Notre Dame Stadium – stadium description

If it seems visually familiar, that’s for a very good reason. The Notre Dame University stadium was highly influenced by Michigan Stadium design, of course in smaller scale. Single-tiered stands created a continuous bowl around the field, raising 14 meters above ground level. Initial capacity stood at roughly 54,000, but after readjustment of the bleachers over 59,000 people could be squeezed in.

Construction of the steel grandstands was quite short. While officially it took nearly a year, works were very limited for the first few months due to harsh weather. The uniform bowl with 55 rows was enough to cope with demand for some three decades, but since 1960s almost every game of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish has been sold out.

That’s why in 1997 the building saw its first expansion. 23 rows were added throughout the stadium, exceeding 80,000 total capacity. Slight corrections in the seating (adding a couple front rows among other) led to the final number being 80,795.

This capacity stayed unchallenged until in 2014 the university announced further expansion plans. Large commercial additions in separate buildings will raise capacity to roughly 85,000 by 2017.