The most famous home stadium in the National Football League is arguably Lambeau Field, in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This year marks its 55th season, making it the oldest venue still in use in the league. The former longevity record holder was the Chicago Bear’s Soldier Field, 1920 – 1971.
Ironically, even though it’s the oldest, it also has some of the most modern amenities throughout various portions of it, due to the constant updating and renovation that the city and franchise keep doing to Lambeau Field. It is named after Curly Lambeau, the original player-coach and team co-founder.
A term that is often associated with Lambeau Field, is, frozen tundra. That was coined by journalist Tex Maule, writing in Sports Illustrated about the Ice Bowl of December 31, 1967, when the Dallas Cowboys played the Packers when it was extremely windy and temperatures dropped to minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. (That is the actual temperature without the wind chill which would have made it a lot colder.)
The stadium opened in 1957, originally as, City Stadium. It replaced the previous City Stadium, so many people referred to it as New City Stadium. When Curly Lambeau died in 1965, it was renamed Lambeau Field. It is said there are only three things you can count on in life; death, taxes and the renovation of Lambeau Field.
It was originally built in 1957 because the owners of other NFL teams were trying to force the Packers to move to Milwaukee, due to the fact that the old City Stadium was outdated and only held 25,000 people. Strangely enough, the new stadium only increased capacity by 7,500 seats (32,500.)
It was the first NFL stadium built exclusively for football. At the time, all the other stadiums accommodated football and baseball teams. Within four years of opening, they added another 6,000 + seat, bringing capacity to 38,669 in 1961. In 1963, close to 4,000 more seats were added and then three years after that, capacity was increased by more than 8,000 more, making the 1966 capacity, 50,860.
It wasn’t until 1970 that the field had both end zones filled in with the bleachers connected to the rest of the stadium, making for a continuous oval all around the field, and a seating capacity of 56,263. Then fifteen years went by before any more major renovations.
The mid 1980s brought the addition of 72 modern, private boxes, although seating capacity only increased by a few hundred. Thirty six more boxes were added in 1990 and 1,920 theater style club seats were created, bring capacity to 59,543. Five years later capacity increased about 1,300 more, but the big change was 90 more private boxes that went in the north end zone.
In 2001 construction began on a massive redevelopment plan that would prevent the need for building a new stadium. There was talk of enclosing the stadium, but in the end, they decided to keep the tradition of the harsh winter elements and the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau Field.
It took 2 years to complete and disrupted the fans almost not at all during those two football seasons. In 2003 the modernized stadium holds an impressive Packers tickets capacity of 73,128 raving “cheese heads.” Plans for next season include a big expansion of the south end zone and an additional 7,500 seats, as well as high definition score boards, Diamond Vision video boards, some heated bleachers that melt snow and a club seat holder rooftop terrace.
