Michigan Stadium Expanding Again
Big House Has Seen Many Changes Over the Years
Michigan Stadium's current renovation is simply the latest in a long list of expansion projects that, together, built the Big House.
Home to the University of Michigan football team, Michigan Stadium with its 100,000-plus capacity will forever be known to college football fans as The Big House.
It's about to get even bigger.
Adding to a storied history that began in the 1920s as a vision in the mind of program founder Fielding Yost, the current expansion of Michigan Stadium is only the most recent. The project, scheduled for an August 2010 completion, calls for a number of improvements and amenities. Some will actually steal from the stadium's capacity; others will add to it. In all, the Big House will hold more than 108,000 people, up from its current capacity of 107,501.
Other amenities being planned, according to Michigan's athletic Web site, www.mgoblue.com, include:
• Wider seats and aisles with handrails
• New elevated concourses with additional restrooms and concessions
• More seating for individuals with mobility problems
• Two new buildings on the north end of the stadium that will house additional restrooms, concessions and public safety services
• A new building on the south end of the stadium that will offer additional concessions and restrooms.
• A new press box
• Refurbished restroom facilities
• 650+ new chair back seats on the west side
• 49 suites in the west side structure (36 suites located on the first level and 13 suites on the second level)
• 1,900+ outdoor club seats and a stadium lounge on the first level of the east side structure
• 250+ indoor club seats and 850+ covered outdoor club seats and stadium lounge on the second level of the east side structure
• 36 suites on the third level of the east side structure
• Four towers, one at the end of each sideline structure, which will have elevators and wide stairways to bring patrons to the new concourses and premium seating areas.
No question, Michigan Stadium will offer a different game-day experience, and while this saddens many Wolverine faithful who want the Big House to remain the Big House they remember, it's fair to remind them that the Big House has gone through numerous changes and renovations since it was created in the 1920s.
In fact, the Wolverines' original home field wasn't even on the site of current stadium, but rather where Schembechler Hall now sits. Located along on South State Street, Regents Field in 1893 featured a single wooden bleacher section that seated only 400 people, far fewer than what the home games were drawing. When that original seating burned down in 1895, a new covered seating area was constructed, with room for 800. By then, though, crowds of 5,000 had become common at U-M home games.
By the early 1900s, Michigan - with Yost's "point-a-minute teams" - had earned a reputation nationally, and the need to accommodate more fans had grown. Ferry Field, named in honor Detroiter Dexter Ferry, who donated land, replaced Regents Field in 1906. The new stadium increased capacity to 18,000 people, and sat on the current site of the Michigan outdoor track.
Even with that Yost wasn't content. In 1921, he convinced the university to add wooden bleachers behind both end zones, increasing capacity to 40,000. Not long after that, Yost approached the Regents again for permission to build a new stadium.
While many teams throughout the Midwest were building stadiums during the 1920s, Yost was envisioning a cathedral that would house 100,000 to 150,000 people. The Regents finally approved the idea in 1926. Yost had hoped to build the stadium on the site of the current Michigan golf course. Instead, the University chose land that featured an underground spring, one time the source of water on campus. The land had to be lowered to take care of a large underground lake, which is why the current stadium sits nearly three-quarters underground.
The original agreement between Yost and Regents called for the stadium to seat 72,000 people. Yost managed to manipulate that number, and Michigan Stadium opened in 1927, with 84,401 setting a new record for the largest college-owned stadium in the country. The next year, capacity increased to 85,753. By 1949, the Wolverines averaged 93,894 per home game.
In the 1950s, the addition of a new press box and more seating upped the number to 101,001. The Big House was born.
