Bank of America Stadium -

Address: 800 South Mint Street
             Charlotte, NC 28202

Home of: Carolina Panthers (NFL)

Date opened: 1996

Capacity: 73,778

Cost: $248 million

Bank of America Stadium, located at 800 South Mint Street, Charlotte, NC 28202, has been the home of the Carolina Panthers since 1996. The city learned they would be getting a team for the 1995 season, and in 1993, they began construction on what was to be Bank of America Stadium but they couldn’t get the construction finished by the beginning of the 1995 season, so the Panthers were forced to play their inaugural season at Memorial Stadium, home of the University of Clemson Tigers. The stadium was formerly Ericsson Stadium, but Bank of America paid in excess of $100 million over a ten-year period in order to own the naming rights to the field. Bank of America Stadium cost almost $248 million to construct, but the fans and taxpayers didn’t have to worry about the funds coming out of their pockets. The city of Charlotte paid $40 million for the land the stadium was to be built on and the county provided $10 million while the rest of the money was financed privately. The lot has parking for 5,000 cars and the nearest airport is only 12 miles away so if you’re just traveling for the game, it’s not a long commute at all. The surface is a natural grass which all of the players seem to enjoy playing on. Two other teams in the division ( New Orleans and Atlanta) play in domes and therefore play on Astroturf so the grass found in Carolina and Tampa Bay is a welcome sight for players in the NFC South and other divisions.

Bank of America Stadium can hold more than 73,000 people and offers its fans 158 luxury suites and more than 11,000 club level seats to choose from. The Panthers also offer their fans seats in eight different price groups so that every fan can afford a seat at the ball game. The most expensive seats were in the $70 range with upper level seats going for as little as $19 dollars a game. The stadium itself consists of massive archways and domed towers and also features a pair of black panthers, each eight-feet-tall, and weighing 2,000 pounds, perched on ten-foot pedestals, which are located on both sides of each of the three 80-foot arched entrances.

Though Bank of America Stadium is mostly used as a football facility, it hosted the Rolling Stones on October 10, 1997, and has been a site of the NCAA Men's Soccer Championship in 1999 and 2000. A Billy Graham crusade was held there in 1996. On March 24, 2010 the stadium will host an international friendly match between Mexico and Iceland, this will be the first match between two men's national soccer teams to be held at the stadium