Arizona Stadium has been used by Arizona's football team from 1929 to present; it replaced a small, on-campus playing field known variously as University Grounds, Arizona Field, or UA Field which was in use from 1901 to 1928. It also hosted the Copper Bowl (later, among other names, the Cactus Bowl; now the Guaranteed Rate Bowl) from 1989-1999.

Overall, NC State had a record of 0-1 at this field. Though the lone game played is officially considered a neutral site game, the Wolfpack faced the Arizona Wildcats as part of the Copper Bowl in their true home venue.

  * Non-conference games

What is now Arizona Stadium started its life as the University Polo Grounds. Constructed in 1923 under the instruction of Colonel Parker, the horseback sport was new to campus; it had only been organized in April 1922, but quickly found support from the campus military units. In January, the school began the construction of a plant for the game; details are scant, but it was ready by May. Though football was never played on the field, the equine sport was very popular during its time; the grounds also hosted several military exhibitions such as gymkhanas. The field was used for that purpose for 6 years, eventually acruing an unknown number of bleacher seats, which were promptly moved to the replacement field once construction was completed [1].

That the polo field was used for the new concrete football stadium was hardly surprising: the replacement had been rumored since as early as 1924. Plans to open the football stadium with a capacity of about 3,000 began as early as 1922 but were delayed repeatedly due to budgetary issues. Once it finally came around, a concrete stadium was built at a cost of $160,000 (just under $3 million in 2024), with stands to seat about 7,000 bounding the western side of the field. The Wildcats christened their new field with a 35-0 homecoming win over Cal Tech. And beyond just football, the stadium was built with education in mind: it was the new home to the relocated Arizona State Museum and Pioneer Society Room, which were located under the western bleachers [2].

The new stadium joined the Red and Blue en route to a successful 7-1 season. General athletic success followed, with 6 out of 8 winning seasons, winning the Border Conference title twice and placing 3rd or better in the standings each year. As early as 1929 there were some 1,500 wooden seats (likely taken from old Arizona Field) on the east side of the field; an unspecified number were built in endzones as well. In 1931 lights were installed to allow for night games; the first such game was a 0-8 loss to San Diego State on September 25th, 1931 -- the loss broke a 2-year streak of remaining unscored upon at home.

In 1938, the temporary bleachers were relocated to the tennis fields to make way for a new 3,000 seat concrete addition. Built at a cost of $47,000 (about $825,000 in 2024), construction began in mid-July and was completed before the season started. The need was evident: despite having constructed numerous temporary seats around the field, university officials claimed to have turned away 3,000+ fans from a single game the previous season. Construction started in July and was completed just before the season's first home game in October. Press facilities were also improved [3].

Despite a string of relatively middling seasons that followed, it was not long until further expansion was needed: in 1945, temporary stands had been built to handle crowds, while in 1946 stands holding 3,000 were borrowed from the army. Faced with a nationwide crunch for college housing after the implementation of the GI Bill, the Wildcats killed two birds with one stone by building combined housing and bleachers while enlarging the east stands, which were built without anything beneath them (unlike the western stands, which housed the aforementioned museums). The combination bleachers and dorms brought the stadium's capacity to 14,000, while temporary bleachers in the endzones could push it to as much as 17,500. The dorms provided housing for 124 students, mostly football players. A new lighting system which utilized 134 bulbs (up from 40) was also installed [4].

The capacity remained as such for just 3 years: in 1950, the stadium was expanded to be a horseshoe configuration by constructing seating in the southern section. This addition was also made as multi-purpose dorm bleachers; named Pinal and Navajo, the dorms housed another 170 men. The addition cost $836,923 (just under $11 million in 2024) and bumped the plant's seating. Period reports claimed about 10,000 seats -- pushing capacity up to 25,000 persons -- were added, though modern reporting reigns the number closer to 8,000 new seats. Temporary stands, including folding chairs placed around the venue's track loop, allowed the capacity to surge up to 26,700 starting around 1952, though that number was lowered to about 25,500 by 1956 for safety reasons [5].

The next permanent changes to the stadium came in 1965, when 10,600 new seats were added to the west stands, pushing capacity to 33,271 permanent seats, or 40,000 with bleacher seats. As a part of the work, the press box was replaced, and new lights were installed -- this time, they were not located between the seats and the playing field. Discerning readers may be curious: did this impact the museum located beneath the west stands? The answer is no: the State Museum had moved in December 1935, while the Pioneer Historical Society received their own building in 1951; the replacements, among them the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and additional dormitories, remained in place despite the construction. Though there were some delays due to a labor strike, the stadium opened, largely complete, in time for the Wildcats' first home game. Costs for the work were high -- at $1.4 million dollars, some officials considered moving the team off-campus. But athletic director M. R. Clausen fought staunchly to keep the plant in its location, arguing that an on-campus field was essential for the marriage of academics and athletics [6].

Throughout this time, Arizona continued to distance itself from its fellow conferencemates. No longer a member of the Border Conference (which dissolved in 1962), Arizona began to separate from its new Western Athletic Conference mates in the 1970s under the watch of Jim Young, who turned in 3 consecutive 8+ win seasons. Preparing to move to the Pacific 10 conference, the eastern side of the stadium was enlarged to match the western, adding 12,000 permanent seats to push the venue's capacity to 52,000, or 57k with the use of bleacher sections. The posturing, completed in 1976, ultimately proved successful as the Wildcats jumped to the new conference in 1978 [7].

The capacity modulated slightly throughout the 1980s as various changes impacted the stadium, ranging from as minor as the decision not to replace the north endzone bleachers (seating about 4,000) in 1981 to the removal of some seats to make way for additional handicapped seating; that same year, the track encircling the field was removed to its own facility. Then in 1989, the stadium built a 4-story skybox at a cost of $6.25 million (nearly $16 million in 2024) to build and added 936 seats; permanent endzone bleachers had finally been installed in the north endzone in 1988, putting the revamped capacity to 56,092 once the skyboxes and loge seating were completed in 1989 [8].

After this point, the attendance number on historic newspapers and Wikipedia carom around the low- to mid-50,000s, though I haven't found exactly why for the majority of the changes. In late 2011, ground broke for the construction of the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility, which opened in 2013. The work added luxury boxes, a sports training facility, and offices to the north endzone. During construction in 2012, several rows of temporary seats were added beneath the south endzone; once the project was completed, the stadium 56,037 persons. In 2018, renovations to the eastern concourse and student sections reduced capacity to 53,646, and 2019 upgrades to the west side yielded the SkyBox Club and a total capacity of 50,782 [9] [10].

Pictures of Arizona Stadium