One of the true treasures in American sports, the historic Yale Bowl celebrated its 92nd birthday last fall with a complete renovation. The playing field was named the Class of 1954 after the generous gifts to support the renovation. This magnificent facility, which opened on November 21, 1914, for the Yale-Harvard
game, has been the site of 559 Bulldog football games (entering the 2007 season), two seasons
of NFL action, and was the main venue for the 1995 Special Olympic World
Games.
The Bowl is 930 feet long and 750 feet wide, covering 12 1/2 acres.
More than 320,000 cubic feet of earth was moved to form the bowl and
the stadium now contains 22,000 cubic yards of concrete and 470 tons
of steel. The capacity of the bowl is 61,446 (it was 70,869 before alterations in 1994 and 2006)
and every seat has an unobstructed view of the playing field. The original seating capacity was 60,617 with an undetermined amount of standing room.
The
Bowl has held crowds of over 70,000 on 20 occasions, the most recent
on November 19, 1983, for the 100th playing of the Yale-Harvard Game.
The largest crowd to attend a Yale game at the Bowl was 80,000 for the
Army game on November 3, 1923. The crowd of 75,300 which attended the
Yale-Harvard showdown in 1981 was the largest at a sporting event in
New England in more than 50 years.
The NFL's New York Giants and Detroit Lions brought professional football
to the Bowl for the first time in the summer of 1960. The Giants, who
played the New York Jets in a number of memorable exhibition contests
during the 70's, used the Bowl as their home field in 1973 and 1974
while Yankee Stadium was being renovated.
The
design for the Yale Bowl was proposed by Charles A. Ferry, Class of 1871, as a replacement
for Yale Field, the 33,000-seat home of the football team since 1884.
Work began on the project in August, 1913, with 145 men working for
the Sperry Engineering Company of New Haven. The portals were constructed
first; then the excavation began. Once the 30-foot walls were formed
to support the top rows of seats, the nearly 30 miles of wooden-backed
seats were put in place. The cost of the final product: $750,000. The
electrified scoreboard was added in 1958, while the new press box was erected
in 1987. The day after the 1993 season came to an end, the Yale Bowl playing
surface got a face lift, which included new irrigation and drainage
systems.
The Special Olympics World Games, international soccer contests and other special events being hosted on a regular basis make the Bowl one of the most significant venues in the East.
Prior to the 2005 season, the Bowl was selected as one of the 40 best stadiums in which to experience college football by The Sporting News for its "Saturday Shrines" book.
