Multi-purpose stadium

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A multi-purpose stadium is a type of stadium designed to be easily used for multiple types of events. While any stadium could potentially host more than one type of sport or event, this concept usually refers to a specific design philosophy that stresses multifunctionality over specificity. It is used most commonly in Canada and the United States, where the two most popular outdoor team sports—Canadian football or American football and baseball—require radically different facilities. Football uses a rectangular field, while baseball is played on a diamond with a large outfield. Since Canadian football fields are larger than American ones, the design specifications for Canadian facilities are somewhat less demanding. The particular design to accommodate both is usually an oval, although some later designs use an octorad. While building stadiums in this way means that sports teams and governments can share costs, it also presents some challenges.

In North America, multipurpose stadiums were primarily built during the 1960s and 1970s as shared home stadiums for

Outside North America, the term is rarely used, since association football (i.e., soccer) is the only major outdoor team sport in many countries; in many other countries, association football and rugby can easily coexist with limited venue conversion required beyond goalpost changes and line markings. In Australia, many sports grounds are suited to both Australian rules football and cricket, as Australian Rules fields and laws are laid out on cricket ovals. In some cases, such as at Stadium Australia in Sydney, Docklands Stadium in Melbourne, and National Stadium, in Singapore, stadiums are designed to be converted between the oval configuration for cricket and Australian rules football and a rectangular configuration for rugby and association football, and in the case of Singapore's National Stadium, an athletics configuration as well. Association football stadiums have historically served as track and field arenas, too, and some (like the Olympiastadion in Berlin) still do, whereas a newer generation frequently has no running track to allow the fans closer to the field. This has created some difficulties with creating large athletics venues for major championships, as fans are less willing to accept the compromises required in the design of such stadiums, an issue that has bedevilled, e.g. the London Stadium since the 2012 Summer Olympics and was avoided in the commonwealth Games stadiums of 2000 and 2014 by returning the stadiums to football-only use, and in 2022 by having the national athletics body as the sole primary tenant of a renovated stadium.

AmWinter

In Ireland, the first of two national stadiums, Aviva Stadium, is shared by football and rugby union, although only rugby union has a club team, Leinster Rugby that regularly uses the facility. The other larger national stadium, Croke Park hosts three different sports regularly, gaelic football, hurling and its women's equivalent, camogie - all three are gaelic games run by the same organisation, the Gaelic Athletic Association, and the rules of each game are mapped onto the same dimensions - although some pitches in areas where hurling is the dominant code have longer pitches slightly more suited to faster, longer passes in the hurling game. When the Aviva was being rebuilt, Croke Park stepped in as home for the national teams in both soccer and rugby union, a decision of significant political weight in the nation's history. Gaelic grounds can easily accommodate both as the typical Gaelic pitch, while similarly rectangular, is significantly longer and wider than the fields used for soccer and rugby union, which are almost identical in dimensions. historically, however, the GAA has been reluctant to allow 'foreign' sports to use its facilities, although these objections were set aside both for the rebuild of the Aviva and for the ultimately unsuccessful 2023 Rugby World Cup bid. Croke Park has also occasionally hosted visiting American football college matches, especially those featuring the Army and Navy, or Notre Dame with which Ireland has a long-standing connection.

History

United States

Several stadiums hosted multiple sports teams before the advent of multi-purpose stadiums.

In New York City, the Polo Grounds hosted football teams early on, as its rectangular nature lent itself well to football and was also used for baseball. The original Yankee Stadium was designed to accommodate football, as well as track and field (Yankee Stadium popularized the warning track, originally designed as a running track around baseball fields), in addition to its primary use for baseball.

In addition to baseball,

In 1920s New England, outdoor

Also playing into the advent of the multipurpose stadium was Americans' growing use of automobiles, which required professional sports stadiums surrounded by parking: most cities lacked affordable space for such stadiums near their city centers, so multi-purpose stadiums were typically built farther from the city center with freeway access.[3]

Subsets 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 the respective playing fields. These fields often used artificial turf, as it could withstand the reconfiguration process more easily, or be removed for nonsporting events. Furthermore, many of these stadiums were either enclosed domes (where natural grass could not grow without sunlight) and/or located in cold-weather cities (where undersoil heating was expensive and unreliable) and before the development of hybrid grass and improved natural grass cultivation techniques, artificial turf was the best solution at the time.

The first of these "cookie-cutter" or "concrete donut" stadiums was Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1961 (then known as District of Columbia Stadium); it was followed during the 1960s and 1970s by Shea Stadium in 1964, Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium and the Astrodome in 1965, Busch Memorial Stadium and Oakland Coliseum in 1966, San Diego Stadium in 1967, Riverfront Stadium and Three Rivers Stadium in 1970, Veterans Stadium in 1971, and the Kingdome in 1976.

Eight of these eleven stadiums have been since demolished, with Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium demolished in 1997, the Kingdome in 2000, Three Rivers Stadium in 2001, Riverfront Stadium in 2002, Veterans Stadium in 2004, Busch Memorial Stadium in 2005, Shea Stadium in 2009, and San Diego Stadium in 2021. Further, the Astrodome has been vacant since 2008 due to its failure to meet current fire and building code requirements. RFK Stadium has been vacant since 2017 when the

Thus, only the Oakland Coliseum remains in use, while the Athletics are now the sole tenants of the Oakland Coliseum after the Raiders relocated to Las Vegas in 2020. However, in 2023, the A's announced their own intentions of moving to Las Vegas.

The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome was unusual as one of the few air-supported dome stadiums that was multipurpose in practice, being convertible between football and baseball. Home of the Minnesota Vikings through the 2013 season, it was also home to the Minnesota Twins until 2009 and the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team (NCAA) until 2008 as well as the Minnesota Golden Gophers baseball team (NCAA) until 2012.^[5] The Metrodome has been demolished, with U.S. Bank Stadium, built mainly for professional football but able to convert to a college baseball stadium,^[6] now sitting on its former site. Most other inflatable domes, such as the Hoosier Dome and Pontiac Silverdome, were football-only stadiums, although both stadiums hosted basketball; the later-RCA Dome hosted the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament many times and hosted the Final Four multiple times while the Silverdome was the home arena for the Detroit Pistons for most of the 1980s. The Carrier Dome was another such air-supported, multipurpose stadium, although it was built to accommodate outdoor sports such as football and indoor sports such as basketball. The Carrier Dome, since renamed JMA Wireless Dome, remains in use, although its air-supported roof was replaced by a fixed roof in 2020.^[7] Air-supported domes fell out of favor in the 21st century^{[citation needed]} after notable weather-related collapses in Minnesota and Pontiac exposed the drawbacks of air-supported domes in snowy locales.

During the height of the multipurpose stadium construction era of the 1960s and 1970s, three baseball-only stadiums were constructed:

The first multipurpose stadium in the country was the Montreal Olympic Stadium that was which was built for the 1976 Summer Olympics and had initial functions to host events of different sports and types. But over time, it became a white elephant. But the first success story was the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, which was built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games.

In Canada, several large multisport stadiums were built during this style's heyday. However, unlike in the United States, an NFL team has never been based primarily in Canada (though the

Other Canadian cities never expressed interest in building a venue for 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 opening and closing ceremonies, and an outdoor ice hockey event (the 2011 Heritage Classic). Similar situations hold in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Hamilton, and Regina. No large stadiums of any kind are in cities such as Quebec City, London or Saskatoon, or in Atlantic Canada; in those places (with the exception of Saskatoon), smaller stadiums (less than 13,000 seats) exist that can be augmented with temporary seating to bring their capacities close to that of the smaller CFL stadiums.

Outside North America

The idea of a sharp difference between a multipurpose stadium and a single-sport stadium is less important outside of North America, since in most countries stadiums that are constructed with football in mind are easily able to accommodate rugby, 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 association football. The majority of the largest stadiums 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

In the case of Ireland, grounds built for Gaelic games are physically capable of hosting association football and the rugby codes without changing the seating configuration. Because the Gaelic games' pitch is rectangular and also longer and wider than that of football or either rugby code, the only changes required are the physical goals and field markings. However, opposition to those sports within large parts of the Gaelic games community, most notably manifested in GAA Rule 42, means that football and rugby clubs have generally had to play in separate grounds.

True multisport 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. The

A different take on the multipurpose concept can be seen in the Saitama Super Arena in Japan and Paris La Défense Arena in the inner suburbs of Paris. Both venues are similar to JMA Wireless Dome in that they are fully enclosed stadiums (though with fixed roofs instead of the Dome's original air-supported roof) that can accommodate field and indoor court sports. However, they differ from JMA Wireless Dome in the specific way they accommodate court sports. Both the Super Arena (used mainly for basketball, volleyball, mixed martial arts, and professional wrestling events) and Paris La Défense Arena (home of rugby union's Racing 92) feature movable seating blocks that allow each facility to serve as an appropriately sized venue for either field or court sports.

In 2014, Singapore's new National Stadium was opened. It can convert between an oval for cricket, rectangle for rugby & association football and a running track for athletics.

Field layout

Most multipurpose stadiums that existed in North America overlaid one sideline of the football field along one of the baseball

In stadiums that were primarily football stadiums 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 Kingdome, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, and the venue now known as Hard Rock Stadium. For stadiums such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the Los Angeles Dodgers played their home games from 1958 through 1961 while awaiting completion of Dodger Stadium, this also had the undesirable effect of having unusually short foul lines, making it easier to hit so-called "Chinese home runs". 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, it 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. Qualcomm Stadium's square-circle "

More modern multi-purpose stadiums have used more elaborate methods to accommodate multiple sports; Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, for example, uses two sets of turfs, one a movable natural grass surface for soccer, and the other a synthetic turf surface for gridiron. To accommodate the different sightlines preferred in each sport, the soccer surface is positioned several feet above the gridiron, so that the seats are closer to the field in its soccer configuration and elevated above the sidelines and coaches in its gridiron configuration.^[16]

India

The

While multipurpose stadiums were intended to easily accommodate both American football and baseball (and in some cases, association football), 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 farther from the field than comparable seats in baseball-only parks because they swiveled into position for American football and association football. In the case of stadiums that hosted both baseball and Canadian football, the lower boxes were set even farther back than their American counterparts, because Canadian football fields are 30 yards longer and considerably wider than their American counterparts. Likewise, attempts to build stadiums without support columns to obstruct spectators' views, as was the case with sport-specific "jewel box" stadiums, resulted in upper decks being placed very high above the field—as far as 600 feet away in some cases. Several teams closed off sections of the upper level and only sold them during the playoffs, as they were too far away to be of any use during the regular season. For football, the seats nearest the field were set farther back than at football-only stadiums to accommodate the larger baseball field. In some cases, the seats closest to the field, normally prime seats for baseball, were almost at field level for football. 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 game action (home plate for baseball and the 50-yard line for football).

In the baseball configuration, most had symmetrical field dimensions. This detracted from the unique, individual identity enjoyed by the sport-specific "jewel box" stadiums with odd or asymmetrical field dimensions, and further supported the "cookie cutter stadium" nickname.

The large capacities of multipurpose stadiums were usually more than adequate for football. However, baseball crowds tend to be much smaller than football crowds, resulting in baseball games at these stadiums being swallowed up in the environment. This was especially true if a baseball team were not doing particularly well either on the field or in the box office. This was another reason some baseball teams closed sections of the upper level during the regular season.

Many multipurpose stadiums also had artificial turf playing surfaces, to ease the transition from baseball field to football field and vice versa. Most early installations of artificial turf such as the original AstroTurf was nothing more than carpet on top of concrete with little padding material that was easy to apply and remove. Such types of removable artificial turf caused frequent injuries to players and eventually made free agents wary of signing with teams whose home field had artificial turf. During the first month of the football season, the playing field included the infield soil that is harder than the grass and is also a significant injury risk. Baseball purists disliked artificial turf, though the Cincinnati Reds took advantage of this on Riverfront Stadium's artificial turf; on offense by recruiting players who combined power and speed and encouraging line drive hitting that could produce doubles, triples and high-bouncing infield hits; while for defense the fast surface and virtually dirtless infield rewarded range and quickness by both outfielders and infielders, like shortstop Dave Concepción who used the turf to bounce many of his long throws to first.

The concrete or painted concrete façades of many stadiums of that era (multipurpose or sport-specific) were criticized by architects as uninviting. Most such stadiums were built in the relatively plain

The suburban locales of many multipurpose stadiums (as well as other sport-specific stadiums also built there) were also a focal point for criticism. Choosing a suburb over a city core was meant to take advantage of lower land values and new freeways. Suburbs were often poorly serviced by public transit, and when coupled with the trend of personal transportation shifting from public transit to private cars in the mid-20th century, meant that many of the stadiums of that period (multipurpose or sport-specific) were surrounded by large parking lots. In some in suburban locales, hospitality, entertainment, and shopping facilities were often non-existent due to lacking the supporting population or municipality zoning restrictions. Suburban stadiums fell out of favor by the 1990s, in light of the growing trend of "walkable urbanism" as teams sought to return to the city core where they could develop or take advantage of existing hospitality in order to grow their fanbase.

Often the suburban stadium was often not located in the municipality that the team purportedly represented, and in some cases the stadium were built across a state border. An instance of this was Giants Stadium, which primarily hosted football, but was also an association football stadium at times; its primary tenants (New York Giants and New York Jets were nominally based in New York City, but Giants Stadium was neither in New York City or even New York State, instead being built in the Meadowlands of East Rutherford, New Jersey. As a result, then-Governor Mario Cuomo would not attend any games at Giants Stadium (instead choosing to attend the home games of the Buffalo Bills as they were "New York State's only team" in the NFL). A similar criticism applied to Giants Stadium's replacement, MetLife Stadium.

Association football was perceived as an especially bad fit for this type of stadium because, in the United States, the sport does not draw as many fans to games as American football or baseball (with the exceptions of Atlanta and Seattle), resulting in the stadium being filled to only a fraction of its capacity. This, combined with a desire for more compact, intimate stadiums akin to those of European football clubs, led to the soccer-specific stadium movement. As of 2020, 18 of Major League Soccer's 26 clubs play in their own, soccer-specific stadiums, and two of the exceptions (FC Cincinnati and Nashville SC) are currently building their own soccer-specific stadiums. In addition, three of the four teams that will join MLS in 2021 and 2022 plan to open soccer-specific stadiums in time for their MLS debuts.

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 were scheduled – have the game sites switched, putting the upcoming meeting on the road and playing the home game during the latter meeting. An example of the former happening was in 1997 when the Florida Marlins played game 7 of the World Series at home on Sunday, Oct. 26, which moved the Miami Dolphins game against the Chicago Bears to Monday night.^[20] An example of the latter happening was in 1989 when the San Francisco Giants hosted a postseason game on Sunday, Oct. 8, against the Chicago Cubs, the same day the San Francisco 49ers were scheduled to host their division rival New Orleans Saints. The Oct. 8 game was moved to New Orleans and the Nov. 6 game was moved to San Francisco.^[21]

In Australia, most major stadiums that can hold over 50,000, such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Adelaide Oval, are circular or oval-shaped venues which – while suitable for cricket and Australian rules football – pose the same sight-line problems for football, rugby league, and rugby union as an athletics venue would. Playing sports with rectangle-shaped pitches on larger ovals often means fans can be as much as 30 m or more from the sidelines. Both Stadium Australia in Sydney and the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne have retractable seating to be able to change from an oval to rectangle shape and bring fans closer to the action if needed. Lang Park in Brisbane is currently (as of 2020) the only purpose-built rectangle stadium in Australia (with fixed seating) with a capacity exceeding 50,000.

Replacement and retention

The first real departure from the multipurpose stadium design occurred in 1972, when the Jackson County Sports Authority in Kansas City, Missouri, 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), which went on to design many professional 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 20 years, though the influence of both Arrowhead and Kauffman Stadiums were easily seen in venues such as Giants Stadium.

The true end of the multipurpose era began in 1987, when

During the 1990s and 2000s, most of the multipurpose stadiums used for MLB in the United States were replaced by "retro-style" ballparks. These parks were built 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 MLB was Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, which opened in 1992 and was based mostly on Pilot Field's design. The "retro-modern" park made its first appearance in 1994 with the opening of Jacobs Field, now known as Progressive 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, while other football teams followed their baseball counterparts and had new football-only stadiums constructed.

The widespread adoption of FieldTurf and similar modern artificial turfs beginning in the early 2000s also has had a role in the decline of the multipurpose stadium. While first-generation, short-pile turfs such as AstroTurf lent themselves well to multiple sports, this was not the case with FieldTurf and its competitors. Modern artificial turf requires a more permanent installation, including sand and rubber base and/or infill that is not easily removed, thus does not lend itself well to multipurpose stadiums. Because of such turfs' superiority in other features compared to the earlier turfs, it has been seen as easier to build new stadiums for each sport rather than attempt to share an inflexible turf installation among multiple sports. Some 21st-century multi-purpose stadiums, such as Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and State Farm Stadium, have developed a more elaborate method of placing an entire playing surface, such as a grass surface for association football and an artificial turf one for gridiron football, on one or more slabs (one at State Farm, three at Tottenham Hotspur) and towing the slab(s) in and out of place for each sport. Because of the expense of using this method, it is generally only used for the highest-level professional sports.

The Miami Marlins moved to

In Canada, smaller, more specialized stadiums have generally become more popular, but none of the major multiple-use stadiums of the 1970s and 1980s have been demolished as of 2015[update]. The

• Sport venue
• Sports complex

References