Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, The Grand Old Lady

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (commonly known as the L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in Los Angeles, California's Exposition Park area. The Coliseum, conceived as a symbol of local pride, was dedicated in 1921 as a memorial to World War I veterans from Los Angeles.

When it hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics, the stadium, which was completed in 1923, will become the first to host the Summer Olympics three times; it previously hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984. On July 27, 1984, one day before the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics, it was declared a National Historic Landmark.

The stadium is home to the Pac-12 Conference's University of Southern California (USC) Trojans football team and Major League Rugby's LA Giltinis (MLR). In January 2018, United Airlines was granted name rights by USC, which operates and manages the Coliseum.

The airline became the title sponsor of the playing field, dubbing it United Airlines Field at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum after the Coliseum Commission raised concerns. The Sixth District Agricultural Association, Los Angeles County, and the city of Los Angeles jointly own the Coliseum, which is administered and operated by the University of Southern California's Auxiliary Services Department.

USC launched a significant restoration of the stadium in 2018, which included upgrading the seating and adding luxury boxes and club suites, but also reduced the seating capacity to 77,500. The $315 million renovation, which was finished in time for the 2019 football season, was the stadium's first substantial upgrade in twenty years.

Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Worth Knowing

If you are curious to know about the history of this stadium and other aspects of it such as the design and the overall structure, this article will definitely be of interest to you.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Operation and Tenants

The master lease agreement with USC is monitored by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, which is made up of six voting members nominated by the three owning groups and meets monthly.

The University is responsible for the day-to-day management and operation of both the Coliseum and the Banc of California Stadium properties under the terms of the lease.

Until 2013, USC had a series of one and two-year agreements with the Coliseum Commission, which had been operating the stadium directly until that point.

The University could only rent the stadium for USC home football games under these agreements. After the previous owner, the Coliseum Commission failed to deliver on promised upgrades, USC was handed a much more extensive master lease for management and operation of the Coliseum and associated property in July 2013.

The University was required to make around $100 million in initial physical renovations to the Coliseum as part of the 98-year deal, one of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

It also required USC to pay the State of California $1.3 million in annual rent for the state-owned land the property occupies in Exposition Park; maintain the Coliseum's physical condition to the same standard as the USC Campus; and assume all financial obligations for the Coliseum and Banc of California Stadium Complex's operations and maintenance.

The USC Trojans football team plays their home games in the Coliseum. The majority of USC's regular home games, particularly those against rivals UCLA and Notre Dame, are sold out.

Another one of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is that it currently has a capacity of 77,500 people, with 42 suites, 1,100 club seats, 24 loge boxes, and a 500-person rooftop terrace.

The Coliseum is used by USC's women's lacrosse and soccer teams for select games, usually against major opponents and televised games.

The Coliseum is also rented out to other events, such as international soccer matches, musical concerts, and other huge outdoor events, by USC.

Due to local COVID-19 restrictions the previous year, USC performed commencement festivities in the Coliseum in May 2021 for graduating students from the classes of 2020 and 2021.

For a week, ceremonies were performed twice a day in the Coliseum, awarding nearly 36,000 diplomas (including undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificates).

USC's commencement was hosted in the stadium for the first time in 70 years, one of the

Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The NFL granted the St. Louis Rams permission to return to Los Angeles on January 12, 2016. While SoFi Stadium in Inglewood is being built, the Rams have resumed playing at the Coliseum.

The Rams hosted the Dallas Cowboys in a preseason game in front of 89,14 people on August 13, 2016, the Coliseum's first NFL game since 1994.

The Coliseum hosted the first Rams regular season home game since 1979 on September 18, 2016, against the Seattle Seahawks.

The Coliseum hosted its first Rams playoff game since the 1978 NFC Championship game on January 6, 2018, when the Rams faced the defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons.

With the Rams taking on the Kansas City Chiefs on November 19, 2018, the Coliseum held its first Monday Night Football game since 1985, and the first Monday night game the Rams hosted in the Coliseum, the same day 40 years later.

Due to poor field conditions at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City that night, the game was moved to the Coliseum. In the game's highest-scoring game in Monday Night Football history, the Rams triumphed 54–51.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Sporting Events & Attendance Records

In 2028, the Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles. On July 31, 2017, the International Olympic Committee formally awarded the 2028 Summer Olympics to Los Angeles during the 131st IOC Session.

The Coliseum will be the first stadium in the world to host three Olympic games, one of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

NASCAR held a pre-season NASCAR Cup Series exhibition event on February 6, 2022. The series' first race on a quarter-mile track since 1971 took place on the temporary quarter-mile track.

One of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is that the greatest crowd in the Coliseum's history was 134,254 during a Billy Graham crusade on September 8, 1963, according to the Coliseum's website, which is an all-time high.

The Coliseum's capacity was decreased to around 93,000 for future events following the 1964 repairs.

The highest attendance to watch a USC football game against a team other than UCLA or Notre Dame was 96,130 for a game versus Stanford University on November 10, 1951.

The game versus Saint Mary's College of California on November 1, 1946, had the highest attendance for a UCLA game against a school other than USC.

On November 10, 1957, the Los Angeles Rams faced the San Francisco 49ers in front of an NFL record crowd of 102,368. 

Although the overall NFL regular season record was broken in a 2005 regular season game between the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, this was a record paid attendance that stood until September 2009 at Cowboys Stadium.

Both records were broken on September 20, 2009, during the first regular season game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

The Rams averaged 83,680 for their six home games in 1958, with the Chicago Bears averaging 100,470 and the Baltimore Colts averaging 100,202.

The Raiders drew near-capacity audiences to the Coliseum on multiple occasions throughout their 13 seasons in Los Angeles.

The greatest crowds were 91,505 for a game against the Dallas Cowboys on October 25, 1992, 91,494 for a game against the San Francisco 49ers on September 29, 1991, and 90,380 for a playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on January 1, 1984.

The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, later known as the Super Bowl, was held at the Coliseum.

The Green Bay Packers faced the Kansas City Chiefs on January 15, 1967, in front of 61,946 fans, a lower-than-expected crowd (by comparison, a regular-season game between the Packers and Rams a month earlier drew 72,418). 

The attendance for Super Bowl VII, which matched the Miami Dolphins against the Washington Redskins, was a near-capacity 90,182, setting a record that would remain until Super Bowl XI at the Rose Bowl.

The 1975 NFC Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys drew 88,919 fans, the greatest turnout for a conference championship game since the 1970 season when the conference-title concept was introduced. The Raiders defeated the Seattle Seahawks in the 1983 AFC Championship Game, which drew 88,734 fans.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and the 1958 World Series Champion New York Yankees played an exhibition game on May 7, 1959, in honor of disabled former Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella, which drew 93,103 fans, a Major League Baseball record until 2008.

The attendance for the exhibition game between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 29, 2008, was 115,300, which set a new Guinness World Record for baseball attendance, another one of the

Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

The previous record of around 114,000 was set at Melbourne Cricket Ground during the 1956 Summer Olympics during an exhibition game between teams from various branches of the American Military Forces and Australia.

On March 7, 1965, the Coliseum hosted its first official soccer event, an international encounter between the

and

as part of the regional World Cup qualification. In front of 22,570 spectators, the teams drew 2–2.

Despite being the second-most active venue in US national team history (behind Robert F. Kennedy), the stadium has only hosted 22 matches, the latest of which was in 2000.

There were eleven official matches (three from World Cup qualifiers, seven from the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and one from the North American Nations Cup) and eleven friendlies, all of which were categorized as "A."

In this scenario, the team earned their first absolute title by winning the 1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup on penalties, defeating their Honduran opponent.

Mexico, on the other hand, is the most active national team at the Memorial Coliseum, having played 86 matches there, one of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

During the inaugural season of the United Soccer Association in 1967, the Coliseum hosted the Los Angeles Wolves, who went on to win the title.

The National Professional Soccer League's Los Angeles Toros also played in the Coliseum in 1967 but were relocated to San Diego the next season before folding.

Between stints at the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum, the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League played there in 1977 and 1981.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Sculptures & 2018 Renovations

The Olympic Gateway, designed by Robert Graham for the 1984 games, consisted of two life-size bronze nude statues of male and female athletes atop a 20,000 pound (9,000 kg) post-and-lintel frame.

The statues, which were based on water polo player Terry Schroeder and long jumper Jennifer Inniss of Guyana, were praised for their anatomical accuracy, one of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

For the 1984 Olympics, a beautiful facade displaying the Olympic rings was created in front of the peristyle, and the structure stayed in place throughout the football season of that year.

The stadium rim and tunnels were repainted in alternating pastel colors as part of architect Jon Jerde's graphic design for the games, which lasted until 1987.

After taking over the master lease of the Coliseum in 2013, USC began developing plans for extensive upgrades that were required by the master lease agreement.

On October 29, 2015, the University of Southern California announced a $270 million effort to renovate and restore the Coliseum. 

The upgrades included: replacing all seats in the stadium, building a larger and more modern press box (with new box suites, premium lounges, a viewing deck, a V.I.P. section, and the introduction of LED ribbon boards), adding new aisles, and widening some seats, a new sound system, and restoring and renaming the peristyle to the Julia and George Argyros Plaza. 

The upgrades also included stadium-wide Wi-Fi, two new HD video jumbotrons, new concession stands, upgraded entry concourses, new interior and exterior lighting, modernization of plumbing and electrical systems, and a reduction in the capacity of about 16,000 seats, with the final total at approximately 78,500 seats.

The people reacted to the plans in a variety of ways. To promote its campaign, the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic bid group considered additional upgrades.

The initiative to rebuild and improve the Coliseum began on January 8, 2018. The restoration, which was entirely sponsored by the University, was finished in time for the 2019 football season, and it was the stadium's first substantial makeover in 20 years.

Another one of the

Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

is that due to the tight construction timetable, the project budget climbed from $270 million to $315 million.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum History

The Coliseum was built in 1921 as a memorial to World War I veterans from Los Angeles (rededicated to all United States veterans of the war in 1968).

The groundbreaking ceremony was held on December 21, 1921, and construction was finished on May 1, 1923, in just over 16 months. The original bowl cost $954,873 to build when it was designed by John and Donald Parkinson.

With a capacity of 75,144, the Coliseum was the largest stadium in Los Angeles when it opened in 1923, one of the Top facts about Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

With the Olympics coming up in two years, the stadium was expanded upward to 79 rows of seats and two tiers of tunnels in 1930, bringing the total seating capacity to 101,574.

The physical structure of the Coliseum's bowl-shaped configuration was certainly influenced by the earlier Yale Bowl, which was completed in 1914.

The stadium was renamed Olympic Stadium after the addition of the now-iconic Olympic torch.

As a reminder, the Olympic cauldron torch, which burnt throughout both Games, is still visible above the peristyle at the stadium's east end, as are the Olympic rings symbols over one of the main entrances.

The press box is located on the south side of the stadium, while the football pitch runs east to west.

The current jumbotrons on each side of the peristyle were installed in 2017, and they replaced a scoreboard and video screen that towered over the peristyle and was installed in 1983; they also replaced a smaller scoreboard above the center arch that was installed in 1972, which replaced the 1937 model, one of the first all-electric scoreboards in the country.

New light towers have been built along the north and south rims over the years. In 1955, a big analog clock and thermometer were added above the office windows on either end of the peristyle.

The press box was refurbished in the mid and late 1950s, and the "Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum" writing and illuminated Olympic rings were added to the peristyle tower's eastern face.

The Coliseum's "Court of Honor" plaques, located between the double peristyle arches on the east end, honor many of the notable events and people in its history, including a complete list of 1932 and 1984 Olympic gold medalists.

For many years, the Coliseum could accommodate over 100,000 people. The stadium was renovated for the first time in over three decades in 1964.

Individual theater-style chairs in dark red, beige, and yellow replaced much of the original pale green wood-and-metal bench seating; these seats survived until 2018, albeit the yellow color was removed in the 1970s. The seating capacity had been lowered to around 93,000 people.

As an NFL arena, the Coliseum proved problematic. It has been the largest or one of the largest stadiums in the league at various points throughout its history. While the Rams and Raiders were able to establish attendance records as a result of this, selling out was incredibly tough. The NFL changed its blackout rule to allow local channels of sold-out games 72 hours before kickoff.

However, given to the Coliseum's huge dimensions, even in the teams' finest years, Rams (and later Raiders) games were frequently blacked out in Southern California.

Between 1964 through the late 1970s, it was usual practice to move the playing field to the stadium's closed-end and add end zone bleachers in front of the peristyle, thus reducing the number of seats available for purchase.

The stands were moved eastward and the field was re-marked in its original position for USC–UCLA, and USC–Notre Dame games, which often drew audiences of up to 90,000. The capacity was just 71,500 before a bigger east grandstand was built between 1977 and 1978 at the request of Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom.

With the 1984 Summer Olympic Games approaching, a new track was built and the playing field was permanently relocated inside it.

However, due to the stadium's huge, shallow shape and the inclusion of a track between the playing field and the stands, some of the original end zone seats were as far away from the field as a football field. Before the 1993 football season, the Coliseum received a $15 million makeover to address these and other issues.

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