Michigan Wolverines Football Stadiums: From Past To Present

A crucial part of every college football program is the hallowed ground on which the games are played. The USC Trojans have the Coliseum, UCLA has the Rose Bowl, and the Michigan Wolverines have Michigan Stadium. While it might lack in the name department, the venue is one of the most iconic in all of sports, collegiate or professional. However, the Wolverines did not always have the privilege of playing in the iteration of the Big House they enjoy today.

Below is a breakdown of Michigan's football stadiums and the changes they underwent through the storied history of one of the best college football programs in the nation.

Unsurprisingly, previous stadiums started out small, even for the legendary Wolverines. According to the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library, the university's first on-campus football field cost a grand total of $3,000 and originally only had the capacity for 400 fans. Regents Field was in use from 1893 to 1905 and included a baseball diamond on one end of the greens. The fan seating eventually expanded, but only to accommodate 6,000 onlookers before the field was eventually replaced for the 1906 season.

Next came Ferry Field, a venue that had a slightly longer run of hosting Michigan football than Regents Field did. With the growing demand for seating and general facilities for the rest of the student body, the university raised upwards of $30,000 for the construction of Ferry Field. That money was well spent, as the stands were capable of accommodating 18,000 fans, and a team clubhouse was completed in time for the 1912 season.

As the football team continued to get exponentially more popular, more and more temporary bleachers were constructed, eventually increasing the capacity of the stadium to 42,000 in 1921. However, even with the incredibly efficient additions to fan seating, the increasingly rabid Michigan fanbase once again created a need for a much larger stadium. That need could not be permanently satisfied by the temporary seating that allowed Ferry Field to be the success it was.

That demand was met only 15 years after the creation of Ferry Field. As universities across the nation began to upgrade their stadiums to seat 50,000 fans or more, Michigan head coach Fielding Yost foresaw a need for an even bigger and better stadium to accommodate the Wolverines. The first plans for Michigan Stadium allotted 70,000 seats, with the possibility to expand to well over 100,000 seats, beginning in the 1927 season. To get things started, the university spent $239,000 on a plot of land, the equivalent of just over $4 million in today's money.

After a year of expensive, strenuous construction that amounted to just over $1 million spent, Michigan Stadium was ready for action in time for the 1927 season opener. The game against Ohio Wesleyan drew a crowd that could have been easily accommodated in Ferry Field, but that would soon change when the Wolverines met the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Yost, as endeavoring as ever, managed to successfully lobby the university to put in an extra 10,000 seats in wooden bleachers ahead of the game, something that proved to be a prudent measure. Over 84,000 fans attended the rivalry matchup, which Michigan won 21-0. Those bleachers continued to be put to use in the next two home contests, with the Wolverines drawing similar crowds against Navy and Minnesota.

Playing in the biggest stadium in the United States was not enough to satisfy Yost and the Wolverines. In 1930, Michigan Stadium became the first sporting venue in the United States to use an electronic scoreboard to keep score during games. Upgrades continued over the next several decades, when the university replaced the wooden bleachers with permanent metal ones in 1949, bringing the official stadium capacity to 97,239. Even more seats were added in 1956, when Michigan added a full press box.

The next 50 years featured a variety of smaller renovations to the field, including new scoreboards, a switch from grass to turf, and bits and pieces of seat expansions. The next major change to the Big House, which was christened as such in the 1980s, came in 2010. The university spent $227 million on a new press box and luxury suites, upgrades that have helped allow Michigan Stadium to remain one of the most iconic stadiums in the United States.

There are not many college football programs or cultures that are deserving of a stadium like Michigan's. The Wolverines are certainly an exception to that statement. Game days in Ann Arbor consistently see the Big House selling out, regardless of who the opponent is. On the rare occasions that the Wolverines play a rival, the environment inside the stadium is unparalleled, not only in college football but in the entire world of sports.