Ranking Best Non-Football Stadiums to Host College Football Games

Fenway Park has played host to thousands of baseball games over the past century, but the home of the Boston Red Sox hasn't been used for college football since the late 1960s. That changes Saturday when Notre Dame and Boston College meet in the shadow of the Green Monster, adding Fenway to the list of non-football facilities to host games in the past decade.

Several of the more recent bowl games have turned to baseball parks for a temporary football field, a configuration that doesn't always produce the best sight lines but still makes for a unique experience. Other games have been held in soccer stadiums, basically making it so any facility that has the field dimensions for football is in play.

Which non-football stadiums are better than others? We've ranked the most notable places that have been used of late, factoring in how the field laid out compared to the stands as well as how well-received games there have been.

7. AT&T Park

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Where: San Francisco

Home to baseball's San Francisco Giants since 2000, AT&T Park jumped in on the college bowl game trend in 2002. The 41,503-seat stadium could hold 45,000 fans for football and could make for a cozy environment, but the cool temperatures right along McCovey Cove didn't make for the greatest conditions from a fan experience.

The final game in that stadium was in 2013, when BYU and Washington drew 34,136 fans. That was only slightly smaller than the announced crowd for last year's game between Stanford and Maryland, held in the San Francisco 49ers' new 68,500-seat Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

6. Yankee Stadium

Alex Goodlett/Getty Images

Where: Bronx, New York

The newest version of Yankee Stadium opened in 2009, a $2.3 billion behemoth built right next to the historic original Yankee Stadium. Since then, it's played host to four World Series games (all in that first year) but also five international soccer matches and eight college football games.

The Pinstripe Bowl has been played here since 2010, drawing at least 38,000 fans in each of its five editions. Last year's battle between Boston College and Penn State had a crowd of 49,012.

The other three games were regular-season contests, with Army facing Notre Dame in 2010, Rutgers in 2011 and Connecticut in 2014. Army and Rutgers were scheduled to play this weekend in Yankee Stadium, but the game was moved to Army's Michie Stadium during the spring.

Rutgers played in the 2011 and 2013 Pinstripe Bowls, and former linebacker Kevin Snyder wasn't pleased with the experience.

"Everybody always hyped it up, but I've played there two or three times now, and I really just don't like it," Snyder told Dan Duggan of NJ.com. "The fans are really far away. Everything is cockeyed the wrong way. The stadium is going one way, the field is diagonally the other way."

5. Marlins Park

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

Where: Miami

The then-Florida Marlins may very well have relocated to another city had they not managed to get the public funding needed to build a retractable-roof stadium in Miami in 2012. That enabled the now-Miami Marlins to move out of a football stadium (Sun Life Stadium, home of the Miami Dolphins) and into one meant strictly for baseball.

So naturally, two years later, Marlins Park also hosts a college football bowl game each December.

The inaugural Miami Beach Bowl was held last December, a thrilling game between BYU and Memphis that went to double overtime before Memphis came out on top. And then the craziness really started.

An ugly brawl broke out between Cougars and Tigers players as the crowd of 20,761 was preparing to file out into the late-afternoon warmth.

4. Croke Park/Aviva Stadium

Peter Morrison/Associated Press

Where: Dublin, Ireland

The NFL has been playing games in Europe for several years, and college football got in on the action in 2012 when Navy and Notre Dame opened the season before more than 48,000 fans at the newly constructed Aviva Stadium. Two years later, UCF and Penn State played before 53,000-plus at nearby Croke Park.

Boston College and Georgia Tech are set to play next September in Aviva, an ACC matchup that will mark the first time a conference game has been held outside of the U.S. since 1993, when Michigan State and Wisconsin played in Tokyo (per ESPN.com).

Both Aviva and Croke are soccer and rugby stadiums, making it easy to convert to football. Similar to the games the NFL has played in London's Wembley Stadium, it just means having a little more space on the sidelines than in a traditional football-only stadium.

3. Chase Field

MATT YORK/Associated Press

Where: Phoenix

The bowl game currently known as the Cactus Bowl has had four other names and nearly as many venues. The one not intended for football has provided the best atmosphere, which should make the return to Chase Field for the next three years exciting.

Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium hosted the bowl from 2006-15, most recently in January when Oklahoma State beat Washington before 35,409 fans. That facility is undergoing renovations that make it unusable the next three winters, so the home of baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks gets to have teams from the Big 12 and Pac-12 face off in downtown Phoenix.

Chase Field hosted the 2000-05 versions of this game (known then as the Insight Bowl) and drew better than 40,000 each time. The possibility of drawing either Arizona or ASU for this year's game could make for an even bigger crowd.

2. Tropicana Field

Alex Menendez/Getty Images

Where: Tampa, Florida

Though it's the home of baseball's Tampa Bay Rays, Tropicana Field has been home to football longer than any other sport. It opened in 1990, and its first fixed tenant was an Arena Football League team, followed by the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning before the Rays debuted in 1998.

It's never felt like a baseball stadium, though, with odd dimensions and a roof structure that routinely impedes with pop flies and home runs, but when used for football, it's gotten good reviews. This led to the St. Petersburg Bowl (and its various different names) being added to the bowl schedule in 2008, while in 2010, Tropicana Field was chosen to host the Under Armour High School All-America Game and has held that game every January since.

The St. Petersburg Bowl has drawn at least 20,000 in all seven years, with more than 26,000 attending last year's game that involved UCF. In comparison, the Rays were last in MLB in attendance this past season at 15,403 per game and haven't topped 20,000 fans per game since 2010.

1. Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium

Where: Nassau, Bahamas

Three words: Football in paradise.

Simply put, being located on a tropical island is what separates Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium from the rest of the pack. It's not very big—capacity is just over 15,000—but its normal use for soccer and track and field has it configured perfectly for football, not that the game itself matters when it's being played in the Bahamas in December.

The inaugural Bahamas Bowl drew an announced crowd of 13,667 last December to watch Central Michigan and Western Kentucky, a game that featured the wildest ending of the 2014 bowl season when Central Michigan used several laterals on its final play to score a touchdown...and then missed a two-point conversion for the win instead of going to overtime.

This year's game is set for Dec. 24, a Christmas Eve tilt scheduled to pit teams from Conference USA and the Mid-American Conference. It should make for a nice distraction from last-second present-wrapping and for when the first party guests show up.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.