Yale Bowl, Football stadium in New Haven, United States.
Yale Bowl is a football stadium in New Haven, Connecticut, built with a deeply sunken design. The playing field rests 27 feet (8 meters) below ground level, while 30 concrete tunnels carry spectators through raised earthen embankments to their seats.
The stadium opened in November 1914 as the largest enclosed sports facility in the United States, with room for 70,896 spectators. Its innovative sunken design set new standards in early 20th-century American stadium construction.
The Walter Camp Memorial Gateway at the entrance honors Yale's first football coach, who established the foundational rules of American football. His legacy continues to shape the stadium's identity as a birthplace of modern football concepts.
The facility now seats 61,446 people, accessible through concrete tunnels distributed around the oval structure. Entrances sit at ground level, from where stairs descend toward the field and seating tiers.
The excavated soil from the playing field was reused to create the raised embankments where concrete seating forms a continuous ring. This recycling of excavated material eliminated the need for additional hauling and shaped the facility's characteristic form.
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