Empower Field at Mile High

To the west is Empower Field at Mile High, home of the Denver Broncos. The stadium opened on August eleventh, two thousand one, replacing the original Mile High Stadium that stood beside it. Construction cost roughly four hundred million dollars, designed by the firms HNTB and Fentress Architects.

It seats seventy-six thousand one hundred twenty-five for football. The elevation here is five thousand two hundred eighty feet, exactly one mile above sea level, which is where the name comes from. That altitude affects visiting teams, who often struggle in the thinner air late in games.

The Broncos have sold out every home game since the building opened, extending a streak that began at the old stadium back in nineteen seventy. Inside, metal flooring lets fans stomp their feet to create a rumble called Mile High Thunder, a tradition carried over from the original stadium. When a Broncos player scores, you may see the Mile High Salute, a military-style salute to the crowd that running back Terrell Davis started in the nineteen nineties.

Up on the main scoreboard stands Bucky, a thirty-foot bucking bronco. On game days a live gray Arabian horse named Thunder gallops the length of the field after every score, a tradition that began in nineteen ninety-three.