Sun Devil Stadium, Frank Kush Field
is an outdoor football stadium located on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. It is home to the Arizona State Sun Devils of the Pacific-10 Conference. It has previously been the home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals from 1988 to 2005, and was the annual site of the Fiesta Bowl from 1971 to 2006. The stadium's current seating capacity is 73,379 and the playing surface is natural grass.
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SUN DEVIL STADIUM TICKETS
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Construction and upgrades
Built in
1958, the stadium's original capacity was just 30,000. The first addition in
1976 substantially raised the capacity to 57,722. Seating was added to the south end of the stadium, along with press and sky boxes. A year later, in
1977, the upper tier was completed to bring seating to 70,491. In
1988, 1,700 more seats were added to bring the facility to its current capacity. During that time the Carson Student Athlete Center was added to the south end. The building is the home of the
ASU Athletic Department.
College football
The first game played at the stadium was on
October 4,
1958. Arizona State defeated
West Texas State 16-13.
On
September 21,
1996, the playing surface was named in honor of former ASU football coaching great
Frank Kush, and the name of the stadium was changed from Sun Devil Stadium to Sun Devil Stadium, Frank Kush Field. That night ASU shut-out #1 Nebraska 19-0. The largest crowd ever seated for a college football game at the stadium was 74,963 for an ASU-
Cal game won by the Sun Devils, 35-7, on
November 9,
1996 to clinch the Pac-10 title and earn a Rose Bowl invitation.
Sun Devil Stadium hosted college football's
Fiesta Bowl from
1971 to
2006. ASU continues to use Sun Devil Stadium, which will now host the
Insight Bowl, moving from
Chase Field, the home field of the
Arizona Diamondbacks. The Insight Bowl (formerly called the Copper Bowl in Tucson) moved to Sun Devil Stadium when the Fiesta Bowl moved to the University of Phoenix Stadium in nearby Glendale.
NFL football
The first pro game played in the stadium was a pre-season game between the
New York Jets and the
Minnesota Vikings in
1975. The Green Bay Packers also played the Denver Broncos in a preseason game in 1987.
The facility became an
NFL stadium in
1988, when the
St. Louis Cardinals moved west to
Arizona and became the Phoenix Cardinals (renamed the
Arizona Cardinals in
1994). The Cardinals' first regular season game in the stadium was a 17-14 loss to the
Dallas Cowboys in a
Monday Night Football
game on
September 12,
1988. The Cardinals won their next home game, defeating the defending
Super Bowl champion
Washington Redskins 30-21.
The stadium hosted
Super Bowl XXX in
1996 as the Cowboys won their fifth
Vince Lombardi Trophy, defeating the
Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17 in front of the all-time stadium record of 76,347 spectators.
On
October 27,
2003, the
Monday Night Football
game between the
San Diego Chargers and
Miami Dolphins was moved to Sun Devil Stadium because the
Cedar Fire in the
San Diego area forced the teams to vacate
Qualcomm Stadium, which was being used as an evacuation site. The
tickets for the game were free.
The Cardinals ended their tenure on the ASU campus with a 27-21 victory over the
Philadelphia Eagles on
Christmas Eve 2005. In 18 seasons in Sun Devil Stadium, the Cardinals complied a 64-80 (.444) mark, with their best single-season mark being 5-3 in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2004.
In
2006, the
Cardinals moved from Sun Devil Stadium to
University of Phoenix Stadium in another
Phoenix suburb,
Glendale, located on the opposite side of the metro area from Tempe. The new stadium also hosts the
Fiesta Bowl, and hosted the first stand-alone
Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game in January
2007.
Film appearances
Sun Devil Stadium has been the setting for several movies over the years. Some of them include
Cameron Crowe's 1996 blockbuster film,
Jerry Maguire
;
U2's 1988
rockumentary Rattle and Hum
,
The Rolling Stones' 1983 concert film
Let's Spend the Night Together
, 1976's
A Star is Born, with
Barbara Streisand and
Kris Kristofferson, and the
Coen Brothers 1987 film
Raising Arizona
. In
2003, the stadium was also featured on the Finale episode of
The Amazing Race 4
.
John Paul II visit
Pope John Paul II visited Phoenix on
September 14,
1987, as a part of his whirlwind tour of the United States. In Tempe, he held mass for 75,000 at Sun Devil Stadium. All the Sun Devil logos and words with "devil" painted on the stadium's facade had to be covered up for the Pope to agree to enter the stadium.
Needed renovations
In 2007, engineers realized that the concrete base of the stadium was buckling due to the rusting of structural steel supporting the foundation. Stadium designers had neglected to waterproof the structure when it was built, assuming that a stadium in the desert would not need waterproof concrete. However, grounds crews for the college and professional football teams hosed down the turf after every game, introducing substantially more water to the field surface than the designers had envisioned. Engineers now estimate that $45 million in repairs will be needed to maintain the stadium beyond 2010.
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