Carver-Hawkeye Arena

Look, nobody’s saying that Kinnick Stadium is a bad place to catch the action. The point is that Carver-Hawkeye Arena is just the better of two very different venues. While the arenas boast different capacities, features, and atmospheres, Carver has achieved significantly more in less time and with less space, holding only 15,500 people compared to Kinnick’s capacity of 69,250.

Since 1929, Kinnick has been a football stadium. While traditions like Iowa’s wave to the hospital at the end of every first quarter make it a truly special place to be, any lackluster season for the football team leads to lower turnout and attendance, even as the price of tickets for popular games against rivals like Iowa State skyrockets.

In contrast, while attendance for some sports like men’s basketball has also fluctuated, women’s basketball tickets have sold out in back-to-back seasons, one of which didn’t even have Caitlin Clark or Lisa Bluder. And of course, adding in wrestling as a Hawkeye staple sweetens the deal.

You also can not discredit the exhibition games, either. Sure, Kinnick hosts every other Cy-Hawk game, with thousands of fans paying a king’s ransom for tickets, but every season sees the football team face a few non-conference opponents at Duke Slater Field, such as Illinois State to open last season, before running the usual gauntlet of Big Ten foes.

Carver has hosted Olympic exhibition games featuring a young Michael Jordan, an international contest between the Brazilian National Team and the Indiana Fever, and a record-breaking 22,157 people for a 1985 women’s basketball contest against Ohio State.

In contrast, the most comparable event hosted at the football stadium was the Crossover at Kinnick, but that wasn’t even a football game; it was an outdoor women’s basketball game. 55,646 people didn’t come for the field or the nice weather; they came for the program.

That same program has given Carver a massive attendance bump in recent years, and with other sports’ acquisitions like men’s basketball’s departure from Fran McCaffery to Ben McCollum, Carver is only growing in popularity.

From tickets selling out to guests from around the world, Carver-Hawkeye Arena is the better venue, and it holds that honor with less than a quarter of Kinnick’s capacity.

Kinnick Stadium

Nothing beats the Kinnick Stadium experience. The nearly 100-year-old stadium regularly sells out, no matter how good the Hawkeyes are or the caliber of opponent coming to town.

The atmosphere on Iowa football gamedays is unmatched, and it all starts long before the gates to Kinnick are cracked open.

Some Saturdays start as early as six a.m. for the Hawkeye faithful, as they load up their trucks and head towards the corner of Melrose Avenue and Hawkins Drive to set up their tailgate. Tailgating is very common across all schools, but the experience in Iowa City is unrivaled.

With nearly every parking lot within a two-mile radius packed full of grills, tents, coolers, and yard games, Iowa fans prepare for the showdown in Kinnick. The Iowa fanbase is like a family, and the tailgating experience enhances that feeling for all fans.

Once the gates open, fans begin to migrate into the stadium, anxious to cheer on the Hawkeyes with half a buzz and a full stomach. Once “Back in Black” by ACDC seeps through the speakers, Kinnick begins to tremble as Iowa takes the field.

After a hard-fought first quarter of cheering, booing, and criticizing referees, the Hawkeye faithful puts aside all differences with the opponent, and turns to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital for The Wave.

The Wave is known as one of the best traditions in all of sports, let alone college football. Each person, whether for the Hawkeyes or otherwise, waves to the children in the Hospital across the street. The children all wave back to all 70,000 people inside of Kinnick, giving them hope and strength to battle through whatever ailment they have.

As someone who hadn’t been to an Iowa football game in nearly ten years before last season, getting the opportunity to be a part of the best tradition in college sports was truly a humbling experience.

Even though I have been in Carver way more often than I’ve been in Kinnick, I still believe that Kinnick Stadium is the superior venue. The tradition, tailgating, and gameday experience is something that Carver just cannot match year in and year out.