The University of California's Golden Bears have used California Memorial Stadium since November 1923; it replaced California Field.

At the time of this writing (Spring 2024), NC State has never played a game at California Memorial Stadium, but has scheduled a game for the 2024 season with the addition of the West Coast school to the ACC.

  * Non-conference games

California had used California Field since 1904, but soon found the field overwhelmed with spectators, having become an increasingly dominant team under the watchful eye of head coach Andy Smith. As the 1910s became the 1920s, California Field was increasingly overwhelmed by the large crowds their games drew, initiating a finance campaign in September 1921 to fundraise for the construction of a roughly 60,000 seat stadium at the cost of about $1 million (almost $17.5 million in 2024) for a new concrete stadium dedicated to the state's casualties in the First World War. Supporters were asked to provide $100 in return for $100 in scrip, payable towards $10 in tickets per year over the next ten years to any California football game, or two seats to the "choicest section" of the future venue if used only for "The Game" between Cal and Stanford [1].

The fundraising effort was a massive success; though some reports say that those seats sold out entirely in just ten days, in reality, scrips were still being sold well into November, and the benchmark not reached until December. This should not, however, diminish how well the sales went, with more than one-third of the available tickets being sold in the first day and three quarters of the total by late October [2] [3].

Despite the initial success in fundraising, disagreements arose over where to put the stadium. Initial plans called for a double-decker coliseum on the southwestern corner of campus, but in February that plan was abandoned, partly because of prohibitive price demands for the part of land near campus they originally investigated. Eventually, the Strawberry Canyon section, east of campus, was selected; in conjuection with this idea was the plan to make an earth-fill bowl stadium, saving costs on concrete, steel, and construction in general. Instead, a comprosmise was reached wherein the west half of the stadium was dug into the ground while the eastern half was elevated, giving the Board of Regents a large and impressive facade, as well as a larger capacity of 73,000 [2] [4].

The Strawberry Canyon site was idyllic: "Against the hills, majestic in its dimensions and grand in its simplicity, visibile from campus and from the city, withdrawn but not apart, the memorial fits its place -- and the place is fitting for the memorial." The fight to build the stadium was less pristine, facing several vocal opponents from area residents, including a petition to charge the University $1,000 per football game unless a new site was chosen. It's not clear what was done to assuage the opposition groups, but construction began in earnest in February 1922. The major delays meant the venue would not open until late November 1923 at the earliest [2] [5].

Because of the delays, California played every home game that season except "The Game" at California Field, including one match the week before against Washington. The opening game was a 9-0 win over Stanford watched by 72,609 rapt fans; that accounted for every single seat of the field its first three years. Temporary bleachers upped that number to 78,671 in 1926, while in 1928 "semi-permanent" bleachers were constructed around the inside ring of the stadium and and above the upper level, boosting the capacity to 79,403. Before the 1949 season, 1,000 seats were added by shortening each seat on 72 rows of the stadium by a fraction of an inch. The following year, additional field bleachers were installed, boosting capacity to 81,490. It's not clear if these outright replaced the ones in 1928 or if they had been removed at some point prior [6].

The first major change to the stadium in some time came before the 1960 season, when twelve rows of bleacher seats in need of replacement on the east rim of the stadium were removed, lowering the seating to 76,780. Rather than replacing them, California's student rooters who occupied the seats previously were moved to a new enlarged regular student section. Though there were plans to build new permanent seats after the 1960 season, they never came to fruition; instead, nothing changed until 1981, when athletic offices and locker rooms were placed underneath the stadium, and the natural grass replaced with artificial AstroTurf. The year 1982 marked the start of a precipitous and nebulous decline in reported capacity as the stadium's reported size shrank to 75,662. It diminished again to 74,909 in 1996, and once more to 75,028 in 1998. I have been unable to find anything definitive on what caused these reported capacity changes [7] [8].

Before the 2002 football season, the stadium's press box was removed and replaced with a temporary structure while the area was renovated to help ameliorate concerns about the stadium's ability to withstand seismic activity. During this stretch (from 2003-2007) the stadium sat 72,516, but often had its capacity artificially limited by the placement of decorative tarps, which were removed during choice matches. The temporary press box remained through 2010, but the capacity was lowered again to 71,799 in 2008 in order to meet fire code. This time also saw the removal of the venue's natural grass, which had replaced the AstroTurf before the 1995 season; it was replaced this time with Momentum Turf.

Following the 2010 season, the stadium underwent a major overhaul, forcing the Bears to play in San Francisco's AT&T Park for the 2011 season. In 2012, the field reopened with entirely overhauled internals; essentially, everything but the exterior walls had been gutted. The old wooden bleachers replaced with mostly aluminum bleachers, while club levels were added with chair-back seating options. Significant fault remediation equipment was also installed as further safeguards against earthquakes. The Momentum Turf was replaced by newer Matrix Turf in 2012. The work put the capacity to 63,186 for the 2012 season; Wikipedia for some reason indicates an increase in capacity after this season to 65,432, but I've found no first-hand sources which indicate an increase in capacity; in fact, the renovation announcement in 2013 said "the capacity of Memorial Stadium is being reduced from 72,000 to 63,000, which is the maximum number of seats that can be accommodated in this new configuration." Similarly, despite no information on a reconfigurations, starting in 2013, capacity was said to be down to 62,467. Finally, the 2022 "The Big Game" between Cal and Stanford was reported as a sell-out despite a reported crowd of just 51,892 [9] [8].

Pictures of California Memorial Stadium