Where Are the Best Seats at a Football Stadium?

Going to a football game is something to look forward to all week. Having great seats for the game is even more of a draw. Given your choice of areas in a particular stadium, where is the best place to sit?

  1. Identification

    • In most football stadiums, the best place to sit 15 to 25 rows up from field level between the two 40-yard lines. These seats will give the ticket buyer both a feeling of intimacy and and perspective. You will be closer to the action if you are closer to the stadium floor, but your view will be obscured by the team benches that are right in front of you. You will also have a difficult time seeing the spacing between offensive and defensive players, the formations and seeing the play develop. Being a little higher up gives the viewer a better angle to watch the play unfold. This is why assistant coaches will often sit in the pressbox and advise the head coach why a play worked or why it failed. The pressbox is usually near the top of the stadium.

    Considerations

    • There are great seats for watching the game and there are great seats for having a party. Some affluent fans may be in a position to purchase luxury suites that are enclosed from all weather conditions, have comfortable seats, gourmet food and an abundance of televisions to see replays as well as watch other games. While these seats may be just a tad higher than ideal or not in the center of the stadium, many people would love nothing better than to watch a game from the comfort of the luxury suite.

    Warning

    • It's great to be part of the crowd at an important game because of the feeling of camaraderie and fun. It can be awful to be a part of the crowd in miserable weather conditions. There may be something romantic about the memory of a game played in snow or extreme cold--but it is no fun while it is happening. The same holds true for a drenching rain storm. The experience can be miserable or even dangerous in the middle of a thunder/lightning storm.

    History

    • Most stadiums built today for professional teams or upper-level college teams are football-only stadiums. However, up through the 1980s, many of the stadiums were combination baseball-football stadiums. Those stadiums have a unique configuration that were geared more towards baseball. As a result, many of those seats were not as good for football. A high-percentage of those seats gave a limited-access view of the field and left the ticket buyer with a feeling that he was not getting his money's worth.

    Time Frame

    • If you have great season tickets between the 40s for an established NFL team or an elite college team, consider yourself lucky. Many teams like the Giants, Bears, Packers and Patriots not only sell out all their tickets every year, they also have long waiting lists of people who are waiting to get an opportunity to buy season tickets. Many of these people have to wait 5 years or longer to buy season tickets, but those tickets are not the top seats in the stadium. It may take two decades or longer for a ticket buyer to work himself into a position to buy those seats.