SHI Stadium

Rutgers Stadium

"The Banks" "The Block" "The Birthplace of College Football"
Location	1 Scarlet Knight Way Piscataway, NJ 08554
Owner	Rutgers University
Operator	New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority
Capacity	41,500
Surface	FieldTurf
Construction
Broke ground	March 9,1993
Opened	1994
Construction cost	$28 million
Tenants
Rutgers Scarlet Knights (NCAA) (1994-Present)

Rutgers Stadium is the on-campus stadium for Rutgers University football. It opened in 1994 in Piscataway, New Jersey (on the University's Busch Campus), and seats 41,500 spectators (though larger crowds have been recorded).

The facility, overlooking the Raritan River, across from the University's College Avenue campus in New Brunswick, opened on September 3, 1994, as the Scarlet Knights football team defeated Kent State University, 28-6.

The stadium is on the site of Rutgers Stadium I, which opened October 22, 1938, with a 32-0 victory over Hampden-Sydney College. The original stadium was built by the Works Project Administration. At the conclusion of the Scarlet Knights' final season in the old stadium, 1992, Rutgers had hosted 225 football games, going 168-53 with four ties. The old stadium also hosted the Division I NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship five times.

The team played its 1993 season at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, a facility operated by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which financed the new Rutgers Stadium through a bond issue. The team had previously played several games at Giants Stadium, including the first-ever football game there (a 1976 victory over Boston College), due to an NCAA rule that mandated that a team play at least half of its home games at a stadium with a seating capacity of at least 30,000 to qualify as a Division I-A school. Since the new stadium opened in 1994 Rutgers has played only three games at Giants Stadim and none after 1996.

The new stadium features a 5,000 seat upper deck on each side of the field; light stanchions that allow for network television broadcasts of night games; a two-level press box on the west mezzanine; and eight 1,000 square foot (93 m²) concession stands. It had a grass surface until 2004, when FieldTurf was installed.

Rutgers Stadium has also hosted NCAA tournament soccer and lacrosse games, including the Division I NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship games in 1998, 2001, and 2002. It has also hosted the North-South All-Star Game between geographically-divided graduating New Jersey seniors, and the Governor's Bowl, between New Jersey and New York State players, in alternating years. Michie Stadium in West Point, New York hosts that game in the other seasons.

Rutgers is famed for having played the very first American-style football game in 1869, in which it defeated Princeton University.

External links

• Rutgers Stadium (Rutgers University athletics official site)
• http://www.collegegridirons.com/bigeast/RutgersStadium.htm

Seats 41 500 and could possibly seat more than 55000 if renovated