Skip to content Coors Field is a baseball stadium located in the heart of downtown Denver, Colorado, and is home to the Major League Baseball team, the Colorado Rockies. The park first opened its doors in 1995 and is situated in Denver’s Lower Downtown neighborhood, only two blocks away from Union Station. Coors Field is designed to accommodate up to 50,144 people for baseball games, and over the years, it has become a popular destination for sports fans and tourists alike.
The history of Coors Field dates back to 1991 when Denver was awarded a Major League Baseball franchise, which led to the construction of a new stadium for the team. At the time, the Colorado Rockies played their first two seasons at Mile High Stadium, which was not a suitable venue for baseball. As a result, Coors Field was built for $300 million, and it includes 63 luxury suites and 4,526 club seats.
One of the most significant features of Coors Field is its reputation as a hitter’s park. Due to Denver’s high elevation and semi-arid climate, the distances of batted balls tend to be longer, which can make it challenging for pitchers to control the game. To address this issue, the outfield fences were positioned further away from home plate, and baseballs used in the park are stored in humidors, which helps to reduce the impact of the dry air.
Since its opening in 1995, Coors Field has hosted several major events, including the 1998 MLB All-Star Game and the 2021 MLB All-Star Game. The park has also hosted an outdoor hockey game from the 2016 NHL Stadium Series and numerous concerts featuring renowned musicians.
In 2017, a consultant determined that Coors Field would require $200 million in capital improvements in the 2020s. To fund these improvements, the Rockies agreed to a long-term lease to develop club-owned nearby land. This development will enable the team to generate additional revenue and invest in the stadium’s infrastructure to enhance the fan experience.
Coors Field is known for its unique seating arrangement, where the seats in the 20th row of the upper deck are painted purple to mark the elevation of one mile (5280 ft; 1,609 m) above sea level. This feature makes Coors Field one of the most distinctive ballparks in the Major Leagues.
Another popular attraction at Coors Field is the Blue Moon Brewery at The Sandlot. The brewery is located behind the right-field stands, and visitors can enter from both Coors Field and Blake Street. Operated by the Coors Brewing Company, the microbrewery/restaurant experiments with craft beers on a small scale and has won multiple awards at the Great American Beer Festival in various categories. The Blue Moon, a Belgian-Style Wheat beer, was invented at the brewery and is now mass-produced by Coors. The restaurant is housed in a building that is attached to the stadium and offers an extensive selection of food items, including Rockie dogs, Denver dogs, vegetarian dogs and burgers, and all of the usual ballpark items.
Beyond the brewery, Coors Field boasts a landscape decoration behind the center field wall that reflects the typical environment of the Rocky Mountains. This area features a waterfall, fountains, and pine trees, which enhance the overall ambiance of the park. After a Rockies home run or win, the fountains shoot high into the air, creating a stunning visual display for fans to enjoy.
Coors Field is famous for many things, with one of the most notable being its advanced, state-of-the-art technology. Among its features are two large LED video displays and a ribbon display in the outfield, all of which were manufactured by Daktronics. The first LED display, positioned beneath the “Rockies” logo, measures 27 by 47 feet (8 m × 14 m), while the second one, which also functions as a scoreboard and a source of lineup and statistics information, measures 33 by 73 feet (10 m × 22 m). In addition to these displays, the field also features several Daktronics ribbon displays that together span approximately 833 feet (254 m) in length.
