football venue. Rogers Centre was built to accommodate baseball (MLB's Toronto Blue Jays
play there), but has also been a football venue its entire life. Montreal's Olympic Stadium was built primarily for a multi-sport event (the 1976 Summer Olympics
, during which it hosted the track and field
events and the soccer
final) rather than for professional team sports, but it later became the home of the Montreal Alouettes
football team and the Montreal Expos
baseball team, and is set to become an alternate home to the Montreal Impact when that team enters Major League Soccer in 2012. Similarly the open-air Commonwealth Stadium
in Edmonton was constructed for the 1978 Commonwealth Games
but has also become home of the Edmonton Eskimos
of the CFL. It has also hosted many soccer events, as well as the 2003 Heritage Classic, the first major outdoor ice hockey event in Canada. Pan American Stadium, set to begin construction in 2013, is being primarily built for the 2015 Pan American Games
, but is also being constructed with the purposes of being the new home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
football team.
Other Canadian cities never had a remote chance of attracting Major League Baseball or the Summer Olympics, and felt no need to replace their smaller open-air stadiums used mostly for Canadian football. For example, Calgary's open-air McMahon Stadium
dates from 1960 and has been used only for Canadian football, the 1988 Winter Olympics, and an outdoor ice hockey event (the 2011 Heritage Classic
). Similar situations hold in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Regina. There are no large stadiums of any kind in cities like Quebec City, Halifax, or London.
The idea of a sharp difference between a multi-purpose stadium and a single-sport stadium is less important outside of North America, since in most countries stadiums that are constructed with association football (soccer) in mind are easily able to accommodate rugby
, athletics (track and field), or other sports with a similar sized playing field. For example any large stadium in most of Latin America, part of Asia, most of Africa, or continental Europe is likely to be used mostly for soccer. The majority of the largest stadia in the world were built for either association football or American football.
The regions where other outdoor sports can draw numbers comparable to association football or American football are limited. They include: baseball in Japan
and the Spanish Caribbean
; cricket
in England
, Australia
, the Anglophone Caribbean
, and the Indian subcontinent
; rugby
(union or league) in Wales, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Fiji, and parts of Australia and France; Aussie rules football in Australia; bandy
in Russia
and Scandinavia
; and Gaelic games
in Ireland
. However even in these areas the amount of compromise needed to accommodate multiple sports varies considerably. Most outdoor team sports have a rectangular playing field, but cricket and Aussie rules fields are rounded, while baseball is played in a diamond. This makes them much harder to accommodate within a rectangular-shaped stadium. Likewise accommodating athletics (track and field), such as for an Olympic games, means constructing a rounded 400m track around the infield. This often means the sports simply find it easier to play in separate stadia. In the case of Ireland, grounds built for Gaelic games are physically capable of accommodating soccer and the rugby codes without modification, but opposition to those sports within large parts of the Gaelic games community, most notably manifested in GAA
Rule 42
, means that soccer and rugby clubs have generally had to play in separate grounds.
True multi-sport facilities, where teams from a variety of sports use the same stadium as their home ground, exist outside North America in a few cases, most of those smaller stadiums. A handful are notable for having 60,000 seats or more. Melbourne Cricket Ground
and ANZ Stadium host cricket, Australian rules football, and association football. Wembley Stadium
in London, Stade de France
near Paris, and Millennium Stadium
in Cardiff are not the permanent homes to any club teams, but are used primarily for international competitions and major tournament finals, mostly for association football, but also for rugby, and the opening and closing ceremonies of multi-sport events such as the 2012 Summer Olympics. Soccer City
and Ellis Park Stadium
in South Africa have both hosted host rugby union and soccer, while Moses Mabhida Stadium has hosted soccer and cricket. Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi
in India hosts cricket and association football. Eden Park
in New Zealand hosts rugby union and cricket.
would be. O.co Coliseum uses a configuration such that its football sideline runs along a line drawn from first base to third base
(the former Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium also used this configuration). This was done presumably to make the same coveted seats behind home plate at a baseball game also coveted 50-yard line seats at a football game. Different stadiums have different angles between the left and right field seats.
In stadiums that were primarily football stadiums that converted to baseball stadiums, the stands were at nearly right angles. This allowed the football field to be squared within the bleachers, but left the baseball configuration with many undesirable views farther away from home plate or facing away from the diamond, such as at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
and Sun Life Stadium. Baseball stadiums that converted to football stadiums had more of an obtuse angle between the stands. This made the football viewing farther away, and in some cases partially obscured as in Candlestick Park.
In the case of Qualcomm Stadium
, the stadium was constructed with half of the Field-level seating permanent (built of concrete, in the southern quadrant of the stadium), and the other half portable (modular construction using aluminum or steel framing). When the stadium was configured for baseball, the portable sections would be placed in the western quadrant of the stadium and serve as the third-base half of the infield. In the football configuration, these are placed in the northern quadrant of the stadium (covering what is used as left field in the baseball configuration) to allow for the football field to be laid out east-west. This had the advantage of improving sightlines for both sports while keeping the baseball dimensions roughly symmetrical.
Many multi-purpose stadiums also had artificial turf
playing surfaces, to ease the transition from baseball field to football field and vice-versa. In many cases, the turf was nothing more than carpet on top of concrete with little padding material, which caused frequent injuries to players. During the first month of the football season, the playing field would include the infield dirt that is harder than the grass and is also a significant injury risk.
In the baseball configuration, most had symmetrical
field dimensions. This detracted from the unique, individual identity enjoyed by the Jewel Box stadiums with odd or asymmetrical field dimensions, and further supported the "cookie cutter stadium" nickname.
Fans also criticized the large parking lots surrounding the stadiums as well as their concrete or painted concrete façades as uninviting.
Soccer was perceived as an especially bad fit for this type of stadium leading to the soccer-specific stadium
movement.
Scheduling was also a big issue since the MLB postseason overlaps with the NFL regular season. If a baseball team advances in the postseason to the point where it is scheduled to play a postseason game on the same day the football team plays a home game, adjustments had to be made such as having the game moved to Monday night or, if a division opponent was scheduled, have the game sites switched putting the upcoming meeting on the road and playing the home game during the latter meeting.
opened the Truman Sports Complex, which houses Kauffman Stadium
(named Royals Stadium at the time of opening) and Arrowhead Stadium
. The Truman Sports Complex was the first example of multiple stadiums being built for specific sports at the same time. The designers, Kivett and Myers, were then absorbed by Kansas City architecture firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum
to become HOK Sport + Venue + Event (now the independent firm Populous), who went on to design many pro sports venues in the United States. Though hailed as revolutionary at the time, the Truman Sports Complex model of stadium design was widely ignored for the next twenty years, though the influence of both Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadiums were easily seen in venues such as Giants Stadium.
The true end of the multi-purpose era began in 1987, when Buffalo's
Pilot Field, a stadium built for the Buffalo Bisons
minor league baseball team and a potential MLB expansion franchise, opened. During the 1990s and 2000s, most of the multipurpose stadiums used for Major League Baseball
in the United States were replaced (most, but not all, of those replaced have been demolished) by "retro" style ballparks. These parks come in two varieties: "retro-classic" parks, which combine the interior and exterior design of the "classic" ballparks with the amenities of newer facilities; and "retro-modern" parks, which have modern amenities and "retro" interiors but have modern exterior designs. The first "retro-classic" park in Major League Baseball was Oriole Park at Camden Yards
in Baltimore
, which opened in 1992
and was based mostly on the Pilot Field design. (Comiskey Park
had opened a year earlier in Chicago, but it was very modernist in its design and had little in common with the later retro-classic parks. However, due to extensive renovations over the years, Comiskey Park now enjoys many of the same amenities.) The "retro-modern" park made its first appearance in with the opening of Jacobs Field, in Cleveland. Many football teams that shared a stadium with a baseball team had their stadiums converted into football-only facilities shortly after the baseball tenant left (e.g., Qualcomm Stadium
), while other football teams followed in the footsteps of their baseball counterparts and had new football-only stadiums constructed.
The Florida Marlins
currently are constructing a new retractable roof
stadium in Miami and plan to begin playing there in 2012. At that time, the team name will change to Miami Marlins. Sun Life Stadium will then be renovated to eliminate its baseball functionality, making it a football-only stadium.
After the Marlins relocate, the Oakland Athletics
will be the only team left in the U.S. still sharing a stadium with an NFL team (the Oakland Raiders
), O.co Coliseum. The A's and Raiders are both seeking new places to play; the A's recently commenced plans to build Cisco Field. The Raiders have no concrete plans to move, but have suggested a move back to Los Angeles
, where the Raiders played from 1980 to 1994. There have also been suggestions for the Raiders to share the proposed new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara
with the San Francisco 49ers
.
Currently, soccer-specific stadium
s are now required by North America's three main soccer leagues, Major League Soccer
, the North American Soccer League and USL Pro
.
In Canada, smaller, more specialized stadiums have generally become more popular, but none of the major multi-use stadiums of the 1970s and 1980s have been demolished . The Toronto Blue Jays
currently share Rogers Centre
with the Toronto Argonauts
of the CFL
and began sharing the facility on a part-time basis
with the Buffalo Bills
of the NFL in August 2008. The Toronto Argonauts have twice publicly announced plans to leave Rogers Centre only to end up staying, though Toronto FC
built their own, soccer-specific facility, BMO Field
. The Blue Jays presently do not have any plans to leave Rogers Centre. BC Place in Vancouver is still used by the BC Lions
and was also the Olympic Stadium
for the 2010 Winter Olympics
, although the Lions played their 2010 season at the temporary Empire Field
while BC Place was being renovated to replace the original air-supported roof with a retractable roof. The Vancouver Whitecaps, which entered Major League Soccer
in 2011, are sharing Empire Field and the renovated BC Place with the Lions. This was intended to be a temporary arrangement until the MLS team could build their own Whitecaps Stadium
, but local opposition to the planned stadium has led the Whitecaps to make BC Place a long-term home. The Montreal Expos' owners often cited the inadequacy of Olympic Stadium as a reason for the team's financial troubles which eventually led to relocation to Washington, D.C.
The Montreal Alouettes moved out of Olympic Stadium to Molson Stadium while the Montreal Impact
soccer team (set to enter MLS in 2012) have constructed the smaller Stade Saputo
, although both teams continue to use Olympic Stadium for playoff games and other special events when extra capacity is needed. Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton received major upgrades in order to host the 2001 World Championships in Athletics
, and continues to host the Edmonton Eskimos
, but is not hosting the new soccer team, FC Edmonton
, which began play in 2011.
An added benefit of single-sport stadiums that was impossible with the "concrete donut" design of the multi-purpose stadiums is improved panoramic views of areas outside the stadium, such as mountains, city skylines, etc. Examples include CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field
(although the latter can be used for American football games, as it played host to the college football Seattle Bowl
in 2001), which replaced the Kingdome
in Seattle, and Heinz Field
and PNC Park
, which replaced Three Rivers Stadium
in Pittsburgh.
Still, however, several modern baseball-specific stadiums are able to be (and have been) converted for football use. In addition to the aforementioned Safeco Field, San Francisco's AT&T Park
(which hosted the XFL's San Francisco Demons
and hosts the annual Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, and will host California Golden Bears football
games in the 2011 season
while that team's stadium
is renovated), Phoenix's Chase Field
(which hosted the Insight Bowl
from 2000–2005), and St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field
(which was built as a baseball specific stadium but began hosting a college bowl game in 2008) have all been used to host professional and college games since they were built. (It should also be noted that Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., was to be the original host of the EagleBank Bowl before that game was moved to RFK Stadium
.)
Furthermore, some of the teams in the United Football League have played their home schedule at a baseball-specific stadium. The California Redwoods played their home games at the aforementioned AT&T Park, though they moved to Sacramento (Sacramento Mountain Lions) in 2010 and are now playing in a football stadium. Although their home field was the Citrus Bowl
in Orlando
, the Florida Tuskers played one 2009 home game at Tropicana Field. The team has since moved to the Hampton Roads
area as the Virginia Destroyers and is now playing in a soccer-specific stadium. The Omaha Nighthawks
played their inaugural 2010 season at a baseball park, Rosenblatt Stadium
, and will play in Rosenblatt's baseball-specific replacement, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, for the foreseeable future.
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
designed in such a way as to be easily used by multiple sports. While any stadium could potentially host more than one sport, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy that stresses multi-functionality over specificity. It is used most commonly in Canada and the United States
Northern America
Northern America is the northernmost region of the Americas, and is part of the North American continent. It lies directly north of the region of Middle America; the land border between the two regions coincides with the border between the United States and Mexico...
where the two most popular outdoor team sports, gridiron football
Gridiron football
Gridiron football , sometimes known as North American football, is an umbrella term for related codes of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football...
and baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, require radically different facilities. Football uses a rectangular field (Canadian football fields are larger than American ones) while baseball is played on a diamond
Baseball field
A baseball field, also called a ball field or a baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The terms "baseball field" and "ball field" are also often used as synonyms for ballpark.-Specifications:...
. This requires a particular design to accommodate both, usually an oval
Oval
An oval is any curve resembling an egg or an ellipse, such as a Cassini oval. The term does not have a precise mathematical definition except in one area oval , but it may also refer to:* A sporting arena of oval shape** a cricket field...
. While building stadiums in this way means that sports teams and governments can share costs, it also imposes some challenges.
In North America, multi-purpose stadiums were built primarily during the 1960s and 1970s as shared home stadiums for Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
and National Football League
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
or Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
teams. Some stadiums were renovated to allow multi-purpose configurations during the 1980s. This type of stadium is associated with an era of suburbanization
Suburbanization
Suburbanization a term used to describe the growth of areas on the fringes of major cities. It is one of the many causes of the increase in urban sprawl. Many residents of metropolitan regions work within the central urban area, choosing instead to live in satellite communities called suburbs...
, in which many sports teams followed their fans out of large cities into areas with cheaper, plentiful land. They were usually built near highways and had large parking lot
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
s but not often connected to public transit. As multi-purpose stadiums were rarely ideal for both sports usually housed in them, they fell out of favor by the 1990s. With the opening of the Truman Sports Complex
Truman Sports Complex
The Harry S. Truman Sports Complex is a sports and entertainment facility located in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.. It is home to two major sports venues- Arrowhead Stadium, home of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, and Kauffman Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's Kansas City...
in Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, a model for purpose-built stadiums was laid down. Since Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a Major League Baseball ballpark located in Baltimore, Maryland. Home field of the Baltimore Orioles, it is the first of the "retro" major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early 2000s, and remains one of the most highly praised. The park was...
opened in 1992, most major league sports stadiums have been built specifically for one sport.
Outside North America the term is rarely used since soccer is the only major outdoor team sport in many countries, in some countries soccer and rugby
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
can easily co-exist, with Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
being notable examples. In other countries, such as England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, teams rarely share facilities. In Australia, many sports grounds are suited to both Australian rules football
Australian rules football
Australian rules football, officially known as Australian football, also called football, Aussie rules or footy is a sport played between two teams of 22 players on either...
and cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, which both use oval fields.
History in the United States
Several stadiums hosted multiple sports teams prior to the advent of multi-purpose stadiums. The Polo GroundsPolo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
hosted football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
teams early on, and although the stadium was ostensibly designed for baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, its rectangular nature lent itself well to football. The original configuration of Yankee Stadium was specifically designed to accommodate football as well as track-and-field, in addition to its primary usage for baseball. Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales...
, while originally built for baseball, also hosted the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, just as Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series and more than 6,000 major league games...
hosted the Chicago Cardinals and Tiger Stadium
Tiger Stadium
Tiger Stadium was a stadium located in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan. It hosted the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball team from 1912 to 1999, as well as the National Football League's Detroit Lions from 1938 to 1974...
hosted the Detroit Lions
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League , and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit.Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and...
. Later venues such as Cleveland Stadium
Cleveland Stadium
Cleveland Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, located in Cleveland, Ohio. In its final years, the stadium seated 74,438, for baseball and 81,000, for football. It was one of the early multi-purpose stadiums, built to accommodate both baseball and football...
and Baltimore Memorial Stadium
Memorial Stadium (Baltimore)
Memorial Stadium was a sports stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, that formerly stood on 33rd Street on an over-sized block also bounded by Ellerslie Avenue , 36th Street , and Ednor Road...
were built to accommodate both baseball and football.
In the 1960s, multi-purpose stadiums began replacing their baseball-only and football-only predecessors, now known as "Classics" or "Jewel Box" parks. The advantage to a multi-purpose stadium is that a singular infrastructure and piece of real estate can support both teams in terms of transportation and playing area, and money (often public money) that would have been spent to support infrastructure for two stadiums could be spent elsewhere. Also playing into the advent of the multi-purpose stadium was Americans' growing use of automobiles as a form of transportation, and therefore the need for professional sports stadiums to accommodate parking. As most cities lacked the space to construct the stadiums with necessary parking lots near their city centers, most multi-purpose stadiums were built in suburbs, away from the city centers but near freeways or highways.
A subset of the multipurpose stadiums were the so called "cookie-cutter stadiums" or "concrete donuts" which were all very similar in design. They featured a completely circular or nearly circular design, and accommodated both baseball and football by rotating sections of the box seat areas to fit . These fields often used artificial turf
Artificial turf
Artificial turf is a surface manufactured from synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used in arenas for sports that were originally or are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commercial applications as well...
. The first of these stadiums was RFK Stadium
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Washington, D.C., United States, and the current home of MLS's D.C. United....
. It was followed during the 1960s and 1970s by Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, usually shortened to Shea Stadium or just Shea , was a stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. It was the home baseball park of Major League Baseball's New York Mets from 1964 to 2008...
, Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, often shortened to "Fulton County Stadium," was a multi-purpose stadium that formerly stood in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.-History:...
, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (later known by several corporate names, currently O.co Coliseum), the Astrodome, San Diego Stadium
Qualcomm Stadium
Qualcomm Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in San Diego, California, in the Mission Valley area....
(later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium), Riverfront Stadium, Busch Memorial Stadium
Busch Memorial Stadium
Busch Memorial Stadium, also known as Busch Stadium, was a multi-purpose sports facility in St. Louis, Missouri that operated from 1966 to 2005....
, Three Rivers Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1970 to 2000. It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city's Major League Baseball franchise and National Football League franchise respectively.Built as a replacement to...
, Veterans Stadium
Veterans Stadium
Philadelphia Veterans Stadium was a professional-sports, multi-purpose stadium, located at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex...
and the Kingdome
Kingdome
The Kingdome was a multi-purpose stadium located in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. Owned and operated by King County, the Kingdome opened in 1976 and was best known as the home stadium of the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League , the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball , and the...
. Seven of these eleven stadiums have been demolished, most often by implosion; only RFK, the Astrodome, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, and San Diego remain.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, commonly called the Metrodome, is a domed sports stadium in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in 1982, it replaced Metropolitan Stadium, which was on the current site of the Mall of America in Bloomington and Memorial Stadium on the University...
was unique in that it was one of the few air-supported dome stadiums
Air-supported structure
An air-supported structure is any building that derives its structural integrity from the use of internal pressurized air to inflate a pliable material envelope, so that air is the main support of the structure, and where access is via airlocks.The concept was popularized on a large scale by...
that was multi-purpose in practice, being convertible between football and baseball. Still home of the Minnesota Vikings
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Vikings joined the National Football League as an expansion team in 1960...
, it was also home to the Minnesota Twins
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
until 2009 and the Minnesota Golden Gophers
Minnesota Golden Gophers
The Minnesota Golden Gophers are the college sports team for the University of Minnesota. The university fields both men's and women's teams in basketball, cross country, gymnastics, golf, ice hockey, swimming, tennis, and track and field. Men's-specific sports include baseball, football, and...
baseball team (NCAA, although repairs forced the team out for the 2011 season). Most other inflatable domes, like the Hoosier Dome
RCA Dome
RCA Dome was a domed stadium, located in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the home of the Indianapolis Colts NFL franchise for 24 seasons ....
and Pontiac Silverdome
Silverdome
The Silverdome is an indoor sporting and entertainment venue located in Launceston, Tasmania built in 1984. The Silverdome was built at an estimated cost of A$4 million, as the Tasmanian Government "proposed a world class facility" to replace the run down velodrome in the Launceston suburb of St...
, were football-only stadiums.
During the height of the multi-purpose stadium construction era of the 1960s and 1970s, four baseball-only stadiums were constructed: Candlestick Park (1960), Dodger Stadium
Dodger Stadium
Dodger Stadium, also sometimes called Chavez Ravine, is a stadium in Los Angeles. Located adjacent to Downtown Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium has been the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers team since 1962...
(1962), Anaheim Stadium
Angel Stadium of Anaheim
Angel Stadium of Anaheim is a modern-style ballpark located in Anaheim, California. It is the home ballpark to Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of the American League, and was previously home to the NFL's Los Angeles Rams...
(1966; now Angel Stadium of Anaheim), and Royals Stadium
Kauffman Stadium
Ewing M. Kauffman Stadium is a Major League Baseball stadium located in Kansas City, Missouri, and home to the Kansas City Royals of the American League. Together with Arrowhead Stadium, home of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, it is a part of the Truman Sports Complex...
(1973; now Kauffman Stadium). Anaheim Stadium was, however, renovated into a multi-purpose stadium in 1980 to accommodate the Los Angeles Rams'
St. Louis Rams
The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...
move from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is a large outdoor sports stadium in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, at Exposition Park, that is home to the Pacific-12 Conference's University of Southern California Trojans football team...
, and renovated back into a baseball-only facility in 1997, three years after the Rams' departure for St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. Similarly, Candlestick Park was renovated into a multi-purpose stadium in 1970 to accommodate the San Francisco 49ers
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
' move from Kezar Stadium
Kezar Stadium
Kezar Stadium is a stadium located adjacent to Kezar Pavilion in the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. It is the former home of the Oakland Raiders and the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL, and of the San Francisco Dragons of MLL. It also served as the home of the...
and converted to football only after the San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
moved to their new ballpark
AT&T Park
AT&T Park is a ballpark located in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, at the corner of Third and King Streets, it has served as the home of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball since 2000....
in 2000.
As of September 28, 2011, O.co Coliseum is the last multi-purpose stadium to serve as a full-time home to both an MLB team and an NFL team.
History in Canada
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
play some home games
Bills Toronto Series
The Bills Toronto Series is a five-year deal consisting of a series of National Football League games featuring the Buffalo Bills played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The series began in the 2008 NFL season and will end during the 2012 NFL season...
in Toronto) and there have only ever been two MLB teams, so teams from these leagues have not been the major impetus behind stadium construction (with the notable exception of Toronto). Instead stadiums were built primarily for Canadian Football League
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
teams and in order to host multi-sport event
Multi-sport event
A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many different sports between organized teams of athletes from nation-states. The first major, modern, multi-sport event of international significance was the modern Olympic Games.Many...
s, such as the Olympics.
Three of Canada's largest stadiums from this era and type feature domed roofs or retractable roofs, namely BC Place
BC Place Stadium
BC Place is a multi-purpose stadium located at the north side of False Creek, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the home field for the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League and the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer . Originally opened on June 19, 1983 as the...
in Vancouver, SkyDome/Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre is a multi-purpose stadium, in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower, near the shores of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League...
in Toronto, and Olympic Stadium
Olympic Stadium (Montreal)
The Olympic Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada built as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics...
in Montreal.
BC Place is capable of hosting baseball but has been primarily a football venue. Rogers Centre was built to accommodate baseball (MLB's Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a professional baseball team located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball 's American League ....
play there), but has also been a football venue its entire life. Montreal's Olympic Stadium was built primarily for a multi-sport event (the 1976 Summer Olympics
1976 Summer Olympics
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...
, during which it hosted the track and field
Athletics at the 1976 Summer Olympics
At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, 37 events were contested in athletics. There were a total number of 1006 participating athletes from 80 countries.-Men's events:-Women's events:-Medal table:-References:**...
events and the soccer
Football at the 1976 Summer Olympics
Final results for the Football competition at the 1976 Summer Olympics held in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Sherbrooke. Groups A, C and D had only three teams instead of four, as Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia national teams adhered to African-led boycott of the Games against the participation of New...
final) rather than for professional team sports, but it later became the home of the Montreal Alouettes
Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes are a Canadian Football League team based in Montreal, Quebec.The current franchise named the Alouettes moved to Montreal from Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996 where they had been known as the Baltimore Stallions...
football team and the Montreal Expos
Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos were a Major League Baseball team located in Montreal, Quebec from 1969 through 2004, holding the first MLB franchise awarded outside the United States. After the 2004 season, MLB moved the Expos to Washington, D.C. and renamed them the Nationals.Named after the Expo 67 World's...
baseball team, and is set to become an alternate home to the Montreal Impact when that team enters Major League Soccer in 2012. Similarly the open-air Commonwealth Stadium
Commonwealth Stadium (Edmonton)
Commonwealth Stadium is a sports stadium located in the Norwood Area of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, primarily used by the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League. The stadium is owned and operated by the City of Edmonton.- History :...
in Edmonton was constructed for the 1978 Commonwealth Games
1978 Commonwealth Games
The 1978 Commonwealth Games were held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, from 3 to 12 August 1978, two years after the 1976 Summer Olympics were held in Montreal, Quebec...
but has also become home of the Edmonton Eskimos
Edmonton Eskimos
The Edmonton Eskimos are a Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. They currently play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League . Edmonton is currently the third-youngest franchise in the CFL, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895...
of the CFL. It has also hosted many soccer events, as well as the 2003 Heritage Classic, the first major outdoor ice hockey event in Canada. Pan American Stadium, set to begin construction in 2013, is being primarily built for the 2015 Pan American Games
2015 Pan American Games
The 2015 Pan American Games, officially the XVII Pan American Games or the 17th Pan American Games, will be a major international multi-sport event that will be held from July 10–26, 2015 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Ajax, Barrie, Brampton, Caledon, Hamilton,...
, but is also being constructed with the purposes of being the new home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats. The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium...
football team.
Other Canadian cities never had a remote chance of attracting Major League Baseball or the Summer Olympics, and felt no need to replace their smaller open-air stadiums used mostly for Canadian football. For example, Calgary's open-air McMahon Stadium
McMahon Stadium
McMahon Stadium is a Canadian football stadium located in Calgary, Alberta. The stadium is owned by the University of Calgary and operated by the McMahon Stadium Society....
dates from 1960 and has been used only for Canadian football, the 1988 Winter Olympics, and an outdoor ice hockey event (the 2011 Heritage Classic
2011 Heritage Classic
The 2011 Heritage Classic was a regular season outdoor National Hockey League game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Calgary Flames. The game was played at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on February 20, 2011. The Flames defeated the Canadiens by a score of 4–0 before a crowd of...
). Similar situations hold in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Regina. There are no large stadiums of any kind in cities like Quebec City, Halifax, or London.
Outside North America
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
, athletics (track and field), or other sports with a similar sized playing field. For example any large stadium in most of Latin America, part of Asia, most of Africa, or continental Europe is likely to be used mostly for soccer. The majority of the largest stadia in the world were built for either association football or American football.
The regions where other outdoor sports can draw numbers comparable to association football or American football are limited. They include: baseball in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and the Spanish Caribbean
Spanish Caribbean
The Spanish Caribbean refers to the Spanish-speaking areas in the Caribbean Sea, namely Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The phrase, thus, excludes countries such as Jamaica, Haiti, and the Lesser Antilles...
; cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, the Anglophone Caribbean
Anglophone Caribbean
The term Commonwealth Caribbean is used to refer to the independent English-speaking countries of the Caribbean region. Upon a country's full independence from the United Kingdom, Anglophone Caribbean or Commonwealth Caribbean traditionally becomes the preferred sub-regional term as a replacement...
, and the Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
; rugby
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
(union or league) in Wales, England, South Africa, New Zealand, Fiji, and parts of Australia and France; Aussie rules football in Australia; bandy
Bandy
Bandy is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a football field. Each team has 11 players,...
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
; and Gaelic games
Gaelic games
Gaelic games are sports played in Ireland under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The two main games are Gaelic football and hurling...
in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. However even in these areas the amount of compromise needed to accommodate multiple sports varies considerably. Most outdoor team sports have a rectangular playing field, but cricket and Aussie rules fields are rounded, while baseball is played in a diamond. This makes them much harder to accommodate within a rectangular-shaped stadium. Likewise accommodating athletics (track and field), such as for an Olympic games, means constructing a rounded 400m track around the infield. This often means the sports simply find it easier to play in separate stadia. In the case of Ireland, grounds built for Gaelic games are physically capable of accommodating soccer and the rugby codes without modification, but opposition to those sports within large parts of the Gaelic games community, most notably manifested in GAA
Gaelic Athletic Association
The Gaelic Athletic Association is an amateur Irish and international cultural and sporting organisation focused primarily on promoting Gaelic games, which include the traditional Irish sports of hurling, camogie, Gaelic football, handball and rounders...
Rule 42
Rule 42
Rule 42 is a rule of the Gaelic Athletic Association which in practice prohibits the playing of non-Gaelic games in GAA stadiums. The rule is often mistakenly believed to prohibit foreign sports at GAA owned stadiums...
, means that soccer and rugby clubs have generally had to play in separate grounds.
True multi-sport facilities, where teams from a variety of sports use the same stadium as their home ground, exist outside North America in a few cases, most of those smaller stadiums. A handful are notable for having 60,000 seats or more. Melbourne Cricket Ground
Melbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
and ANZ Stadium host cricket, Australian rules football, and association football. Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...
in London, Stade de France
Stade de France
The Stade de France is the national stadium of France, situated just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. It has an all-seater capacity of 80,000, making it the fifth largest stadium in Europe, and is used by both the France national football team and French rugby union team for...
near Paris, and Millennium Stadium
Millennium Stadium
The Millennium Stadium is the national stadium of Wales, located in the capital, Cardiff. It is the home of the Wales national rugby union team and also frequently stages games of the Wales national football team, but is also host to many other large scale events, such as the Super Special Stage...
in Cardiff are not the permanent homes to any club teams, but are used primarily for international competitions and major tournament finals, mostly for association football, but also for rugby, and the opening and closing ceremonies of multi-sport events such as the 2012 Summer Olympics. Soccer City
FNB Stadium
Soccer City, known as FNB Stadium for commercial purposes, is a stadium located in Nasrec, the Soweto area of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located next to the South African Football Association headquarters where both the FIFA offices and the Local Organising Committee for the 2010 FIFA World...
and Ellis Park Stadium
Ellis Park Stadium
Ellis Park Stadium, also known because of its sponsorship by The Coca-Cola Company as Coca-Cola Park, is a rugby union and association football stadium in the city of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It hosted the final of the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which was won by the country's...
in South Africa have both hosted host rugby union and soccer, while Moses Mabhida Stadium has hosted soccer and cricket. Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi
Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium is an international stadium in Kochi, Kerala. The stadium has a capacity of 60,000 spectators making it the third largest stadium in India after the Eden Gardens and Salt Lake Stadium, both in Kolkata...
in India hosts cricket and association football. Eden Park
Eden Park
Eden Park is the biggest stadium in Auckland, New Zealand. It is used primarily for rugby union in winter and cricket in summer . The ground also occasionally hostts rugby league matches. To accommodate all three sports, the cricket pitch is removable...
in New Zealand hosts rugby union and cricket.
Field layout
Most multi-purpose stadiums that existed in North America overlaid one sideline of the football field along one of the baseball foul lines, with one corner of the football field being located where home plateHome Plate
Home Plate is the fifth album by Bonnie Raitt, released in 1975 .-Track listing:#"What Do You Want the Boy to Do?" – 3:19#"Good Enough" – 2:56#"Run Like a Thief" – 3:02...
would be. O.co Coliseum uses a configuration such that its football sideline runs along a line drawn from first base to third base
Third Base
is a 1978 Japanese film directed by Yōichi Higashi.-External links:...
(the former Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium also used this configuration). This was done presumably to make the same coveted seats behind home plate at a baseball game also coveted 50-yard line seats at a football game. Different stadiums have different angles between the left and right field seats.
In stadiums that were primarily football stadiums that converted to baseball stadiums, the stands were at nearly right angles. This allowed the football field to be squared within the bleachers, but left the baseball configuration with many undesirable views farther away from home plate or facing away from the diamond, such as at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, commonly called the Metrodome, is a domed sports stadium in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in 1982, it replaced Metropolitan Stadium, which was on the current site of the Mall of America in Bloomington and Memorial Stadium on the University...
and Sun Life Stadium. Baseball stadiums that converted to football stadiums had more of an obtuse angle between the stands. This made the football viewing farther away, and in some cases partially obscured as in Candlestick Park.
Qualcomm Stadium
Qualcomm Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in San Diego, California, in the Mission Valley area....
, the stadium was constructed with half of the Field-level seating permanent (built of concrete, in the southern quadrant of the stadium), and the other half portable (modular construction using aluminum or steel framing). When the stadium was configured for baseball, the portable sections would be placed in the western quadrant of the stadium and serve as the third-base half of the infield. In the football configuration, these are placed in the northern quadrant of the stadium (covering what is used as left field in the baseball configuration) to allow for the football field to be laid out east-west. This had the advantage of improving sightlines for both sports while keeping the baseball dimensions roughly symmetrical.
Criticisms
While multi-purpose stadiums were intended to easily accommodate both football and baseball (and in some cases, soccer), the fundamentally different sizes and shapes of the playing fields made them inadequate for either sport. When used for baseball, the lower-level boxes were usually set back much further from the field than comparable seats in baseball-only parks because they swiveled into position for football and soccer. In the case of stadiums that hosted both baseball and Canadian football, the lower boxes were set even further back than their American counterparts because Canadian football fields are 30 yards longer, and considerably wider, than their American counterparts. The upper-level seats were as far as 600 feet from the plate. For football, the seats nearest the field were set farther back than at football-only stadiums to accommodate the larger baseball field. In general, spectator sightlines were not optimized for either sport, i.e., seats were angled towards the center of the field rather than towards the logical center of the gameplay action (home plate for baseball and the 50-yard line for football). Likewise, attempts to build stadiums without support columns to obstruct spectators' views, as was the case with jewel box stadiums, resulted in upper decks being placed very high above the field.Many multi-purpose stadiums also had artificial turf
Artificial turf
Artificial turf is a surface manufactured from synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used in arenas for sports that were originally or are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commercial applications as well...
playing surfaces, to ease the transition from baseball field to football field and vice-versa. In many cases, the turf was nothing more than carpet on top of concrete with little padding material, which caused frequent injuries to players. During the first month of the football season, the playing field would include the infield dirt that is harder than the grass and is also a significant injury risk.
In the baseball configuration, most had symmetrical
Symmetry
Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
field dimensions. This detracted from the unique, individual identity enjoyed by the Jewel Box stadiums with odd or asymmetrical field dimensions, and further supported the "cookie cutter stadium" nickname.
Fans also criticized the large parking lots surrounding the stadiums as well as their concrete or painted concrete façades as uninviting.
Soccer was perceived as an especially bad fit for this type of stadium leading to the soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea coined by Lamar Hunt, to refer to a sports stadium either purpose built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multipurpose...
movement.
Scheduling was also a big issue since the MLB postseason overlaps with the NFL regular season. If a baseball team advances in the postseason to the point where it is scheduled to play a postseason game on the same day the football team plays a home game, adjustments had to be made such as having the game moved to Monday night or, if a division opponent was scheduled, have the game sites switched putting the upcoming meeting on the road and playing the home game during the latter meeting.
Counter-argument
The idea of privately-owned purpose-specific stadiums has been criticized as unflexible, exclusionary, and environmentally wasteful in comparison with public-owned multi-function stadiums which can be well-used landmarks of a community.Replacement and retention
The first real departure from the multipurpose stadium design occurred in 1972, when the Jackson County Sports Authority in Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
opened the Truman Sports Complex, which houses Kauffman Stadium
Kauffman Stadium
Ewing M. Kauffman Stadium is a Major League Baseball stadium located in Kansas City, Missouri, and home to the Kansas City Royals of the American League. Together with Arrowhead Stadium, home of the National Football League's Kansas City Chiefs, it is a part of the Truman Sports Complex...
(named Royals Stadium at the time of opening) and Arrowhead Stadium
Arrowhead Stadium
Arrowhead Stadium is a stadium located in Kansas City, Missouri and home to the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs....
. The Truman Sports Complex was the first example of multiple stadiums being built for specific sports at the same time. The designers, Kivett and Myers, were then absorbed by Kansas City architecture firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum
Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum
HOK is a global architecture, interiors, engineering, planning and consulting firm. HOK is the largest U.S.-based architecture-engineering firm and the "No. 1 role model for sustainable and high-performance design." HOK also is the second-largest interior design firm...
to become HOK Sport + Venue + Event (now the independent firm Populous), who went on to design many pro sports venues in the United States. Though hailed as revolutionary at the time, the Truman Sports Complex model of stadium design was widely ignored for the next twenty years, though the influence of both Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadiums were easily seen in venues such as Giants Stadium.
The true end of the multi-purpose era began in 1987, when Buffalo's
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
Pilot Field, a stadium built for the Buffalo Bisons
Buffalo Bisons
The Buffalo Bisons are a minor league baseball team based in Buffalo, New York. They currently play in the International League and are the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets...
minor league baseball team and a potential MLB expansion franchise, opened. During the 1990s and 2000s, most of the multipurpose stadiums used for Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
in the United States were replaced (most, but not all, of those replaced have been demolished) by "retro" style ballparks. These parks come in two varieties: "retro-classic" parks, which combine the interior and exterior design of the "classic" ballparks with the amenities of newer facilities; and "retro-modern" parks, which have modern amenities and "retro" interiors but have modern exterior designs. The first "retro-classic" park in Major League Baseball was Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Oriole Park at Camden Yards is a Major League Baseball ballpark located in Baltimore, Maryland. Home field of the Baltimore Orioles, it is the first of the "retro" major league ballparks constructed during the 1990s and early 2000s, and remains one of the most highly praised. The park was...
in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, which opened in 1992
1992 Major League Baseball season
The 1992 MLB season saw a resergence in pitching dominance. On average, 1 out of every 7 games pitched that season was a shutout; in 2,106 MLB regular-season games, 298 shutouts were pitched . Two teams pitched at least 20 shutouts each; the Atlanta Braves led the Majors with 24 and the Pittsburgh...
and was based mostly on the Pilot Field design. (Comiskey Park
U.S. Cellular Field
U.S. Cellular Field is a baseball ballpark in Chicago, Illinois. Owned by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, it is the home of the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball's American League. The park opened for the 1991 season, after the White Sox had spent 81 years at old Comiskey Park...
had opened a year earlier in Chicago, but it was very modernist in its design and had little in common with the later retro-classic parks. However, due to extensive renovations over the years, Comiskey Park now enjoys many of the same amenities.) The "retro-modern" park made its first appearance in with the opening of Jacobs Field, in Cleveland. Many football teams that shared a stadium with a baseball team had their stadiums converted into football-only facilities shortly after the baseball tenant left (e.g., Qualcomm Stadium
Qualcomm Stadium
Qualcomm Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in San Diego, California, in the Mission Valley area....
), while other football teams followed in the footsteps of their baseball counterparts and had new football-only stadiums constructed.
The Florida Marlins
Florida Marlins
The Miami Marlins are a professional baseball team based in Miami, Florida, United States. Established in 1993 as an expansion franchise called the Florida Marlins, the Marlins are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. The Marlins played their home games at...
currently are constructing a new retractable roof
Retractable roof
A retractable roof is a kinetic architectural element used in many sports venues, in which a roof made of a suitable material can readily be mechanically deployed from some retracted or open position into a closed or extended position that completely covers the field of play and spectator areas...
stadium in Miami and plan to begin playing there in 2012. At that time, the team name will change to Miami Marlins. Sun Life Stadium will then be renovated to eliminate its baseball functionality, making it a football-only stadium.
After the Marlins relocate, the Oakland Athletics
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum....
will be the only team left in the U.S. still sharing a stadium with an NFL team (the Oakland Raiders
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
), O.co Coliseum. The A's and Raiders are both seeking new places to play; the A's recently commenced plans to build Cisco Field. The Raiders have no concrete plans to move, but have suggested a move back to Los Angeles
History of the National Football League in Los Angeles
Professional American football, especially its established top level, the National Football League, has had a long history in Los Angeles, the center of the second-largest media market in the United States. Since 1995, Los Angeles has been by far the largest U.S. market without an NFL team...
, where the Raiders played from 1980 to 1994. There have also been suggestions for the Raiders to share the proposed new 49ers stadium in Santa Clara
Santa Clara
Santa Clara may refer to:-People:* Saint Clare of Assisi , known in Spanish as Santa Clara* Saint Clare of Montefalco -Portugal:...
with the San Francisco 49ers
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...
.
Currently, soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Korea coined by Lamar Hunt, to refer to a sports stadium either purpose built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multipurpose...
s are now required by North America's three main soccer leagues, Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
, the North American Soccer League and USL Pro
USL Pro
The USL Professional Division, commonly known as USL Pro , is a professional men's soccer league in the United States that began its inaugural season in 2011....
.
In Canada, smaller, more specialized stadiums have generally become more popular, but none of the major multi-use stadiums of the 1970s and 1980s have been demolished . The Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a professional baseball team located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball 's American League ....
currently share Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre
Rogers Centre is a multi-purpose stadium, in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower, near the shores of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League...
with the Toronto Argonauts
Toronto Argonauts
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...
of the CFL
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
and began sharing the facility on a part-time basis
Bills Toronto Series
The Bills Toronto Series is a five-year deal consisting of a series of National Football League games featuring the Buffalo Bills played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The series began in the 2008 NFL season and will end during the 2012 NFL season...
with the Buffalo Bills
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
of the NFL in August 2008. The Toronto Argonauts have twice publicly announced plans to leave Rogers Centre only to end up staying, though Toronto FC
Toronto FC
Toronto FC is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto, Ontario which competes in Major League Soccer , the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada....
built their own, soccer-specific facility, BMO Field
BMO Field
BMO Field is a Canadian soccer stadium located in Exhibition Place in the city of Toronto. The open-air structure can seat up to 21,800 spectators, depending on seating configurations. It is owned by the City of Toronto, and managed by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd...
. The Blue Jays presently do not have any plans to leave Rogers Centre. BC Place in Vancouver is still used by the BC Lions
BC Lions
The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team competing in the West Division of Canadian Football League . Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Lions play their home games at BC Place Stadium in Downtown Vancouver, having previously played at Empire Stadium in East Vancouver from 1954...
and was also the Olympic Stadium
Olympic Stadium
The Olympic Stadium is the name usually given to the big centrepiece stadium of the Summer Olympic Games. Traditionally, the opening and closing ceremonies and the track and field competitions are held in the Olympic Stadium. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words Olympic...
for the 2010 Winter Olympics
2010 Winter Olympics
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University...
, although the Lions played their 2010 season at the temporary Empire Field
Empire Field
Empire Field was a temporary outdoor football and soccer stadium built at the former location of Empire Stadium at Hastings Park in Vancouver, British Columbia. It served as the home of the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League from the summer of 2010 until the fall of 2011 when the installation...
while BC Place was being renovated to replace the original air-supported roof with a retractable roof. The Vancouver Whitecaps, which entered Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
in 2011, are sharing Empire Field and the renovated BC Place with the Lions. This was intended to be a temporary arrangement until the MLS team could build their own Whitecaps Stadium
Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium
The Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium is a proposed open-air soccer facility in Vancouver, British Columbia that would be privately funded and developed by the Vancouver Whitecaps FC. The proposed location is north of Gastown on the central waterfront on what is currently a parking lot and the site of...
, but local opposition to the planned stadium has led the Whitecaps to make BC Place a long-term home. The Montreal Expos' owners often cited the inadequacy of Olympic Stadium as a reason for the team's financial troubles which eventually led to relocation to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
The Montreal Alouettes moved out of Olympic Stadium to Molson Stadium while the Montreal Impact
Montreal Impact
Montreal Impact was a Canadian professional soccer club based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1992, the team played in the North American Soccer League , the second tier of the American Soccer Pyramid until the 2011 season. The owner Joey Saputo now operates the MLS team Montreal ImpactThe...
soccer team (set to enter MLS in 2012) have constructed the smaller Stade Saputo
Saputo Stadium
Saputo Stadium is a soccer-specific stadium in Montreal, Quebec, Canada which opened on May 21, 2008, and is the current home of the Montreal Impact. The stadium is built on the former practice track and field site on the grounds of the 1976 Summer Olympics, while the stadium's west side has a...
, although both teams continue to use Olympic Stadium for playoff games and other special events when extra capacity is needed. Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton received major upgrades in order to host the 2001 World Championships in Athletics
2001 World Championships in Athletics
The 8th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held at the Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada between 3 August and 12 August and was the first time the event had visited North America...
, and continues to host the Edmonton Eskimos
Edmonton Eskimos
The Edmonton Eskimos are a Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. They currently play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League . Edmonton is currently the third-youngest franchise in the CFL, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895...
, but is not hosting the new soccer team, FC Edmonton
FC Edmonton
FC Edmonton is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 2010, the team plays in the North American Soccer League , the second tier of the American Soccer Pyramid....
, which began play in 2011.
An added benefit of single-sport stadiums that was impossible with the "concrete donut" design of the multi-purpose stadiums is improved panoramic views of areas outside the stadium, such as mountains, city skylines, etc. Examples include CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field
Safeco Field
Safeco Field is a retractable roof baseball stadium located in Seattle, Washington. The stadium, owned and operated by the Washington-King County Stadium Authority, is the home stadium of the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball and has a seating capacity of 47,878 for baseball...
(although the latter can be used for American football games, as it played host to the college football Seattle Bowl
Seattle Bowl
The Seattle Bowl was a college football bowl game played in 2001 and 2002 between teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Pacific-10 Conference in Seattle, Washington. This bowl game was a continuation of the Oahu Bowl which had moved to Seattle. The 2001 game was played at Safeco Field...
in 2001), which replaced the Kingdome
Kingdome
The Kingdome was a multi-purpose stadium located in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. Owned and operated by King County, the Kingdome opened in 1976 and was best known as the home stadium of the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League , the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball , and the...
in Seattle, and Heinz Field
Heinz Field
Heinz Field is a stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It primarily serves as the home to the Pittsburgh Steelers and University of Pittsburgh Panthers American football teams, members of the National Football League and National Collegiate Athletic Association respectively...
and PNC Park
PNC Park
PNC Park is a baseball park located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the fifth home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. It opened during the 2001 Major League Baseball season, after the controlled implosion of the Pirates' previous home, Three Rivers Stadium...
, which replaced Three Rivers Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1970 to 2000. It was home to the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers, the city's Major League Baseball franchise and National Football League franchise respectively.Built as a replacement to...
in Pittsburgh.
Still, however, several modern baseball-specific stadiums are able to be (and have been) converted for football use. In addition to the aforementioned Safeco Field, San Francisco's AT&T Park
AT&T Park
AT&T Park is a ballpark located in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, at the corner of Third and King Streets, it has served as the home of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball since 2000....
(which hosted the XFL's San Francisco Demons
San Francisco Demons
The San Francisco Demons were a short-lived springtime American football team based in San Francisco, California. This team was part of the failed XFL begun by Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment and by NBC, a major television network in the United States...
and hosts the annual Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, and will host California Golden Bears football
California Golden Bears football
The California Golden Bears football team is the college football team of the University of California. The team plays its home games at California Memorial Stadium, however the team played at San Francisco's AT&T Park in 2011 while Memorial Stadium was being renovated, the team will return to...
games in the 2011 season
2011 California Golden Bears football team
The 2011 California Golden Bears football team represents the University of California, Berkeley in the 2011 NCAA Division I FBS football season...
while that team's stadium
California Memorial Stadium
California Memorial Stadium is an outdoor football stadium on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley. Commonly known as Memorial Stadium, it is the home field for the University of California Golden Bears of the Pacific-12 Conference...
is renovated), Phoenix's Chase Field
Chase Field
Chase Field is a baseball stadium located in downtown Phoenix, Arizona and is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball. It opened in , just in time for the Diamondbacks' first game as an expansion team...
(which hosted the Insight Bowl
Insight Bowl
The Insight Bowl is an NCAA college football bowl game played in Arizona since 1989. From 1989 to 1999, the games were played at Arizona Stadium in Tucson. The game moved to Phoenix in 2000 and was played at Chase Field until 2005. After the 2005 playing the Insight Bowl moved to Sun Devil Stadium...
from 2000–2005), and St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field
Tropicana Field
Tropicana Field is a domed stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida, which has been the home of Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays since the team's inaugural season in 1998, when they were the Devil Rays. It has also served as the host stadium for the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, an NCAA-sanctioned college...
(which was built as a baseball specific stadium but began hosting a college bowl game in 2008) have all been used to host professional and college games since they were built. (It should also be noted that Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., was to be the original host of the EagleBank Bowl before that game was moved to RFK Stadium
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium, in Washington, D.C., United States, and the current home of MLS's D.C. United....
.)
Furthermore, some of the teams in the United Football League have played their home schedule at a baseball-specific stadium. The California Redwoods played their home games at the aforementioned AT&T Park, though they moved to Sacramento (Sacramento Mountain Lions) in 2010 and are now playing in a football stadium. Although their home field was the Citrus Bowl
Citrus Bowl
The Florida Citrus Bowl is a stadium in Orlando, Florida, USA, built for football, which currently seats around 70,000 people....
in Orlando
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
, the Florida Tuskers played one 2009 home game at Tropicana Field. The team has since moved to the Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...
area as the Virginia Destroyers and is now playing in a soccer-specific stadium. The Omaha Nighthawks
Omaha Nighthawks
The Omaha Nighthawks are a professional American football team based in Omaha, Nebraska, which plays in the United Football League, joining the league as an expansion team in 2010. For their first season, the Nighthawks played their home games at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium before moving to TD...
played their inaugural 2010 season at a baseball park, Rosenblatt Stadium
Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium
Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium is a baseball stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, the former home to the annual NCAA Division I College World Series and the minor league Omaha Royals, now known as the Omaha Storm Chasers...
, and will play in Rosenblatt's baseball-specific replacement, TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, for the foreseeable future.