From one of the world’s strangest stadiums we travel north to the United States with a stop at one of football’s most storied fields, Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri (thanks Lee Hahn for catching that!) for this Pléiades 1 Stadium of the Month.

Name & Its Origin: The name Arrowhead Stadium appears to be a reference to the logo of the National Football League (NFL) team, the Kansas City Chiefs, who play their home games here. The Chiefs were given this name in 1963 when they moved to Kansas City to honor Mayor H. Roe Bartle who was influential in moving the team to its current location.

Location: Arrowhead Stadium is located in southeast Kansas City surrounded by the neighborhoods of Cunningham Ridge, Ashland Ridge, Riss Lake and Eastwood Hill East. Arrowhead is located right next to the home of the Kansas City baseball team, the Royals, and is one mile from the Blue River at about 880 feet above sea level.

Stadium Capacity/Size, Architect & Build Date: In 1966, when the NFL merged with the old American Football League (AFL), it was announced that all stadiums must hold at least 50,000 fans. And since the old Municipal Stadium only held about 35,000 fans, Kansas City voted in 1967 to approve a new stadium. The new stadium, Arrowhead, was designed by Denver architect Charles Deaton and Steadman but was built by the local firm of Kivett & Myers. Arrowhead was completed in 1972 and then inaugurated on August 12, 1972. The original stadium held 78,097 fans and cost about $43 million to construct. Since that time, the stadium has been renovated several times, including in 2007 when $375 million was spent to improve onsite facilities such as food and beverage stands and the audio-visual systems. Today, Arrowhead holds 76,416 fans with 10,199 club seats.

Type of Field Surface: In 1994, the Chiefs replaced the playing turf at Arrowhead Stadium with natural grass which is purported to be Latitude 36 Bermuda Grass according to Wikipedia; but I could not verify this independently.

A 50-cm color image of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, USA collected on September 25, 2014 by Pléiades 1B. To see this stadium in SPOT 6/7 1.5-meter resolution check out this month’s feature on SPOTMaps. This image has custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. © CNES 2015, Distribution Airbus Defense and Space / Spot Image S.A., France, all rights reserved.

Key Sports Teams: Arrowhead Stadium is managed by the Kansas City Chiefs who is the only current tenant. From 1996 to 2008, the Major League Soccer (MLS) team, the Kansas City Wizards, also called the stadium home.

Most Popular Yearly Event: Without a question, the most popular events at Arrowhead are the eight home season games played by the Chiefs there. The stadium also hosts major sporting events such as the November 14^th college football game between the University of Missouri Tigers and the Brigham Young University Cougars; or the March 31^st game between the Mexican National Team and Paraguay’s.

Fun Factoids: (1) On September 29, 2014, fans at Arrowhead Stadium made enough noise to break the current world record for the loudest sports stadium crowd roar at 142.2 dbA. They took the crown back from the Seattle Seahawks who set the record a year before at 137.5 dbA. (2) When originally designed, the plan was for a common rolling roof that could cover either Arrowhead Stadium or Kauffman Stadium as needed. The plan was scraped as it was too complex to build and was later rejected again on a local 2008 ballot. (3) Arrowhead Stadium has 26,000 on-site parking spots. (4) In 2014, the Fan Cost Index for Arrowhead was $419.50 making it one of the lower cost games to see in the NFL; but it did increase 12% from the year before which was the second highest increase in this time, behind only the San Francisco 49ers who opened a new stadium that year.

The Pléiades 1 High-Resolution Satellite Constellation

The Pléiades 1 constellation (or at least part of it!) has been in orbit since December 2011 and if you have not had a chance to check out any sample imagery, take a few moments and have a look at the gallery on our website. If you work with high resolution imagery, you should consider Pléiades 1 for your next geospatial project.

A variety of Pléiades 1 products are available from both a growing archive and as a new collection, including 50-centimeter (cm) pansharpened imagery and 50-cm panchromatic – 2-meter (m) 4-band multispectral bundles. We are happy to discuss the technical specifications, pricing and tasking options available with this satellite constellation.

Working with Pléiades 1 since the launch of the first twin satellite, P1A, we have noticed that:

• Airbus Defense and Space is able to deliver on their tasking feasibilities.

The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about the high resolution satellite constellation, Pléiades 1. We can be reached anytime at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.

More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1A and 1B can be found on our website here.