Choctaw Stadium
Choctaw Stadium, formerly Globe Life Park, is a multi-purpose stadium in Arlington, Texas, United States. The venue opened in April 1994 as a baseball stadium with the name The Ballpark in Arlington, serving as the home for the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball from 1994 through 2019. It replaced the nearby Arlington Stadium, and was succeeded by Globe Life Field.
In 2020, the stadium was retrofitted for football and soccer. It is the current home of the North Texas SC of MLS Next Pro, and the Arlington Renegades of the UFL.
On August 25, 2021, Choctaw Casinos & Resorts bought the naming rights to the stadium.
History
In April 1989, Rangers owner Eddie Chiles sold the team to an investment group headed by George W. Bush. The aging Arlington Stadium was outdated and did not have amenities that helped make other baseball franchises more profitable. As a result, the team could not compete with other big-city teams for good players. In an effort to fund the project through public money instead of private financing, the Rangers threatened to leave Arlington. The city of Arlington spent $150,000 on an advertising campaign to persuade voters to approve the funding through a referendum by printing brochures, placing telemarketing calls, and planning a "Hands Around Arlington Day." On January 19, 1991, over 65% of voters approved the deal, allowing the city government to cover 71% of the costs of building the new ballpark. The deal called for the city to raise the sales tax by half a cent to go toward construction. Both houses of the Texas Legislature unanimously approved the public purpose of the ballpark, and Texas Governor Ann Richards signed it all into law.As part of the deal, the city created a separate corporation, the Arlington Sports Facilities Development Authority, to manage construction. Using authority granted to it by the city, the ASFDA seized several tracts of land around the stadium site using eminent domain for parking and future development.
Construction on the stadium, which was dubbed The Ballpark in Arlington, began on April 2, 1992, a short distance away from Arlington Stadium, the stadium it would replace, and the new Ballpark in Arlington opened on April 1, 1994, in an exhibition contest between the Rangers and the New York Mets. The first official game was on April 11 against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Ameriquest bought the naming rights to the ballpark on May 7, 2004, and renamed it Ameriquest Field in Arlington. The Rangers severed their relationship with Ameriquest on March 19, 2007, and announced the park would be renamed Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.
The largest crowd to watch a Rangers baseball game was on October 30, 2010, when 52,419 fans watched Game 3 of the 2010 World Series against the San Francisco Giants.
Globe Life and Accident Insurance Company, a subsidiary of McKinney-based Globe Life, bought the naming rights for the facility on February 5, 2014, naming it Globe Life Park in Arlington.
On May 20, 2016, the Rangers announced that they intended to move from Globe Life Park to the new Globe Life Field, beginning with the 2020 season. The new air conditioned stadium was slated to feature a retractable roof, which many argued could increase stadium revenue from those who would otherwise not want to sit in the heat during games as the season progresses throughout the hot Texas summer, in particular those that occur in the afternoon. Voting for the new ballpark began on November 8 for residents in the city limits of Arlington. The ballpark was passed with a 60% favorable vote. The stadium opened in the 2020 season.
The new stadium was built south of Globe Life Park, on the site of a surface parking lot between Randol Mill Road and Cowboys Way. Space between the new stadium and Globe Life Park was constructed into an entertainment complex called Texas Live!, developed by The Cordish Companies, which, when finished, is slated to include sports bars, restaurants, and a 300-room hotel to be developed in three phases. The first phase, dubbed "Rangers Republic", is a two-level venue with multiple restaurants and providing interactive games and authentic memorabilia; the second phase is the Live! Arena, a multi-level venue providing restaurants, a performance stage for concerts, and an outdoor beer garden; Arlington Backyard, the third venue to anchor the entertainment district calls for a large, covered venue that could host concerts, charitable functions, and community events.
File:Midwestern State vs. Texas A&M–Commerce football 2021 01.jpg|thumb|Choctaw Stadium before the Midwestern State Mustangs vs. Texas A&M–Commerce Lions football game in 2021
Unlike Arlington Stadium, Choctaw Stadium was not demolished. Originally, city officials announced that they would redevelop the structure as part of the Texas Live! complex. The redevelopment would have retained the ballpark's outfield office complex and facade, and most of the concourse would have been re-purposed. Potential uses included redeveloping the concourse for condos and retail, as well as turning the current field into an amphitheater. On December 5, 2018, city officials announced that the stadium would become the home of the Dallas Renegades of the new XFL, beginning with the league's debut in 2020. North Texas SC, a USL League 1 team also announced they would play at the renovated stadium. Many of the park's lower sections, mostly on the third base side, were removed to make room for the rectangular field which sits horizontally when viewed from behind the home plate. New seats were then added to where the ballpark's outfield once lay.
On September 29, 2019, after the Rangers' last home game against the New York Yankees, home plate was removed and transferred to the new park. The renovation project of the stadium from a baseball facility into a football and soccer facility began in October. In December 2019, Six Flags Entertainment Corp. announced the company would move its corporate headquarters the following year to the Centerfield Office Building formerly occupied by the Rangers.
Features
Design
The stadium was designed by the Driehaus Prize winner and New Classical architect David M. Schwarz of Washington, D.C. The Rangers chose to build a retro-style ballpark, incorporating many features of baseball's Jewel Box parks. A roofed home run porch in right field is reminiscent of Tiger Stadium, while the white steel frieze that surrounds the upper deck was copied from the pre-1973 Yankee Stadium. The out-of-town scoreboard was built into the left-field wall—a nod to Fenway Park. The numerous nooks and crannies in the outfield fence are a reminder of Ebbets Field. The arched windows are a reminder of Comiskey Park.However, it has a few distinct features of its own. Several traditional Texas-style stone carvings are visible throughout. A four-story office building encloses center field with a white steel multilevel facade similar to the facade on the roof.
As the stadium was built on one of the former Arlington Stadium parking lots, the irregular dimensions of the outfield were planned independently, rather than being forced by neighboring structures. The home plate, foul poles, and bleachers were originally at Arlington Stadium. The Home Plate was inserted into place by Richard Greene, Elzie Odom, and George W. Bush.
The stadium's -long facades are made of brick and Texas Sunset Red granite. Bas-relief friezes depict significant scenes from the history of both Texas and baseball. The calculus of seating arrangements represented a new economic model for the sport: a critical mass of high-dollar seats close to the infield boost ticket revenue. The stadium has three basic seating tiers: lower, club and upper deck. Two levels of luxury suites occupy spaces behind sliding glass doors above and below the club tier.
The stadium has a large number of obstructed-view seats. In some cases, the view is cut off by an overhang or underhang, and others are directly in front of support poles. Also, the design of the upper deck left it one of the highest in baseball. The view from the grandstand reserved sections in left is particularly obstructed.
Prior to the 2012 season, the visitor bullpen was reconfigured to be parallel to the field after the previous visitor bullpen configuration had an excessive amount of heat during hot weather games. To allow construction, a few rows of bleacher sections were removed.
Greene's Hill
Greene's Hill is a sloped section of turf located beyond the former center field fence. The Hill served as a batter's eye, providing a contrasting background behind the pitchers which enabled hitters to more easily see the baseball after the pitcher's release. It was originally designed as a picnic area for fans but the Rangers never initiated that policy. It was named after former Arlington mayor Richard Greene in November 1997. For a couple of years in the 2000s, the Rangers had the "T" from the Texas Rangers logo mowed into the grass. In 2010, the Rangers started a tradition where they had four girls run around on it with giant Texas state flags when the Rangers scored, similar to what many football teams do when their teams score. Unlike most batter's eyes, fans were allowed to run onto the hill to catch a home run.Seating capacity
The stadium contains 5,704 club seats and 126 luxury suites.Field dimensions
During the stadium's existence as a baseball park, it was one of baseball's most notoriously hitter-friendly parks, due to the high temperatures, relatively short fences, and the design of the stadium which allowed the area's high winds to swirl and lift balls that would not normally make it out. In truth, the park would have given up even more home runs if not for the office building in center and the field being below street level.With a combination of the park's design and the many good hitters who played for the Rangers during the team's tenure in the park, the Rangers recorded fairly high home run totals. In 1996, the Rangers hit 221 home runs. They eclipsed 200 again in 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. Many of the Rangers' already-skilled hitters took advantage of this, some even racking up multiple 30+ home run seasons, such as Ian Kinsler, Adrián Beltré, and Josh Hamilton. The longest home run recorded was 505 feet to right field by Rangers RF Nomar Mazara on June 21, 2019.
Dimensions
| Dimension | Distance |
| Left Field | |
| Left Center Field | |
| Center Field | |
| Right Center Field | |
| Right Field |