Current Stadiums That Were Built Too Big

You should do the reverse of this too. Stadiums that were built to small, or that can’t expand.

Ever since Camden Yards opened in 1992 ( I believe) major league baseball has wanted so many of their ballparks to have that old time ballpark feel. All the retractable roofs that have been built after SkyDome and Chase field are pretty cool, except renovating them is hard to do. I think moving forward, MLB will probably revert back to the Jewel box style ballparks from the early 20th century. Fenway and Wrigley are the last remaining ballparks of that era. I think if trends continue, smaller, more intimate ballparks might come back in style. And as far as the NFL is concerned... Every single team in the league will demand a new stadium every 20 years, since their last stadium was built.

FedEx Field was appropriately sized when it opened. A winning team in a big market will draw 80,000 fans. But ~20 losing seasons under Dan Snyder will repel fans. 42,000 is an average sized MLB ballpark. It's just that the Rays are an expansion team that never really caught on despite fielding a good team.

On the opposite side, one of many reasons the Colts had to leave the RCA Dome was that it was too small. It was built for 60,127 originally when it opened in 1984, but they had to reduce the capacity to 56,127 to accommodate a few extra luxury suites in a 1999 renovation. It bottomed out at 55,531 in its final two seasons, which happened to be when demand for tickets was highest since the Colts were very good at the time and won Super Bowl XLI. Not only that, but they would have had to reduce the capacity further if they were going to upgrade the small, outdated video screens. The upper deck seats were already metal bleachers (thankfully at least with backrests) to squeeze more people in, and quite a few of those upper deck seats had obstructed views because they were behind structural support posts. It was not a great experience. Lucas Oil Stadium holds 67,000, all in real chairback seats, and is expandable to 70,000...although when it hosted the Super Bowl they ended up not expanding it because of the debacle that happened the previous year in Arlington, when 1,200 temporary seats were blocked off as a safety hazard mere hours before kickoff. There was nothing wrong with the temporary seating at Lucas Oil Stadium; it was just the NFL being overly cautious to avoid a repeat of the bad publicity from the prior year. So, Super Bowl XLVI only had 68,858 in attendance...below the NFL's usual minimum of 70,000. My suspicion is they will need to get really creative if they intend to make the video boards any bigger. I hope they don't cover up the windows.

Great stuff, love your channel! Could you do one for amphitheaters and cinemas?

Stadiums are "too big" ... until people keep getting turned away at the ticket window. It happened in Philadelphia c. 2009 - 2010 when Phillies games were consistently sold out in their small stadium, which has a capacity that is 15,000 smaller than their previous stadium (Veterans Stadium). Naturally, with a smaller stadium, tickets took a huge jump in price!

It always amuses me how Tropicana Field is now a failure when it was used by so many teams as a threatened destination in order to get new ballparks.

Honorable mention to New Comiskey Park (now Guaranteed Rate Field). They had to take out tons of seats in the upper deck in its first couple seasons cause of how steep it was

Will you do new ballpark series, Las Vegas, salt lake city, Nashville etc?

The classic jewel box baseball stadium, located in the proper downtown of a city, is ideal.

So you missed the news about the Rays removing the upper deck tarps for the upcoming Yankee's series and with the huge boost in attendance so far thus year at the Trop the plan is to have the sections available for the rest of the season.

I went to a sold out game at Bank One Ballpark. Curt Schilling was pitching

The Rays are actually going to be opening up the upper deck next weekend for the Yankees series. I'm considering going purely for the novelty.

Nice correction with the voice over 👍

I told folks that seeing a game at Bank One Ballpark felt like watching a baseball game be played in your living room. The stadium didn't have a lot of character, and it definitely wasn't full.

HDTV and more (and better) camera angles is what has killed attendance in many cities. Who wants to fight crowds and traffic when you can sit on your couch and watch a perfect picture on a 70 inch screen!

Rays just started to allow people to sit top deck in regular season games cause now that they are good they are getting more fans

One that could've been included on this list is our Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis. With a capacity of 58,000, the only times it is filled are for the Liberty Bowl and Southern Heritage Classic games once each year, and the playoffs if the University of Memphis makes it to them. With our new USFL team and during normal seasons, it never exceeds 10,000, maybe 15K at the most.

I love how you edited your claim about Chase Field having the first retractable roof. You later added "In the United States" because the SkyDome in Toronto was the first one.

I've never understood why more teams don't sell unwanted tickets at cost then make a profit on concessions and merchandise. The guy that doesn't buy the 30 dollar upper deck ticket is spending zero dollars at the stadium because he's not there. The other benefit is it makes other more expensive tickets attractive because packed stadiums just have an energy that's hard to put into words. The players enjoy packed houses too.