Albertsons Stadium

Albertsons Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the Western United States, located on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. It is the home of the Boise State Broncos of the Pac-12 Conference. Known as Bronco Stadium for its first 44 seasons, it was renamed in May 2014 when Albertsons, a chain of grocery stores founded by Boise area resident Joe Albertson, purchased the naming rights. Opened 56 years ago in 1970, it was also a track & field stadium and hosted the NCAA track & field championships twice, in 1994 and 1999. The stadium was used extensively for local high school football for decades until August 2012, when games were transferred a few blocks northeast to the new Dona Larsen Park, which is also the new home venue of Boise State's track & field team. Albertsons Stadium is widely known for its unusual blue playing surface, installed in 1986, while Boise State was in the Big Sky Conference. It was the first non-green playing surface (outside of painted end zones) in football history and remained the only one among NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools for almost 20 years. It is one of only three non-green playing surfaces in the FBS, along with the Eastern Michigan Eagles' Rynearson Stadium and the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers' Brooks Stadium. Since 1997, it has hosted the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl (known as the Humanitarian Bowl and the MPC Computers Bowl prior to 2011), which is the longest-running outdoor bowl game in a cold-weather venue.