NFL Football
The first pro game played in the stadium was a pre-season game between the New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings in 1975. The Green Bay Packers also played the Denver Broncos in a preseason game in 1987.
The facility became an NFL stadium in 1988, when the St. Louis Cardinals moved west to Arizona and became the Phoenix Cardinals (renamed the Arizona Cardinals in 1994). The Cardinals' first regular season game in the stadium was a 17-14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in a Monday Night Football game on September 12, 1988. The Cardinals won their next home game, defeating the defending Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins 30-21.
The stadium hosted Super Bowl XXX in 1996 as the Cowboys won their fifth Vince Lombardi Trophy, defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17 in front of 76,347 spectators.
On October 27, 2003, the Monday Night Football game between the San Diego Chargers and Miami Dolphins was moved to Sun Devil Stadium because the Cedar Fire in the San Diego area forced the teams to vacate Qualcomm Stadium, which was being used as an evacuation site. Tickets for the game were free and the capacity crowd saw the Dolphins win 26-10.
The Cardinals ended their tenure on the ASU campus with a 27-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Christmas Eve 2005. In 18 seasons in Sun Devil Stadium, the Cardinals complied a 64-80 (.444) mark, with their best single-season mark being 5-3 in 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2004.
In 2006, the Cardinals moved from Sun Devil Stadium to University of Phoenix Stadium in another Phoenix suburb, Glendale, located on the opposite side of the metro area from Tempe. The new stadium also hosts the Fiesta Bowl, and hosted the first stand-alone Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game in January 2007.
Read more about this topic: Sun Devil Stadium
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“... in the minds of search committees there is the lingering question: Can she manage the football coach?”
—Donna E. Shalala (b. 1941)