Sports venues that host like 7 home games a year. Do they belong in cities at all? Let us discuss.
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
– Urbanist Universities: https://youtu.be/EkSTlKaC3eg
– NFL Stadiums with ten best Transit: https://youtu.be/iclUbbnWzog
– Texas High Speed Rail Race: https://youtu.be/Ci4SbjBnqkk
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Resources:
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_programs
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Images
– Map of FBS schools By DanDG44 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113267590
– Snapdragon Stadium By Terrible Tim – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122478442
– Thumbnail UMN Stadium By A Syn – originally posted to Flickr as TCF Bank Stadium – Minnesota Golden Gophers, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7928308
– Thumbnail Husky Stadium By Abhattarai7 – I took the photo at a Husky football game, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61967756
– Thumbnail Georgia Tech Stadium By JJonahJackalope – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84294549
– Thumbnail Cal Stadium By Kilfmuny – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=87468520
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Fun fact Arizona stadium also doubles as student housing and a manufacturing lab for world leading mirrors used for space exploration.
If you ever been to Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington, TX, SMU and TCU are their major D1 football programs. I could mention other schools, but the Dallas area when it comes to college football isn't public transportation friendly. Arlington, TX has almost no public transportation.
who cares about cities, most of college football stadiums are on campus, and college football brings in millions into their universities.
I also think that the rail limitation isn't warranted. You note that these are stadiums that aren't used frequently. Many cities have buses, and many run tons of special buses on game day. Madison is an excellent example of a city that has basically no parking and is perfectly integrated into the surrounding city. The city runs lots of buses and what not on game day, the lack of rail is a non-issue, and the stadium is better integrated into the community than any on this list.
Rail transit? Lmao rip most all southeastern schools
Neyland Stadium should be here
Citynerd is like a broken record – always wants more subscrbers and patreon money.
Just wait until CA Gov Newsom's $100 billion dollar high speed train comes to central California and everyone from Merced can travel to Bakersfield. That will really throw some new light on your list.
Bobby Dodd is a solid pick. I went to GT for grad school and the stadium is pretty neatly tucked into the southeast part of campus along I-75, almost hidden except it’s next to the administrative buildings. There’s virtually no additional parking lots dedicated for it (which was also an annoyance at times since, as with some other schools, they took away most student/faculty parking on game days which occasionally were on Thursdays), and it’s a quick bus ride to/from areas of interest in Midtown and Downtown ATL.
CityNerd, you're a UW alum??? GO DAWGS
Go Jackets!
I’ve grown up just blocks away from camp Randall stadium in Madison Wisconsin and the community and culture created around that stadium and the city is amazing. The university and city of Madison are extremely intertwined and Camp Randall is a great example of that. Walking to games, selling lemonade to fans and being able to hear the stadium from my house are memories ill never forget. I know it doesn’t pass the rail requirement but it is fairly well connected by Madison’s bus network and soon to be “BRT”. For a stadium of its size to be inside of the neighborhood it’s pretty cool.
Can we get a video of Australian stadiums please? I think most of them do very well when looking at public transport and urbanism. Suncorp Stadium is a great example I think, because it still has a capacity of 52,500 but has the required bus and train transit needed for event days and also completely sits within a housing suburb.
Not really the point of this video but I quite like some of the stadium architecture here
Husky stadium might not have been #1 on the list. But I think it's the highest capacity stadium on the list. I would imagine it's much harder to fit larger stadiums into the urban fabric than smaller ones.
Why was the University of Pennsylvania’s Franklin Field not on the list. Is UPenn not good enough at football?
It’s got a regional rail stop a block away. Its a 6 minute walk from the trolley lines, a 10 minute walk to the Market-Frankford Line, and a 15 minute walk to 30th St Station. On top of that, it’s not surrounded by surface parking lots and fits neatly into campus. I’m a GT alum, but I think UPenn got snubbed.
Being an alum of the University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!), I’m a big fan of how our stadium fits well within the city. I used to live just a few blocks away from it and didn’t need a car at all; there’s two light rail stations and multiple bus lines right across, so someone can come from MSP airport to watch a Gophers game all the way to the stadium just by using transit. Pretty neat.
Maybe if Cincinnati ever extends the street car up to Clifton that’ll be enough to get Nippert Stadium on this list because it deserves to be.
“It concentrates Philly fans* in one location”
*sorry, Union!
I think what makes any football stadium great is the amount of parking being directly outside of the stadium. I’m a K-State fan, and Bill Snyder Family Stadium is in a nice location on the northwest end of campus. Plenty of parking.
No way nippert in Cincinnati isn’t in the top 10
Plenty of Americans, like this one, can't grasp the concept of 100,000 people watching college football. My son, who was at Ohio State for graduate school, likened it to the population of a small-medium sized city descending on campus on game days. On another topic, it seems that a disproportionate number of my favorite YouTubers have cats.
Not really transit related but, I've always wondered how you do your short term rentals! Are there sites you look at for them? Do you visit ahead of time to look at places? And also, how much does it usually cost?
Been wanting to look into it myself but I wasn't sure where to start!
I get the strong impression you don't like college football and want it to be as out of the way and non-invasive as possible 😂This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say anything nice about Ryan Field. Yeah, I understand in big metros that college football is only a niche interest at best, but for many small and mid-sized cities, the football program is the lifeblood of the town. You may see it as wasted real estate, but the people of that community love it right where it is. You may think the stadium "ruins" the city, but to most of the people in that city, the stadium is one of their favorite spots in the city and improves it tenfold.
"A casino right next to a NFL/FBS stadium… seems prudent." lol I'm dying. Too prudent.
After a naming rights deal just this month, Georgia Tech's stadium is now Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field.
I can get the swamp not making the top 10 but saying it’s a bad example of what to do is just not a fair assessment of the stadium. It’s more than just a place to watch a game. It’s open everyday to anyone (except like 2 days leading up to games) and is basically used as a free gym by the students and community. I would also say Cincinnati should be here for similar reasons. I get that rail is good in urban areas but Gainesville is just not big enough for that to happen, same as a lot of other cities that tend to have a smaller college town feel that are certainly more appropriate on this list than a city like Houston imo
Maybe an over reliance on train/multimodal transit, many universities are in smaller communities where mass transit doesn't exist, so I think this list favors larger metro areas and not necessarily the best game day experience for users/participants. Still a really neat exercise. U. of Iowa should have probably made the list with heavy use of buses, multi-purpose daily parking for 24/7 hospital, comfortable adjacent traditional neighborhood settings, etc. Wisconsin is quite good as well.
A really good honorable mencion would have been the Banorte Stadium in Monterrey, the stadium of the Tec of Monterrey. It has a really walkable area around and it has a non-intimidating architacture. It's not as big as the stadiums in the US because college football is not a big thing in mexico, but it's still a greate stadium.
Pennsylvania farmer's College , a land grant university, train club dates back to 1955. Cant bring a RV on a train. Gameday for College football is as much about the tailgate
So this is really just a list of football stadiums in major cities that have rail access.
Serious dilemma. Are they taking up too much space in cities? Are they ex-urban abominations? Perhaps we should just delete them completely.
Suprised to see Rice-Eccles as an honorable mention. It's made very good use of it's space and the trax is very easy to use and helps a lot for gameday. Park somewhere close to a stop and ride it up to the stadium. Combine that with how interconnected the trax is to other public transit (busses and the frontrunner to mention a couple) and how easy it is to switch line to line you can get to a lot of places in utah from the stadium just using publix transit. Combine that with the very walkable college campus and a tailgate lot a block away.
At least 8th on the list in my opinion.
I took the MARTA from my hotel in Buckhead to go to a game at Georgia Tech and thought the North Ave station was pretty convenient. The most convenient transit connection I can think of in CFB
Even though it didn't make it to this list, I would like to highlight the Yulman Stadium at Tulane University (my alma mater). It sits right besides the Turchin baseball stadium. There is a small parking lot in front of Turchin facing South Claiborne Avenue. However, there are no major roadways leading to Yulman. The entire campus is sandwiched in a historical walkable neighborhood, so that's why there are no big parking lots. While there is a streetcar line that reaches Tulane campus, it is on the opposite side of the football and baseball stadium. In addition, the service is very unreliable. Well to be honest, there used to be a streetcar line on South Claiborne but that was shut down back in the 40s or 50s. Nowadays most people still drive or take uber/lyft to go to football games. If they do drive their own vehicles, they park in a parking garage near Yulman (which does make it a bit of nightmare for me as a commuting student).
Every stadium is an utter blight on their cities. They should all be destroyed.
ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium and University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank/Huntington Bank Stadium did had professional football past as Sun Devil had the Cardinals for 18 years and TCF Bank/Huntington Bank Stadium hosted the Vikings due to the roof collapse of the Metrodome and construction of US Bank Stadium.
Great insight! However, this was clearly the take of someone who doesn't know and love CFB the way us CFB fanatics do. Pro stadiums should never be included. I have a hard time even including non on campus stadiums too. It's never been the idea of hundred plus year old universities to make their CFB stadium be accessible by rail (do people actually still ride those things?) or to be considered an urban stronghold. The idea typically started pre WWII and the point was to be a major center for ON CAMPUS STUDENT activity.
Tulane’s stadium is marvelous and congruent with both the urban campus and the neighborhood. It’s a jewel.
LOL. The reason you think there is no connection between the town and the stadium is because you didn't look at a single college town. You looked at towns who had colleges. The requirement to have rail access is completely ridiculous and artificially limits your selection. Its not a coincidence that most of the stadiums you selected belong to schools with crap football teams and almost all of them are terrible for tailgating.