From one of America’s smallest stadiums in Miami, Florida, we travel across the country to the site of the just concluded Super Bowl 50 (yep, guess we ran this article a bit late, haha!), Levi’s Stadium, located in a suburb of San Francisco, California, for this stop on the Pléiades 1 Stadium of the Month.

Name & Its Origin: On May 8, 2013, the American football team, the San Francisco 49ers, announced a 20-year, $220 million deal which gave the stadium’s naming rights to the San Fran-based company, Levi Strauss & Co, hence the name Levi’s Stadium.

Location: Levi’s Stadium is located about 35 miles southeast of San Francisco in Santa Clara, California. Santa Clara is actually much closer to San Jose (about 5 miles away) which has not gone unnoticed by the 49ers fans who have had to travel much farther than in the past to see their beloved team. Levi’s Stadium is about 15 feet above sea level.

Stadium Capacity/Size, Architect & Build Date: The architect for Levi’s Stadium, Fernando Vazquez, sadly passed away in April 2015, just a year or so after the stadium hosted its first event on August 2, 2014, a Major League Soccer match between the San Jose Earthquakes and the Seattle Sounders. The 68,500-seat Levi’s Stadium was designed by HTNB and then built by Turner/Devcon from April 2012 to July 17, 2014 – its official opening date. In 2010, the stadium was projected to cost $937 million but in the end the build out ran $1.31 billion with $114 million paid for by the City of Santa Clara, $263 million by the 49ers and the National Football League (NFL) and $933 million by the Stadium Authority – a public agency created by the City to manage the project and to assure local tax dollars did not pay for the stadium.

Type of Field Surface: Levi’s Stadium features a natural grass field but unfortunately the variety of grass is unclear. What is clear is that the stadium has one of the worst fields in all of football, with repeated problems even in the 2015 season.

A 50-cm color image of Levi’s Stadium collected on November 27, 2015 by Pléiades 1B. To see this stadium in SPOT 6/7 1.5-meter resolution (and even collected on the same day!) check out this month’s feature on SPOTMaps. This image has custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. © CNES 2016, Distribution Airbus Defense and Space / Spot Image S.A., France, all rights reserved.

Key Sports Teams: The San Francisco 49ers call Levi’s Stadium home, paying the city $24.5 million a year for use of the facility. During the 2014-2015 NFL season, Santa Clara netted $2.8 million to the general city fund after paying for the stadium’s expenses.

Most Popular Yearly Event: Levi’s Stadium hosts eight home games for the San Francisco 49ers each year, and in 2015 they sold an average of 70,799 tickets per game or 103.4% of the stated capacity. Besides these eight games, Levi’s Stadium hosts a wide range of sporting events and concerts including WrestleMania 31, Major League Soccer games, international soccer friendlies and two shows of the 2015 Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead tour which drew more than 83,000 fans!

Fun Factoids: (1) There is a 27,000 square foot green roof on the stadium’s suite tower. (2) Levi’s Stadium features 40 Gigabytes (Gb) per second of Internet capacity – imagine how fast you could download a movie here if no one else was online with you! (3) There are two video screens in the stadium, each 48-feet tall by 200-feet wide, making them the largest of their kind at any outdoor stadium (at least as of 2014 that is). (4) Visitors can download the Levi’s Stadium App which lets them see which bathroom has the shortest line as well as order food from their seats.

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.