According to Philadelphia Eagles president Don Smolenski, the team's two-year stadium revitalization plan at Lincoln Financial Field is "99% complete" and will be finished soon. This project, which started in February 2012, includes a number of changes that were made Eagles' home stadium.
Some of these updates include:
• 2 new bridges constructed in the Southwest and Northeast corners that will allow fans in the upper concourse and the club level to easily walk from the home side to the visitor side without going to the main concourse
• 354 Murals and images added to the upper and main concourses as a well as the suit and club levels
• 1,185 Brand new Panasonic HD TVs were installed throughout the stadium
• 1,626 total seats were added to all levels of the building, including the lower bowl, mid level and upper level, bringing total number of seats in stadium to 69,176
• 22,000 total square feet of new HD videos boards compared to the previous quantity of 6,370 square feet - The highest-resolution video boards in the NFL
The Eagles were kind enough to give a media tour of their updates before Lincoln Financial Field hosts an Eagles training camp practice open to the public on Monday, July 28th (tomorrow). I was able to attend the tour. Here's what I saw:
A look at the new and improved Linc pic.twitter.com/DbNYOFqnXo
— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) July 25, 2014
The photo below photo he new seating at the Northeast corner. Perhaps this will benefit towards increasing crowd volume. At the least, it's extra seating.
Below is the view from the top of the Northeast bridge. Hardly a bad view.
This is what it looks like inside the Eagles club level. Note the big video screen. Smolenski noted that the yellow area that you will see on the wall is going to be replaced by team graphics before the regular season starts. He also noted that a few stairways were removed in the club area to make more room inside.
The short video below features and area that reportedly just used to have tables and chairs. It's now a full blown concession market.
The signs below are new. The one on the right, as you can see, sticks out from the wall. The one on the left features bigger font and is closer to the inside than the old overhang sign. Smolenski said these changes were made to help fans find their seats more easily.
360 view from the new Southwest bridge.
Definitely one of the coolest parts of the tour... going into Lincoln Financial Field's scoreboard control room. There is a lot of technology in here.
360 view of the video board updates from the field.
Photo of the new video board. It's so large that I had to step back a good distance to totally fit it in the frame. And even then I couldn't.
Video demo of the new big video board. The distortion you see is obviously from my phone and not the actual board.
When the tour was over, I scored a touchdown.
Oh and one last thing: this area below, which Smolesnki calls the "Tech Tower" is going to have real time fantasy football updates and scores around the league. Cool stuff.
Fantasy football updates can be found at the NW end of the Linc. pic.twitter.com/B9lIev4ze3
— Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) July 25, 2014
When the tour was finished, Smolenski fielded questions from the media and was asked if the changes to the stadium had been done with the Super Bowl in mind. While Smolenski denied that sentiment and instead claimed the changes were made with the fans in mind, he wasn't shy to note that he feels Lincoln Financial Field is as well-equipped as any potential Super Bowl host.
Overall, I'd say The Linc looks pretty great. It's no secret that fans care most about a winning team, but these improvements do deserve some appreciation.