State Farm Stadium is home to the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL. The Stadium opened on August 1st, 2006 as a replacement for ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium, where the Carinals had played for nearly the first 20 years of their existence.
College stadiums are often used as the temporary homes of NFL teams while their new stadiums are being constructed. A recent example of this is when the Minnesota Vikings played at the University of Minnesota’s football stadium while U.S. Bank Stadium was being constructed. When the Cardinals moved to Phoenix, they had the same plan. They would temporarily play at the outdoor Sun Devil Stadium until a new stadium could be built in the next few years.
What the Cardinals didn't foresee was the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s. The crisis sent funding plans for the stadium into total chaos, and plans were postponed indefinitely for the new Cardinals Stadium until the financial situation stabilized. At the 1990s went on, the Cardinals began to express frustration as they were the only team in the NFL to continue to be permanently based out of a college stadium. This cut off major funding streams that every other team had access to.
On November 8, 2000 Arizona voters gave the approval for the $331 million dollar stadium, a relative bargain compared to modern stadiums even when adjusted for inflation. The stadium plan was approved after rumors began circulating that team owner Bill Bidwill would move the team to San Antonio or Los Angeles. Eventual costs of the stadium rose to $455 million dollars, with $143.2 million dollars coming from the Cardinals, and the rest coming from public funding. With the new stadium funding in place, HOK Sport (now Populous) was hired to design the complex.
The stadium has an ultra modern design with a retractable roof. Capacity for the stadium is a respectable 63,400 although this is expanded quite often to well over 72,000 for events like the Super Bowl. Other unique features include the stadium’s retractable grass field. Yes you heard me right. The Cardinals, unlike many other NFL teams, prefer to play on a natural grass field. Walper P Moore company was tasked with designing a way to have a natural grass field in the middle of a desert, that would often have to be moved around with events like Monster Jam and concerts taking place. Their solution was a massive rolling surface that the natural grass field would sit on. The grass can soak up the Phoenix sun and sprinklers when outside, and will be healthy and ready to go when its rolled inside. Its an absolutely incredible site to see and truly an engineering marvel.
The stadium aside from its technological wonder rolling grass field has large LED video and ribbon displays from Daktronics, 88 luxury suites with room for 16 more, a 25 acre Park surrounding the stadium for activities and tailgating, as well as a 14,000 spot parking lot. Due to careful design work by Populous, the stadium has no obstructed views anywhere in the stadium from general fan seating.
As mentioned previously, the roof is retractable. The roof is made out of a special high strength fabric designed by Birdair and opens in only 12 minutes. It was also the first retractable roof on a stadium to be built on an incline.
Since opening, State Farm Stadium has had three different names. The first was simple Cardinals Stadium, which only lasted for its first two months of operation. For the next 12 years the stadium was named the somewhat confusing University of Phoenix Stadium. The name lead some to believe the online school had a football team that played at the venue. This name was dropped in 2018 for its current name State Farm Stadium.