The count is now official: the new Ravens stadium has 69,426 seats.
That is roughly 1,000 more than the designers set out to build, but such are the vagaries of stadium building. A few wide expansion joints here, a mismeasured beam there and, before you know it, the capacity has changed.
"The building is always different from the drawings," said Ravens director of ticket operations Roy Sommerhof.
Stadium builders compensated for some unexpected dimensions by varying the width of the seats -- they come in a couple of sizes -- by an inch or two to make them fit. This also changed the total number available.
Sommerhof led teams of employees through each section of the seating deck to count each seat. The final count was higher than the target number, with the new seats sprinkled throughout the stadium. Some are singles in the midst of seats already pledged to buyers of permanent seat licenses and tickets.
"We may go to the PSL owners and see if they want to buy them," Sommerhof said.
Until then, the team will throw them into the pot of tickets available for single-game sale. From the start, the team said it would hold back about 6,000 tickets for game-by-game sale, not assigning seat licenses to them.
With 53,000 PSLs now sold, the extra capacity and group sales, the team anticipates having about 9,000 single-game tickets available for each home game.
Ravens schedule
Preseason
Date Opponent, Time, TV
8/8 Chicago, 7:30, 13
8/15 at N.Y. Jets, 5, 13
8/24 Philadelphia, 7:30, 13
8/28 at N.Y. Giants, 8, 13
Regular season
Date Opponent, Time, *TV
9/6 Pittsburgh, 1:01, 13
9/13 at N.Y. Jets, 1:01, 13
9/20 at Jacks., 4:15, 13
9/27 Cincinnati, 8:20, ESPN
10/4 Bye
10/11 Tennessee, 1:01, 13
10/18 at Pittsburgh, 1:01, 13
10/25 at Green Bay, 1:01, 13
11/1 Jacksonville, 1:01, 13
11/8 Oakland, 1:01, 13
11/15 at San Diego, 4:05, 13
11/22 at Cincinnati, 4:15, 13
11/29 Ind., 1:01, 13
12/6 at Tennessee, 4:15, 13
12/13 Minnesota, 4:15, 45
12/20 at Chicago, 1:01, 13
12/27 Detroit, 1:01, 45
* -- Regular-season home games must be sold out 72 hours in advance to be televised.
Pub Date: 7/21/98