LEVI’S STADIUM
STADIUM DUDE’S NFL STADIUM RANK: #23
STADIUM INFORMATION
- Location: Santa Clara, CA
- Opened: 2014
- Capacity: 68,500
- Weather: Comfortable (2nd best of 20 outdoor venues)
- Games attended: 1
- Last visited: 2019
STADIUM REVIEW
This should have been better.
Levi’s Stadium sits aside a large amusement park in the South Bay, 45 miles from downtown San Francisco. It offers excellent Wi-Fi, great sightlines, and tasty concessions (including a delicious crab sandwich). There are plenty of escalators and elevators to traverse the various decks of the stadium, and the concourses are more than 60-feet wide. 60% of the seats are in the lower bowl putting more fans closer to the action. There’s a strong craft beer selection, a great team museum, and a few of the biggest scoreboards anywhere. And it’s one of the greenest stadiums in the NFL.
But $1.3 billion apparently didn’t buy shade canopies. Fans on the east side (i.e. the side with all the “regular” seats, not the side with the relatively few club seats and luxury suites) can bake in the sun all game (I was uncomfortably hot for my game, and I like the sun). For those staying in San Francisco, it’s a long and tedious drive. Parking is expensive and it’s a bit of a trudge from the lots to the stadium. Concession lines in the upper deck were obscene. And everything is priced Silicon Valley high.
Most of the billion dollar stadiums completed in the past few years ended up very high on this list. Levi’s Stadium disappointed me. While there are a lot of impressively nice features, its pain points are significant.
