This article is about the stadium in East Rutherford. For the stadium in Sydney, Australia formerly known as Giants Stadium, seeSydney Showground Stadium.
The stadium's maximumseating capacity was 80,242.[3] The structure was 756 feet (230 m) long, 592 feet (180 m) wide and 144 feet (44 m) high from service level to the top of the seating bowl and 178 feet (54 m) high to the top of the south tower. The volume of the stadium was 64.5 million cubic feet (1,830,000 m3), and 13,500 tons of structural steel were used in the building process while 29,200 tons of concrete were poured.[4] It was owned and operated by theNew Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA). The stadium's field was aligned northwest to southeast, with the press box along the southwest sideline.
In the early 1970s, theNew York Giants were sharingYankee Stadium with theNew York Yankees baseball team, and began looking for a home of their own. The Giants struck a deal with the fledglingNew Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority in 1971 and broke ground on the construction of the new facility in 1972. The Giants' last full season in Yankee Stadium was1972, as the ballpark was closed for a massive reconstruction following the end of the Yankees'1973 season. Since their new stadium would take a significant amount of time to finish, and they could not use their home facility due to the construction, the Giants moved out of state and played inNew Haven, Connecticut at theYale Bowl from October1973 through1974, but won just once in twelve games there. They returned to New York for one final season in1975 and sharedShea Stadium inFlushing, Queens, with theYankees,Mets, andJets. The Giants finally moved into their new home on October 10,1976, week five of the season.
Eight years after Giants Stadium opened, it gained a second major tenant. The Jets' lease at Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets, had expired at the end of the1983 season and team ownerLeon Hess was having trouble negotiating terms of a new lease to stay in Queens. The city of New York was unwilling to agree to his terms and Hess decided to move the Jets to the Meadowlands permanently (the team previously played a regular season game there in1977). Their first game in Giants Stadium was on September 6,1984. With the Jets now playing at the stadium, the grounds crew needed to find a way to set their games apart from Giants games and make them more inviting for their fans and eventually came up with a series of green and white banners and coverings that were hung over the field-level blue walls that circled the stadium and (later) the four entrance gates outside the stadium. The Jets also called the stadium "The Meadowlands" for their games.
The sharing of the stadium by both the Giants and Jets enabled it to break a record that had long been held by Chicago'sWrigley Field. Entering the2003 season, its 28th, Giants Stadium had played host to 364 NFL games, second only to the 365 played at Wrigley by theChicago Bears in their 50 seasons there. The Giants' season opening game with theSt. Louis Rams tied the record, and the following week the Jets' home opener against theMiami Dolphins broke it.
Giants Stadium closed following the2009 NFL season following the construction ofMetLife Stadium in the surrounding parking lot. The stadium's final event was the January 3, 2010, game featuring the Jets hosting theCincinnati Bengals onSunday Night Football. Demolition of the structure began a month after the game and was completed on August 10, 2010. The New York Giants and New York Jets both moved to MetLife Stadium in 2010.
Giants Stadium was the firstmajor league sporting venue inNew Jersey (though theBrooklyn Dodgers had played seven home games atRoosevelt Stadium inJersey City in 1956 and 1957), and its success, along with that of the Giants in the 1980s was a major impetus behind increased pride and enthusiasm among New Jersey residents.[citation needed]
Giants Stadium opened on October 10, 1976, as 76,042 fans witnessed a 24–14 loss by the Giants to theDallas Cowboys. The Giants had played their first four games on the road that season.College football made its debut at Giants Stadium on October 23, 1976, withRutgers University defeatingColumbia 47–0 and extending their winning streak to 14 games.[5]
Other pro football teams that have used Giants Stadium
In the second week of the2005 season, theNew Orleans Saints used the stadium for a "home" game against the Giants because of extensive damage to theLouisiana Superdome afterHurricane Katrina. Oneend zone was painted in Saints colors, Saints banners were hung on the walls around the sidelines, and the Saints wore their home jerseys. The game was rescheduled to a Monday night with a special start time of 7:30 PMEDT, preceding the other scheduled game onMonday Night Football.[6] The Giants were normally not visitors at Giants Stadium unless they were playing the Jets.
The stadium hosted college football games, including theGarden State Bowl from 1978 to 1981; theKickoff Classic from 1983 to 2002; theNew York Urban League Classic since 1981; a number of Rutgers homes games (including all their home games during the1993 season); severalNotre Dame–Navy and Notre Dame–Army games; and theArmy–Navy Game on three occasions, most recently in2002.Syracuse also played two home games at Giants Stadium during the1979 season, againstWest Virginia andPenn State, while theCarrier Dome was under construction. Columbia also played some home games at Giants Stadium in1983, due to construction at its home stadium.Temple, needing a home field due to a schedule conflict withVeterans Stadium inPhiladelphia, used Giants Stadium as their home field versusPenn State in September1996.Princeton also played one home game at Giants Stadium (againstYale) during the construction of Princeton's new stadium in1997.
In 2003, theSuperCoppa Italiana, an annual match pitting the winners ofSerie A (Italy's top division) and theCoppa Italia (Italian Cup), was held in Giants Stadium instead of in Italy because both clubs involved (Juventus andMilan) were touring the United States late in the summer, when the event is normally scheduled.
A New York Red Bulls match at Giants Stadium in 2007
In 2005, the stadium played host to several matches in theCONCACAF Gold Cup, including the final, which saw theUSA defeatPanama, 3–1 in apenalty shootout after the sides played to a scoreless draw. In 2007, it hosted theGold Cup again featuring four group stage matches. In, 2009 the stadium hosted the final for theCONCACAF Gold Cup for a second time which sawMexico defeat theUSA 5–0.
On October 5, 1995,Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass during a rainstorm, before a crowd of 82,948, the second-largest to ever attend an event at Giants Stadium. The record was broken on September 24, 2009, with an attendance of 84,472 at theU2 concert.
Pink Floyd performed two nights at the stadium on 3 and 4 June 1988 as part of theirA Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, which concluded the North American leg of that tour before heading to Europe. They also performed two nights on 17 and 18 July 1994 as part of theirThe Division Bell tour. Interestingly, these two concerts were also the last two shows of the North American leg of that tour and the last Pink Floyd concerts ever held outside of Europe.
Dave Matthews Band played the stadium 10 times from 1998 to 2007, including three nights each in 2000 and 2001.[11] On June 11, 2001 (the first of three nights), the band played the song "Two Step", where Dave Matthews sang the improvisational lyrics "let it rain", where then a thunderstorm broke out. This has been called "Two Step In The Rain" by fans, and can be heard onThe Best of What's Around Vol. 1. When Matthews learned of the closing of Giants Stadium, he said, "I can't imagine I'll ever fall in love with a stadium like I did with Giants Stadium."
U2's concert on September 24, 2009, on their 360 Tour, broke the Pope's attendance record at Giants Stadium; the U2 crowd was in excess of 84,400.
Bruce Springsteen at Giants Stadium, 1985
Many locals say it is the home turf ofBruce Springsteen and theE Street Band, due to the fact that they came fromFreehold, New Jersey. They performed a total of 24 shows at the stadium from 1985 to 2009, with a record 10 shows duringthe Rising Tour in 2003. Several songs on his 1986 live albumLive/1975–85 were recorded at shows at the stadium in August 1985. Springsteen wrote the song "Wrecking Ball" in response to the closing of the stadium and in 2009 performed it for the first time at the final five concerts at Giants Stadium.[12] It would go on to be the title track of hisnext studio album, released over two years later.
Demolition work on Giants Stadium began at approximately 10:00 a.m. EST on February 4, 2010, at the Gate B spirals, the closest point to the new stadium. The demolition work was expected to cost more than $10 million and took approximately four months to complete.[19][20] By May 10, 2010, approximately 50% of the Stadium had been demolished. On May 19, 2010, at 8:30 p.m., demolition crews pulled down the press box, the highest part of the stadium. In the early afternoon of June 28, 2010, the last section of stadium grandstand came down, leaving just two later demolished upper-level escalators standing.
Much of the stadium's memorabilia was sold to a sports memorabilia company, such as the framed pictures from the suites, all of the building's signage and a good portion of the saved bowl seats. Other property was liquidated to other NJSEA facilities such as theIZOD Center andMonmouth Park Racetrack.
To accommodate these varied events, Giants Stadium sported various playing surfaces in its history. From its opening until the end of the 1999 NFL season, Giants Stadium sported anAstroTurf playing surface. This surface was covered byBermuda grasssod for the World Cup in 1994, identical to that at theRose Bowl where the other semifinal and the finals were held (so that both teams in the finals would have played on identical surfaces). The grass was removed after the World Cup, as it would have died in the New Jersey winter. The MetroStars installed a grass field with interchangeable trays each spring that was removed prior to football season, forcing the team to play the remainder of its season on the AstroTurf field used by the football teams. (When theNew York Cosmos called Giants Stadium home, they played on the stadium's artificial surface and never used a grass field.)
The AstroTurf was replaced in 2000 by a system of interchangeable grass trays similar to those put in place for soccer, but was kept in place under the trays to aid in draining the field when it got wet. Over the next three years, the conditions would worsen as the season went on and the field quality was typically rated just as low as the old, hard AstroTurf had been. Giants Stadium finally scrapped the grass in favor ofFieldTurf for the 2003 season, a surface that remained in place until the stadium closed.
TheNew York Jets leftShea Stadium and moved to Giants Stadium in 1984 after years of suffering under onerous lease terms imposed at the insistence of baseball'sNew York Mets. When they moved across the Hudson, many predicted the stadium would be renamed. While the Jets were attracted by the stadium's larger capacity (it held 15,000 more seats than Shea did in its football configuration), they were understandably displeased at the prospect of playing in a facility named after another team. However, under the terms of the stadium lease, changing the name of the stadium required the approval of the Giants, and they were unwilling to do so. As such, for years afterward the Jets referred to Giants Stadium as "The Meadowlands" whenever they played there.
Thanks largely to the dual occupancy of Giants Stadium by two NFL teams since 1984, it surpassedWrigley Field (home of theChicago Bears for 50 seasons) as the venue to have hosted more NFL games than any other in league history. The game played between theJets andMiami Dolphins on September 14, 2003, was the 366th regular season NFL game at Giants Stadium breaking Wrigley's regular season record.[21]
Since the stadium was originally built for the Giants, the stadium's lower walls were blue and the seats and the stadium's four gates were red and blue to reflect the team colors. When the Jets moved in, green banners were hung over the walls and eventually over the outer gates of the stadium anytime the team hosted a game.[22] In addition, team-specific end zone decorations would be changed for Jets home games. This was accomplished by either painting over the Giants logos, or replacing the turf section of each end zone. Midfield decorations at the 50-yard line were typically not team-specific (in early years a Meadowlands logo, and later an NFL shield), which could be used for both teams' games.
Giants Stadium in 2007, with the neutral NFL shield in clear view
In mid-December, traditionally the stadium hosted a Saturday-Sunday NFL doubleheader, with the Giants playing a home game one day and the Jets playing the other. The night between the games was a challenge for the stadium grounds crew, as they only had hours to convert the stadium from one team's colors to the other. As per the NFL schedule, the Giants and the Jets play each other once every four years. In that case, there was a predetermined home team, and a predetermined away team. In those games, the away team gets a rare away game in their own home stadium. The Giants and Jets typically play each other every year in the third week of theNFL Preseason, and the teams annually rotated the home and away teams.
For some years, a popular urban legend purported that the remains ofJimmy Hoffa, whose disappearance coincided with construction of the stadium, had been buried under one of the end zones at the field.[23] This ledSports Illustrated to suggest that this "takes on special meaning when a punter goes for the 'coffin corner.'"[24] In a similar vein, sportscasterMarv Albert once said that a team was "kicking towards the Hoffa end of the field." The rumor was referenced inThe Simpsons episode "Last Exit to Springfield", when the leader of the Springfield chapter of the "International Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs and Nuclear Technicians" trade union is said to have mysteriously disappeared after promising to clean up the union; the body of the missing leader is then shown buried under a football field.
The rumor was tested by theDiscovery Channel showMythBusters, and they were unable to find any sign of a body. Furthermore, no human remains were found during the demolition of the stadium in 2010.
October 10, 1976: TheGiants played their first ever regular season game at Giants Stadium, a 24–14 loss to theDallas Cowboys in front of 76,042 fans.[25]
Pelé being consoled by teammate Carlos Alberto at the end of his farewell game v Brazilian side Santos, 1 October 1977
October 1, 1977:Soccer legendPelé played his last game, an exhibition match between the Cosmos andSantos. He played the first half for the Cosmos and the second half for his old Brazilian team.[26]
October 28, 1978:Rutgers beatColumbia 69–0. The Lions' humiliating defeat was the last game in one of the oldest rivalries incollege football. Columbia's young coachBill Campbell retired from coaching after the game and went on to a vastly more successful career in theSilicon Valley.[27]
September 22, 1986: In a dramatic game, theJets defeated theMiami Dolphins 51–45 in overtime. Jets quarterback Ken O'Brien threw for 479 yards and 4 touchdowns while Dan Marino threw for 448 yards and 6 touchdowns. Jets receiver Wesley Walker caught 6 passes for 194 yards and 4 touchdowns.[37]
June 30, 1989:The Who sold out four consecutive shows performing portions of the rock operaTommy to open the first of two sets each night.[41]
June–July 1994: Giants Stadium served as a venue for the1994 FIFA World Cup, opening withIreland's 1–0 win overItaly, and concluding with Italy's 2–1 win overBulgaria in the semifinals.[42][43]
Pope John Paul II celebrates Mass at Giants StadiumOctober 6, 1995: 83,000 people filled the stadium on a rainy Thursday night to participate in a Mass led byPope John Paul II during a trip to the United States.[44]
December 23, 1995: FrustratedGiants fans pelt the field with snowballs during alate season loss to theSan Diego Chargers. A Chargers equipment manager was knocked unconscious and some 175 spectators were ejected.[45]
December 29, 2002: TheNew York Jets defeated theGreen Bay Packers 42–17 to clinch the AFC East Division Title after a last-minuteNew England Patriots rally to defeat theMiami Dolphins changed the Jets' fortunes. Had New England lost, the Jets would've been eliminated from playoff contention. New England scored 11 points in the final two minutes to tie and won the game in overtime. The stadium crowd erupted furiously when the news spread like wildfire of the Patriots victory. This opened the door for a scintillating Jets rout.[49]
July–August 2003: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band broke their own record with 10 sold-out shows onthe Rising Tour.[50]
Giants Stadium during a December 17, 2005, game between the Giants and Kansas City Chiefs
September 1, 2005: The punk rock bandGreen Day sold out Giants Stadium withAgainst Me! andJimmy Eat World. It was their biggest concert played in North America.[53]
December 26, 2005: TheNew York Jets and theNew England Patriots played each other in the lastMonday Night Football game onABC. The Patriots defeated the Jets 31–21.[54]
January 8, 2006: TheGiants attracted their largest crowd in stadium history when they hosted theCarolina Panthers in theNFC Wild Card Game. 79,378 fans witnessed the Giants' 23–0 shutout loss to the Panthers.[55]
July 7, 2007: The "New York" portion ofLive Earth, a worldwide series of concerts of pop and rock music featuring various bands and musical artists planned to inspire global warming activism, was held at Giants Stadium.[56]
Giants Stadium hostsLive EarthAugust 18, 2007: 66,237 attended as the largest crowd ever for a regular-seasonMLS match at Giants Stadium.[57]
September 9, 2007:New England Patriots cornerback Ellis Hobbs set an NFL record by taking the second-half kickoff 108 yards for a touchdown against theNew York Jets in a 38–14 opening day victory. The play also tied the record for the longest play in NFL history at the time, matching the 108-yard missed field goal returns by theChicago Bears'Devin Hester against theGiants in 2006, and the Bears'Nathan Vasher the previous season against theSan Francisco 49ers.[58]
December 29, 2007: The New England Patriots closed out their undefeated 16–0 regular season at Giants Stadium with a 38–35win over theNew York Giants in front of a record regular season crowd on 79,110. In the fourth quarter, Patriots quarterbackTom Brady brokePeyton Manning's NFL record of 49 touchdown passes set in 2004, with his NFL record 50th touchdown pass, a 65-yard touchdown pass to wide receiverRandy Moss, who on the same play set the record for most touchdown receptions in a single season with 23, breaking the record held previously byJerry Rice with 22 touchdown receptions set in 1987.[59]
January 11, 2009: The stadium hosted what would ultimately be its final playoff game, theGiants'2008–09 NFC Divisional Round matchup against the arch-rivalPhiladelphia Eagles. 79,193 fans watched the Giants lose to the Eagles, 23–11.[61]
July 26, 2009: In the2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup final 79,156 fans witnessedMexico beat theUSA 5–0, Mexico's first win against the USA on American soil in a decade.[62]
September 23–24, 2009:U2 played two consecutive sold-out shows at Giants Stadium, their last two shows at the famous venue, as part of theirU2 360 tour. On the second night of the performance, Bono announced that the attendance record has been broken. He also joked that "not even the pope had as many people there." The final attendance was 84,467.[63]
October 9, 2009: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played in the final concert at Giants Stadium. The concert capped a five-night stand of performances in September and October, highlighting Springsteen's classic albumsBorn to Run,Darkness on the Edge of Town, andBorn in the U.S.A., as well as debuting a new song in honor of New Jersey and Giants Stadium, "Wrecking Ball."[64]
October 24, 2009: The final soccer game at Giants Stadium was played between theNew York Red Bulls andToronto FC, with New York winning 5–0.[65]
December 27, 2009: TheGiants played their final home game in the stadium against theCarolina Panthers. The Giants lost to Carolina by a score of 41–9; this loss, combined with wins byDallas andGreen Bay that week, eliminated the Giants from playoff contention.[66]
January 3, 2010: TheJets defeated theCincinnati Bengals 37–0 in the final game at Giants Stadium. The victory allowed the Jets to clinch a wild card berth as the fifth seed.[67]
^Waddell, Ray (November 14, 2009)."PhillySoul".Billboard. Vol. 121, no. 45. p. 13. RetrievedDecember 4, 2024 – via Google Books.And tearing down Giants Stadium is so symbolic for us that Bruce wrote his recent song, 'Wrecking Ball,' about his feelings about the end of his neighborhood football field, where he has played 24 times.
^Cross, B. Duane (September 14, 2003)."The runaround: Sticking with ground game pays off in Week 2".Sports Illustrated. Archived fromthe original on September 19, 2003. RetrievedAugust 6, 2008.According to Elias Sports Bureau via Michael Eisen of the G-Men, the Dolphins-Jets game was the 366th NFL regular season game played in Giants Stadium, surpassing Wrigley Field in Chicago as the most frequently used stadium in NFL history (regular season only).
^Strauss, Robert (June 13, 2004)."So Who Really Is Buried Under Giants Stadium?".The New York Times. RetrievedJanuary 20, 2008.For years, New Jersey lore has had the body of Mr. Hoffa, the longtime Teamsters president, interred somewhere under Giants Stadium, whose construction coincided roughly with his disappearance in 1975.
^Payack, Paul JJ; Beard, Robert; Payack, Peter; Lorenzo, Lou; Marcello, Joe (January 26, 2001)."Super Bowl Glossaries".CNN Sports Illustrated. Archived fromthe original on August 20, 2003. RetrievedMarch 11, 2010.
†= Team's stadium under construction or refurbishment at time 1 = A team used the stadium when their permanent stadium was unable to be used as a result of damage.
Italy
Ireland
Norway
Saudi Arabia
Morocco
Mexico
Bulgaria
Germany
Denmark
United States
Brazil
Canada
Russia
China
Australia
