Stadium Report Cards: Raymond James Stadium

Team: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Location: Tampa, FL
League: NFC South
Built: 1998
Capacity: 65,857
My event: Regular season game, vs Carolina Panthers

1. Outdoor Design
As you can see above, it's nothing real special. There is modern architecture along the sides where the club seats are.
7/10

2. Indoor Design

It's pretty basic, but there are some cool things. Behind the stands in each endzone are pirate-y village type things with bathrooms and food. Plus, there is a freaking pirate ship.
7/10

3. Prices
They're okay. Typical NFL stadium prices. I was actually given a free ticket by my Dad's friend. 99 dollar place value to sit 12 rows from the field.
5/10

4. Food
I've always liked the food there, typical food, but they do taste pretty good.
8/10

5. Staff
Pretty nice, they were smiling when they checked my ticket... and while patting me down...
8/10

6. Cleanliness
I actually noticed how clean it was. Great job.
9/10

7. Parking
They had a grassy area behind both endzones, they park 2 cars, then leave space. It was kinda bad getting out though. Well, we got on the street fast, just got caught in traffic.
6/10

8. Atmosphere

For a team that has been blacket out a lot, it was pretty fun atmosphere at the game. The whole lower bowl was filled, just the upper decks had open spaces. They did TAMPA
BAAAAY, and then got loud when the pirates on the ship would throw beads and launch shirts.
7/10

9. Playing Surface.

Damn, look at that field. And the cheerleaders I guess. The picture was taken in the 4th, so thats why it looks kinda torn up. I loved it, it looked really clean and soft.
7/10

10. Scoreboard

They have 2 large scoreboards on each endzone, with scores, ads, and fantasy updates every 15 minutes. Neat.
8/10

Nice, a 72. Some more NFL stadiums should have report cards soon. Hang tight.

Future(?) NFL Stadiums?

Sup? A while ago, I was looking on worldstadiums.com, and under future stadiums, there was all these NFL ones. Now armed with a stadium blog, I thought that I could post some of them here. But they're gone! But have no fear! I found them on ballparks.com. The first 3 were on there, but apparently they fell through. Which is a shame, the Metrodome, Superdome, and San Diego Stadium are all outdated. Until recently, these team's future was uncertain. The Saints now have a bunch of new fans(that's all I'm saying), but the Vikes and Chargers are still talking about possibly moving. If these went trough, no way they would, but they didn't.

San Diego Chargers


New Orleans Saints(LOVE this one)


Minnesota Vikings


This is what the 49ers want to do. They're unhappy with Candelstick park, and want to build a new stadium in Santa Clara. 58% of the vote went their way, so this looks very possible. The NFL asked if the Raiders would want to share maybe, similar to the Jets/Giants, but I doubt that happens.

San Francisco 49ers


The Kansas City Cheifs want to remodel Arrowhead stadium, similar to the cross-parkinglot Royals


Where would these teams go if they can't land a new stadium? Obviously LA. THis one is very cool, it is connected to a large shopping place, similar to Dubai Sports City. Here is a video of it.


This is new to me. Apparently people wanted to redo the Coliseum, which would be neat. But I'd prefer the one above.


BAM there is the post! I'll think of more to do.

Friendly Confines Football

On November 20th, Northwestern and Illinois will play at Wrigley Field. The matchup will mark the first college football game at Wrigley Field since 1938, when DePaul University played home games at the ballpark. The contest will be the first football game of any kind at the Friendly Confines since the Chicago Bears last played there in December of 1970. This will be the first time in more than 87 years that Northwestern and Illinois will play at Wrigley Field. On October 27, 1923, the Wildcats and the Illini squared off at the Friendly Confines (then called Cubs Park) in front of 32,000 fans. This year's Northwestern-Illinois game with mark the 104th game between the Big Ten Conference rivals since the two first met in 1892.

The set up will be flipped from what the Bears set up was. The Bears field went towards left field, I remember this because a corner of the endzone was going into the first base dugout.Here are some views of the stadium now. They're prepping by putting grass on the infield, because frankly, infielded football fields are lame(AHEM MIAMI AND OAKALND)
They had to dig down to make a base for the field goals so the posts will be stable.


I like games like these, just for novelty. I'm a fan of the Winter Classic set up, and any bowl game at a baseball stadium. Wrigley has a classic feel, which gives this game a nice old feel. Hopefully they wear throwbacks. Now the Bulls need to get it together and host a game here.

Stadium Report Cards: Kauffman Stadium

Team: Kansas City Royals
Location: Kansas City, MO
League: AL Central
Built: 1973, renovated 2009
Capacity: 40,052
My event: Regular season game, vs Chicago White Sox

1. Outdoor Design
Not too bad, the spiral walking ramps give it a unique look from the home plate side. The outfield area looks incredible from the street. I think it’s one of the cooler looking ballparks around.
8/10

2. Indoor Design

It’s actually quite beautiful from the inside. The recent renovations really went a long way. The concourse are great, everything flows well.
9/10

3. Prices
Typical prices. Everything is a bit more expensive at the team shop, but that’s what you get at a stadium.
8/10

4. Food
It was pretty much your regular ballpark food. They don’t have as much BBQ anymore, but they did add a few new things with the renovations.
7/10

5. Staff
Everyone was friendly enough, but nothing too great. Maybe if the Royals ever won a game, they would be a little nicer.
6/10

6. Cleanliness
It looked much better than pre-renovation, but it’s still not great.
6/10

7. Parking
You can’t go wrong with the huge lots between Kauffman and Arrowhead. They are cheap and right next to the stadiums. The walking distance can be bad if you arrive later and have to park at the very top of the lot.
8/10

8. Atmosphere
The fans don’t have much to cheer about, but they do cheer on their team. This is the perfect place to bring kids, it’s a pretty family oriented park. Not too minor league, though.
6/10

9. Playing Surface.

Nothing too special. They did a good job with the renovations, it looks a little healthier.
9/10

10. Scoreboard

The giant crown scoreboard at the K is awesome. It is HUGE. The graphics are great, too, huge improvement over the old one.
10/10

A decent 69. There are a few more ballparks coming soon, and I'll sprinkle in some posts for some readers maybe!

Announcement!

Our good friend Bmac will be joining my team as an admin of the site. He posts a lot of report cards, which is very helpful.

He has a few lined up, so hopefully this gets posts flowing.

A Magical Opening

The Orlando Magic began play in their new state of the art arena this week. They played a Preseason game against the Hornets, then a regular season opener against the Wizards. But it was kind of a long road.

The stadium plan included building a new arena, updating the Citrus Bowl, AND remodling the performing arts center. On September 29, 2006, after years of on-and-off negotiations, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and the Magic announced an agreement on Amway Center, a new arena in downtown Orlando. The arena received its final approval on July 26, 2007. The new 18,500-seat arena will be located at the southwest corner of Church Street and Hughey Avenue, with construction starting in early 2008 and is estimated to cost around $480 million.

I say off and on because the project fell into debt, which is never good. But ultimately they got it fixed. On May 4, 2010, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced that Orlando would host the 2012 All-Star Weekend in the new Amway Center



I've driven past the arena a few times, and that was when they were constructing it. The pictures of it do look pretty cool though

Olympic Fever: Vancouver 2010

Hello again! It's been awhile. I thought it'd be cool to post some venues of the past Olympics. You in?

BC Place Stadium
Vancouver, BC- Opening and Closing Ceremonies


Canadian Hockey Place
Vancouver, BC- Ice Hockey


Cypress Mountain
West Vancouver, BC- Freestyle skiing, snowboarding


Pacific Coliseum
Vancouver, BC- Figure skating, short track speed skating


Richmond Olympic Oval
Richmond, BC- Speed skaiting


UBC Thunderbird Arena
University of British Columbia- Ice Hockey


Vancouver Olympic Centre
Vancouver, BC- Curling


Whistler Creekside
Whistler, BC- Alpine skiing


Whistler Olympic Park
Whistler, BC- Biathlon, cross-country skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping


Whistler Sliding Centre
Whistler, BC- Bobsleigh, luge, skeleton


I'll get to some more later. I have some report cards by friends and will hopefully get them soon.