Also, the Fiesta Bowl has been played in the same stadium.
Just for the record, the old Philadelphia Muncipal stadium was generally used only once a year–for the Army-Navy game. They did play the Liberty Bowl there once, but it was a disaster. The wind was so bad that Alabama had a negative yardage punt. Alabama beat Penn State 7-0 on a flea flicker for the last play of the first half. They sold so few tickets (it seated over 100,000) that they ended up giving away tickets with a $10 grocery order and I went that way.
Tickets for the Army-Navy game were so scarce that a cousin of mine got a job selling hot dogs to get in. The only trouble is that they actually made him sell hot dogs and he didn’t get to see much of the game. It was torn down probably when the Vet was built.
I agree - partly. The Rose Bowl is a good place to see the game in that every seat is a pretty good one and many are excellent. However, the stadium was old when I came to California going on 56 years ago. They should tear it down and build a new one in the same place because the setting is great.
Yeah, the 3 million+ fans paying top dollar to watch ball games in Wrigley are utterly miserable. :rolleyes:
The Fiesta Bowl is moving to a new stadium next year in Glendale, Arizona. The Cotton Bowl’s future is in doubt as the facility is pretty worn down and the fairgrounds it sits on probably won’t host a fair anymore. Which pretty much leaves the Cotton Bowl as a white elephant. The Cotton Bowl will probably move over to the renovated Texas Stadium.
Actually, while the park has nice, cozy confines within which to watch a game, it has some really awful sight lines, and it is a lousy facility in which to do things like get food, take a piss, etc. Not to mention the awful excuse for parking, etc. (though fortunately I’ve always been able to take the El there, usually after having ridden a commuter train into the Loop from the SW suburbs).
Wrigley would have gone the way of Tiger stadium and Comiskey park except it’s Wrigley, and, like Fenway, touching it is out of the question.
As to the Rose bowl and other, similar stadiums, the wonderful thing about them is everyone can see everything really well. You’re not that close to the action, of course, but it does make for easy watching. I watched World Cup '94 games at Stanford Stadium, a smaller (80,000) bowl, and loved the view. Hated the seating, but loved the view.
I used to drive all the way from Iowa City to Chicago to see games in Wrigley Field. But there are those occasional chunks of concrete falling from the upper deck these days.
The problem with replacing the Rose Bowl is that there aren’t many other places in the city of Pasadena where you could build a football stadium and the stadium pretty much has to be in the city of Pasadena because the game is an offshoot of the Tournament of Roses Parade.
I suppose that if the Coliseum were ever renovated, then the Rose Bowl could move over there, but playing the game there just wouldn’t be the same. The Rose Bowl game has been played in its current location for every year from 1923 with the exception of 1942 when WWII fears sent the game to Durham, NC.
Prior to 1923, the game was played in a small stadium called Tournament Park which has since been returned to the city of Pasadena. At that time, the parade would end around the park and then everybody would go watch the football game.
Interestingly, the first time the football game was played in the “new” stadium in 1923, the Penn State team got caught in traffic and arrived 30-45 minutes after the scheduled kickoff and the Penn State and USC coach nearly got into a fight before the game over the dispute. (USC won 14-3)