America’s NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball stadiums have been destroyed at an increasing rate in recent years. Often hailed as the modern-day equivalent of Rome’s 2,000-year-old Colosseum, even some of the more famous major-league sports facilities built in the latter half of the 20th century enjoyed a brief lifespan of 30 to 40 years before being deemed obsolete and then demolished. The primary reason for the shortened lifespan of our modern stadiums is the booming revenue in professional sports. As teams make more money, they desire nicer facilities. Nicer facilities, in turn, help attract fans, corporate sponsors and increase revenue.
In constructing this list, we looked at the facility’s sports history, name recognition, and interesting aspects of its destruction. Frankly, you don’t even have to know a football from a hockey puck to appreciate the engineering genius that goes into the implosion of these large structures. Here’s a look at the top 10 stadium implosions since 2000.
