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1-Star NFL Stadium Reviews
By GamblersPick Sep 21, 2020Analyzing over 9,600 Yelp reviews to find the best and worst NFL stadium experiences.Whenever angry Yelp reviewers last sat down to share their opinions of NFL stadiums, perhaps they didn’t realize just how hard historic events (COVID-19) would be hitting these same venues. Especially now that football season is here and stadiums attempt to construct various social distancing guidelines, it’s interesting to look back and see some of the reviews mentioning things like the fans or cleanliness on-site. After venues fill back up, will these Yelp reviews look the same?
Maybe stadiums will be entirely different this year, but we have a pretty good idea of what reputations they need to overcome. We recently scraped over 9,600 Yelp reviews of each NFL stadium. We categorized these nearly ten thousand by reviews that mentioned the cleanliness, the prices, the traffic, and of course, the fans. What we ultimately found was a list of the best and worst stadiums (based on Yelp reviews) for each of these categories. If you’re curious to see how your hometown or favorite team stadium stacks up, keep scrolling.
What's in a Game?
The study began with a look at all the 1-star reviews of stadiums. Poor reviews were then flagged each time they mentioned price, traffic, uncleanliness, or the fans. We also considered a simple overall ranking of stadiums by their average star ratings. Stadiums with fewer than 20 1-star reviews were excluded to avoid one person’s opinion overly influencing the data.
The overall worst three stadiums, according to their average star reviews on Yelp, were:
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Washington Football Team’s FedExField - 2.35 stars
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San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium - 2.67 stars
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LA Chargers’ Dignity Health Sports Park - 3.12 stars
Quote“This place is a soulless monstrosity. The only care paid in the design of this hellhole went toward servicing the elite and their luxury boxes. Avoid at all costs, unless you enjoy being tortured.” — 1-Star review of Levi’s Stadium
We initially considered that the Washington Football Team’s stadium may have ranked most poorly because of the controversy surrounding the team’s former name, the Washington Redskins. Though the replacement name has not yet been chosen, it may not fix their poor stadium experience. Poor reviews from FedExField attendees were mostly concerned with price (45.5%) and traffic (48.8%). Price also bothered many 1-star reviewers after visiting the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T stadium (40%) and the LA Rams Memorial Stadium (39.4%).
Ultimately, price and traffic seemed to be the top two factors that weighed into most 1-star reviews. Things like uncleanliness and fans were mentioned, but not nearly as often in the bad reviews. Fans of the Raiders, however, were one exception to this rule and were mentioned more than a third of the time in all negative reviews about their stadium. According to Rolling Stone Magazine (and apparently Yelp reviewers), Raiders fans are the number one most disrespected in the league. Those who visit the stadium mention the fans quite frequently (35% of the time) in their 1-star reviews.
Quote“Life is too short to spend time in depressing environments like this.” — 1-Star review of Oakland Coliseum
In comparison, the overall top three stadiums rated positively, according to their average star reviews, were:
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Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field - 4.76 stars
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Pittsburgh Steelers’ Heinz Field - 4.36 stars
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Indianapolis Colts’ Lucas Oil Stadium - 4.35 stars
Sparing Every Expense
Since price factored so heavily into 1-star reviews, our study next sorts stadiums by those who had the most mentions of price, whether positive or negative. We then compared the average star ratings of just those reviews that mentioned price and again ranked each stadium by the top and bottom five.
FedExField, as you will see, continued to be a troublemaker of sorts in the world of positive stadium experiences. But price was its first major complaint. Reviews of this stadium more often mentioned price than any other venue analyzed, and not in a good way. Though ticket sales themselves average roughly $125 per game, a previous study also showed that their prices for two tickets, two hot dogs, two beers, two soft drinks, and parking was an additional $272.17, more expensive than any other NFL stadium. In this study, reviews sorted by price for FedExField also had the lowest average star rank of any of the 31.
And speaking of two hots dogs, food was a category that often went hand in hand with mentions of price. Many of the reviews we sorted through mentioned the food (hotdogs or otherwise) as being too costly. The top stadiums mentioning both food and price were the Falcons’ Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Detroit Lions’ Ford Field, and the Bills’ New Era Field. The Falcons have announced a limited capacity seating plan for 2020, which may require those food prices to go up even further. Time and Yelp reviews will tell.
Quote“I only ate two bites of my $13 bland disgusting cheesesteak and still got sick as a dog. My kids had chicken tenders which were equally inedible. There are no words to describe the horror of the outhouse I was forced to use outside the stadium after ingesting the overpriced waste they sell as food. — 1-Star review of MetLife Stadium
The Green Bay Packers, who also plan to play in front of fans at Lambeau Stadium this year, must be doing something right with their stadium experience, as they ranked first for star ratings here as well. This stadium does offer some affordable and delicious crowd favorites, like bacon-wrapped hot dogs and cheese curds on brats.
Quote“Water is $7 a bottle. SEVEN DOLLARS for 16oz of a substance that comprises 71% of our planet. Christ almighty; for seven bucks, I’d rather drink out of the toilet.” — 1-Star review of Soldier Field
Traffic Troubles
Even with a great game lined up, logistics can get in the way. You have to get everyone together, drive, and find parking. If things go smoothly, you’re lucky. The next part of our study filters reviews by their mentions of parking, traffic, and transportation. We also compared average star ratings for each mention of vehicle-related reviews.
FedExField also had a major problem with transportation. More than half of all 1-star reviews of the stadium mentioned parking or traffic, and the reviews about it were lower than any other stadium. Reddit threads even offer advice in navigating this notoriously tricky (and expensive) parking space. Evidently, tailgating is also a logistical problem there. One reviewer explained it as follows:
Quote“Last I checked, every stadium has open tailgating. Except FedExField! So if you’re someone who loves spending insane amounts of money to watch an underachieving team of overpaid prima donnas owned by an evil greedy jock-sniffer of an owner playing in a toilet bowl that is a stadium, then ladies and gentleman, let me present to you your Washington Redskins at FedExField! P.S. If you read this, Dan Snyder, this review is my personal opinion. You can’t sue me for that. If you do, you’ll lose, just like your team!” — 1-Star review of FedExField
That said, there was one stadium for which reviewers mentioned parking even more often (but slightly more positively): Levi’s Stadium. Home to the San Francisco 49ers, Levi’s Stadium had 57.2% of its reviews mention either parking, transportation, or the traffic. This may have to do more with San Francisco, however, than the stadium itself. San Francisco is ranked fifth worst city in the entire world — world, not country — when it comes to traffic, so Levi’s certainly has its work cut out for it in providing a smooth traffic experience.
The Green Bay Packers once again provided a comparatively wonderful experience when it came to parking and transportation. In reviews that mentioned these things, Lambeau Field received an average of 4.7 stars, compared to Levi’s (2.6 stars) and FedExField (2.4 stars).
Not-So-Clean Stadiums
The cleanliness conversation has taken on new importance in 2020. Hygiene has become a major safety issue.
FedExField has a lot of work to do in Yelper’s eyes. Not only did it rank worst for price and parking, but once fans spent all that money and finally found a parking spot, FedExField added insult to injury and didn’t provide fans with a clean stadium. That, or fans took out their dissatisfaction on the stadium itself. Either way, FedExField had a higher percentage of its reviews mentioning uncleanliness (13.5%) than any other. That’s not to say that other venues received a free pass:
Quote“This place is a dump. It’s the worst stadium I have ever been to. The bathrooms were disgusting, and the food vendors shut down way too early. Nothing to look forward to here.” — 1-Star review of Raymond James Stadium
Though FedEx may have ranked low in this area and others, it wasn’t dead last for cleanliness. Instead, the home of the LA Chargers was the lowest rated stadium when filtered by mentions of cleanliness. LA actually had cleanliness problems in their Rams stadium as well, which had the second highest number of uncleanliness mentions. Previous sanitary studies seem to back up what the fans are noticing in these 1-star reviews: The surfaces are actually quite dirty. This may all well change, however, with newfound emphasis on hygiene following the coronavirus. We’ll keep our pulse on the Yelp reviews once their doors reopen.
Fan Feedback
What is a stadium, after all, without its fans? The spirit and experience of a stadium is often due to the tailgating, the cheering, and the energy of the fans. The last portion of our study ranks stadiums by the number of Yelp reviews they have mentioning the fans.
The fans were mentioned most often at the Buffalo Bills New Era Field. Buffalo Bills fans have ranked as some of the league’s best, according to previous studies. Onlookers appreciate the fans’ passion and dedication, even in the dead of winter. But certainly not all reviews were positive (or without bias). A visiting fan had this to say about New Era Field:
Quote“It’s nice for the Patriots to have a place outside Foxboro for a promised win every year, but the product brought forward by this decrepit team is lacking and sad. Might as well tell your children there is no Santa then have them witness there is no God (except Tom Brady) in Buffalo.” — 1-Star review of New Era Field
FedExField and Lambeau Field fell into their usual two spots once again: FedEx as the worst fan-related field and Lambeau as the best. While the Washington Football Team tries to figure out a new name and new COVID-19 regulations, they may need to add in a third major bullet on their to-do list: fixing up the stadium.
Reviews to Look Forward to
The pre COVID-19 stadium experience wasn’t necessarily always a positive one. In the spirit of focusing on the positive, we can suggest that COVID-19 be a time when stadiums take time to restock and recommit to the fans. Perhaps with new hygienic practices and an ache for the glory days, stadiums will refresh and be able to turn some of their harshest Yelp reviews into positive ones. At a minimum, we hope to see mentions of “uncleanliness” take a sharp decline.
If you are going to a game, make sure to take proper safety precautions and follow the specific stadium’s guidelines. If you’re staying in, however, and wanted to get into the gaming spirit, try heading to GamblersPick.com where you can get started gaming straight away from the comfort of your own home.
Methodology and Limitations
We collected data from Yelp of NFL stadiums. A total of 9,685 reviews were analyzed. Data was requested on August 26, 2020.
The reviews were then categorized by the presence of specific keywords. The category “price” included any reviews that mentioned the words price, cost, expensive, cheap, and money. The category “Uncleanliness” included any reviews that mentioned the words unclean, dirty, gross, nasty, disgusting, filth, smelly, stink, and mess. The category “traffic” included any reviews that mentioned the words traffic, parking, and transport. The category “fans” included any reviews that mentioned the words fans or crowd.
No statistical testing was performed, so the claims listed above are based on means alone. As such, this content is exploratory and is presented for informational purposes only.Fair Use Statement
It helps to know what you’re getting yourself into if you’re heading to limited or full capacity stadium operations this year. If you know someone who could benefit from the findings of this study, you are welcome to share the information with them. Just be sure your purposes are noncommercial and that you link back to this page.
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