Exploring The NFL And Its Wonderful Stadiums

In this Exploring The NFL And Its Wonderful Stadiums piece, we will take a look at a few venues that should be on the must-visit list for any NFL fan. Whether it's for a preseason game, regular season tilt, or important playoff contest, simply experiencing all that a stadium has to offer regardless of the stakes of the game being played.

Fans of America’s most popular sport, the NFL, will take part in a multitude of experiences when visiting the home stadiums of their favorite teams. From historic venues to state-of-the-art facilities and everything in between, there’s truly something for everyone when it comes to experiencing a professional football game.

As those who study NFL odds are well aware, home-field advantage is a key factor. With stadiums full of screaming, enthusiastic fans, this plays a huge and crucial role in helping the home team and can prove to be a serious impediment for road teams.

Exploring The NFL And Its Wonderful Stadiums

Old Cathedrals

Two stadiums in the NFL stand above the rest when it comes to history and should find themselves on any list for any serious fan of the league where they play for pay.

Since 1924, Soldier Field in Chicago has been hosting professional football contests. Currently the home field of the Chicago Bears, Soldier Field has played host to a plethora of key and memorable moments in the history of the game.

Legendary figures Walter Payton, Dick Butkus, and George Halas are all central figures in the growth of the league whose roots, at least on the professional level, can be traced to the facility located in Central Chicago with a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan.

A franchise steeped in history, the Green Bay Packers play their home games at arguably one of the greatest venues in all of professional sports. When a sports fan starts listing famous arenas and stadiums, the list that includes Wrigley Field, Madison Square Garden, and Joe Louis Arena almost always includes Lambeau Field.

Since 1957, more times than not, the Packers have been favored in the Vegas NFL odds when taking the field wearing their iconic green and gold home jerseys. Lambeau is a true anomaly in the world of the four major professional sports in America as it is located outside of a major city and is in a relatively small (population 107k) town. 

Everything in Green Bay revolves around the Packers, and traditions such as the Lambeau Leap, where a player vaults himself into the crowd following a touchdown, were born here.

All the Bells and Whistles

While a trip to Lambeau or Soldier Field is sure to evoke memories of yesteryear and what the NFL used to be, visits to AT&T Stadium and Allegiant Stadium give a glimpse into the future. Both of these venues are equipped with all of the latest amenities and embody opulence and excess while giving sports fans, experienced and new alike, an unforgettable experience.

Completed in 2009 after nearly four years of construction at a price tag of $1.3 billion, AT&T Stadium, affectionately known as “Jerry World” because of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, is renowned as a premier venue. In addition to being home of America’s Team, the Cowboys, the stadium hosted the first-ever College Football National Championship game as well as a Final Four.

While the stadium has a regulation NFL football field similar to the other 31 stadiums in the league, its video board is truly one of a kind. The two boards, weighing 1.2 million pounds apiece, stretch from the 20-yard line on one side to the 20-yard line of the other side. It would take nearly 5,000 52” TVs to equal the size of one of the boards, comprising the largest of its kind in the world, and cost more than some old-school NFL stadiums to build.

In a city known for people putting their hard-earned money on NFL lines, Las Vegas and its new venue Allegiant Stadium. Opened in July of 2020, the stadium is home to the Las Vegas Raiders, who moved from Oakland to Sin City, becoming the first major professional sports team to call the city home.

With a price tag of $1.9 million, the stadium is located 15 minutes walking distance from the famed Las Vegas strip. It is equipped with a huge retractable field with a natural grass surface for its primary tenants, the Raiders, and a field turf surface for the stadium’s secondary tenant, the UNLV Rebels. It is a temperature-controlled dome with air conditioning to allow fans to be comfortable despite the brutal conditions of the Las Vegas desert.