Sports Authority Field is open daily (on non-game days) for tours.
After our surprisingly-short trip to the Denver Downtown Aquarium, we ended up with a free afternoon. My friend Paige suggested we call over to Sports Authority Field at Mile High and grab reservations for the stadium tour. Luckily we got the last spots for the tour! After a nice lunch nearby, we got to the stadium with enough time to view the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame before our 1pm tour.
The Denver Broncos is an immensely popular NFL team, having a long presence in the area, so getting tickets to Broncos home games is very difficult. In fact, Broncos home games have been sold out since their 1970 season! There’s a good chance this is the only way we’ll get to see the stadium. I doubt we’ll make it to a game.
Some fast facts about Sports Authority Field
- Completed in 2001, under budget, ahead of schedule, funded by a combination of private donations and public funds by the counties that surround Denver
- Seats just over 76,000 fans
- Because the original Mile High Stadium was steel beam-framed, the jumping fans could resonate the stadium and things got LOUD. Sports Authority Field is concrete-framed, but has steel beam “accents” to replicate the 12th-Man fandom.
- 90% of Sports Authority Field tickets are sold as season tickets. Click here to get on the waiting list, if you have 7-10 years to spare.
- I can’t get true pricing information, but if you want single game tickets, you have to act fast. About 2,000 are available per game, per local statute (a requirement of the Colorado counties that provided money for stadium construction.) They’re available through TicketMaster.
Stadium tours begin at the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. The museum is free of charge. But there’s a fee for the tours.
There’s an awesome kids room where kids can play dress up with real players’ uniforms — not just professional, but also Colorado State (see to the right), University of Colorado, and other college teams.
The museum is pretty small, but kept us busy until the tour started.
Much of our tour involves the more luxurious parts of the stadium. We started with one of the huge corporate suites, which provided us a view of the field from the 50-yard line.
A corporate suite. This one belongs to Miller-Coors.
Inside the Miller-Coors suite.
We also visited the “United Club”, sponsored by United Airlines, which is ticketing level that’s somewhat in between the luxury boxes and just having ordinary tickets in the stands. You can sit in the stands (mid-level, mid-field seats), and then come inside and enjoy the warmth of a private eating and bar area with big screen TVs. Based on this pricing information, you need to be ready to commit to 10-game packages for 3- or 5-years.
The United Club comes in 10-game packages that must be purchased in 3- or 5-year packages.
After the United Club, we visited the Press Area. Somewhere in here is where the boys accidentally fell in with the other tour group and I had about 5 minutes of not knowing where my boys were. While I’m confident that they could borrow a cell phone and get a hold of me, I was still worried about the sheer size of the stadium and whether I could find them quickly. Our tour guide’s first thought was that the boys followed the other tour group when we crossed paths near an elevator. He radioed the other tour guide and we quickly reunited.
In the press area.
The kids enjoyed pretending they were announcing games.
I was intrigued that the press area was NOT on the 50-yard line. It’s closer to the 10-20 yard zone.
We visited a couple other luxury and club suites, such as the 5280 Club and Budweiser Club. We learned that groups could rent out those rooms for parties on non-game days.
Next we went down to the ground level to visit locker rooms and the field itself.
The visiting team’s locker room. It’s quite immaculate when it’s empty.
This is what the visiting teams see as soon as they walk out of their locker room. Love it!
After visiting the locker rooms, we enjoyed seeing one of the refrigerated centralized beer distribution rooms.
In a “Beverage Distribution” room. The kegs remain in one place, and the beer is transported throughout the stadium. There is one of these rooms in each quadrant of the stadium, they are managed by different breweries: this one is a Miller-Coors room.
The last part of our tour was getting to spend time on the field. It goes without saying that we weren’t allowed on the turf at all. We had learned about the composition of the turf, and I was surprised to learn that it’s a natural grass/plastic astroturf-like hybrid. The two forms of turf material help each other remain rooted in the ground.
It was a relatively warm day, and we saw the sprinklers running on the field while we were touring the luxury boxes. By the time we were down on the field, the sprinklers were finished. There was a permeable white cover on the field, protecting the turf in preparation for the Broncos’ AFC playoff game on January 12th (which they won!).
The white tarp looks like it’s an ice rink instead of a turf field.
That’s Bucko the Bronco at the top of the jumbotron. He’s modeled after Trigger, Roy Rogers’ horse, but was not allowed to be named Trigger. They had a naming contest, and when the winning name was announced at a game, the fans booed.
Frankly, my boys aren’t huge NFL fans. But they deal with my Peyton Manning fandom, and indulge me by wearing his jersey on game day. But they enjoyed this tour (despite their missteps).
Other things we saw at the stadium included:
- Thunder, the mascot’s, stall, where he hangs out before and after his appearances during the games.
- Lovely views of downtown Denver from vantage points throughout the stadium
- Referee locker room
- Views and discussions about the sculptures surrounding the stadium. You can read more about them here.
At only $15 per person (with senior, youth, and military discounts available), this stadium tour is a real bargain. Compare the tour to Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium which costs twice as much and you don’t see as much. The website says to plan for a 90 minute tour, but ours was closer to two hours.
To learn more about the Sports Authority Field tours, check the Sports Authority Field website.
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