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Tiger Stadium is a stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the Louisiana State University “Tigers.” Tiger Stadium opened in 1924 and holds 92,400 people. It is colloquially known as “Death Valley,” a name resulting from the difficulty visiting teams often have with the usually raucous crowd. It is one of the loudest stadiums in the country today. Bear Bryant once remarked that Tiger Stadium is the worst place in the world to be a visiting team because playing there is “like playing inside of a drum.” During a nationally televised game against Auburn in 2003, ESPN recorded a noise level of 117 decibels.

When the stadium opened the seating capacity was 12,000, with stands on both sides of the playing field. In 1931, 10,000 more seats were added onto the existing grandstands. The stadium more than doubled capacity in 1936. The north end saw an addition of 24,000 seats, making a horseshoe shape. This made the stadiums seating reach 46,000. The horseshoe was enclosed in 1953, with the south end grandstands constructed. The first of the two upper decks was added to the west side of the stadium in 1978. Capacity was raised to about 78,000.

The 1980s saw many upgrades made to the aging structure. In 1985, the east and west grandstands were waterproofed and chair back seats replaced the bench seats. The playing surface was moved to the center of the field in 1986, by moving the goalposts 11 ft. to the south. The north and south ends of the stadium were waterproofed and chair back seats added in 1987 to bring them up to date with the 1985 improvements. Also in 1987 the press box was redecorated, and a few more seats were installed at the upper portion of the west lower stands, and the stadiums seating arrangement was renumbered to make all seats a uniform size. By the end of the 1980s the stadium held 80,150 spectators.

The official capacity of the stadium was lowered to 80,000 in 1994. Some of the seating had to be removed to renovate the visiting team locker room. The last addition to seating in the facility was in 2000. The east end of the stadium received an upper deck. A total 11,600 seats brought the capacity to 91,600. The west upper deck was torn down at the end of the 2004 season, and improved with additional suites and a new pressbox. Construction on this addition was scheduled to be completed by the beginning of September 2005, but delayed due to Hurricane Katrina.

Tiger Stadium was the site of the legendary “Earthquake Game” against Auburn in 1988. LSU won the game, 7-6, when quarterback Tommy Hodson completed a game-winning touchdown pass to running back Eddie Fuller in the waning seconds of the game. The crowd reaction registered on a seismograph in the LSU Geology Department.

Other famous moments include the Billy Cannon touchdown run on Halloween night in 1959 to win against Ole Miss, the last-second Bert Jones touchdown pass in 1972, and the 28-21 upset over top-ranked Florida in 1997 during which the stadium was so loud that people in the student section couldn’t hear the LSU band.

Tiger Stadium’s structure includes several dormitories which are no longer in use. These became part of the stadium because the budget included money for dormitories but not the stadium expansion desired by Louisiana governor Huey Long. In order to get around the budget restrictions, Long had the dorms built into Tiger Stadium and included seating for football games.

Tiger Stadium and LSU football are a vital part of culture in Baton Rouge, where important events in the fall, such as marriages and social functions, are planned so as not to conflict with gamedays.

More recently, Tiger Stadium at LSU served as a temporary relocation site for the New Orleans Saints for four games of the 2005 NFL season after Hurricane Katrina damaged the Superdome and left much of New Orleans under water. The Saints, however, utilized only 79,000 of Tiger Stadium’s seats, though the attendance for each of the games was somewhat below that figure.

[Source: Wikipedia]