MINNEAPOLIS — September is here, football is in the air and Gopher fans are ready to pack Huntington Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus and kick off the 2022 season against coach Jerry Kill and his New Mexico State Aggies.
To celebrate, we launched our drone and flew over the sun-splashed maroon and gold pigskin palace for a perspective you won't get from the sidelines or even the cheap seats.
Here are a few facts about Huntington Bank Stadium - formerly known as TCF Stadium - that you might not know.
- The unique horseshoe-style design seats 50,805, with expansion options to increase capacity to nearly 80,000.
- It was built at a cost of $303.3 million.
- When it was built, the stadium boasted the largest home locker room in college or professional football, and claimed one of the largest HD video boards in the nation at 48 feet high and 108 feet wide.
- The amount of concrete it took to form the slab and build the bank is enough to make a sidewalk that could stretch from Minneapolis to Rochester... we're talking 74 miles.
- Of the steel that makes up its structure, 97 percent is from recycled materials.
- According to the U's website, it's the first college football stadium in the country to get a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.
Best of luck this season, Mr. Fleck and crew... Go Gophers!
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