GlobeStadiums

Qualcomm Stadium (a.k.a. “The Q”), formerly known as San Diego Stadium and Jack Murphy Stadium, is a multiple-use stadium in San Diego, California. It is the current home of the San Diego Chargers of the NFL, the San Diego State University Aztecs college football team and hosts the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl and the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl college football games every December. Until 2003, it served as the home of the San Diego Padres in Major League Baseball. The stadium has hosted three Super Bowl games: Super Bowl XXII in 1988, Super Bowl XXXII in 1998, and Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003. It has also hosted the 1978 and 1992 Major League Baseball All-Star Games, the 1996 and 1998 National League Division Series, the 1984 and 1998 National League Championship Series, and the 1984 and 1998 World Series.

In the early 1960s, local sportswriter Jack Murphy, the brother of New York Mets broadcaster Bob Murphy, began to build up support for a multipurpose stadium for San Diego. In November 1965, a $27 million bond was passed allowing construction to begin on a stadium, which was designed in the Brutalist style. Construction on the stadium began one month later. When completed, the facility was named San Diego Stadium.

The Chargers played the first game ever at the stadium on August 20, 1967. San Diego Stadium had a capacity of around 50,000; the three-tier grandstand was in the shape of a horseshoe, with the east end open. The Chargers were the main tenant of the stadium until 1969, when the National League expanded to add the San Diego Padres. Another San Diego Padres team, this one in the AAA Pacific Coast League, played in the stadium during the 1968 season, following their move from the minor league sized Westgate Park.

After Jack Murphy’s passing in 1981, San Diego Stadium was renamed San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium or simply Jack Murphy Stadium. The stadium remained basically the same until 1983. Over 9,000 bleachers were added to the lower deck on the open end of the stadium raising the capacity of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium to 59,022. Sixteen years later, the most substantial addition was completed at the stadium. In 1997, the stadium was fully enclosed, with the exception of where the scoreboard is located. Nearly 11,000 seats were added in readiness for Super Bowl XXXII in 1998, bringing the capacity to over 71,000. Also in 1997, the facility was renamed Qualcomm Stadium after Qualcomm Corporation paid $18 million for the naming rights. The naming rights will belong to Qualcomm until 2017.

The stadium was the first of the “square circle” style, which was thought to be an improvement over the “cookie cutter” style of so many of the 1960s stadiums. The second (and last) of this style was the since-built and since-imploded Veterans Stadium. Despite the theoretical improvements of this style, most of the seats were still very far away from the action on the field.

With the departure of the Padres following the 2004 season and even beforehand, there has been much talk of replacing the increasingly obsolete (by NFL standards) stadium with a more modern, football-only one. There have been many problems with this project, the most obvious one being the city’s inability to fund such a stadium. The team and city have both attempted to bring business partners in on the proposed $800 million project, which would be located in the parking lot of the current stadium and include upgrades to the area and infrastructure, but all efforts have failed so far. The Chargers have a clause in their contract saying that if they can pay off all debts to the city and county for the upgrades to the current stadium by 2007, then the team can pull out of its lease in 2008. As of the summer of 2006, the plan still remains in limbo, and the team’s future remains uncertain.

[Source: Wikipedia]