More seats for FedEx Field

The Washington Redskins are adding another 5,000 seats to FedEx Field, the third significant expansion in four years to the NFL’s largest stadium.

The new seats, located primarily along the back of sections 114-129 on the visitors’ side of the field, will push FedEx Field’s capacity to nearly 92,000, or about 12,000 seats more than the league’s second-largest facility, Giants Stadium.

Redskins officials last year planned to add seats to FedEx Field, but only if the team was successful in bringing a future Super Bowl to the 7-year-old stadium. The Washington Super Bowl effort failed last October, and the project was shelved. But red-hot ticket demand fueled by the celebrated return of coach Joe Gibbs quickly revived the effort, and the new seats will be installed in time for the August preseason. The exact capacity figure will be determined by early summer.

“There was always huge ticket demand, but Joe obviously made our capacity issue that much more imperative,” said Karl Swanson, Redskins vice president. “This better addresses that demand and gives us some flexibility for people wanting to relocate in the stadium.”

As many as 12 new luxury suites, bringing the Redskins’ total to 246, also are part of the expansion, as is a slight enlargement of the end zone loge sections. That suite total trails only the Dallas Cowboys, which have 370 luxury boxes at Texas Stadium. But Washington, which has led the NFL in attendance the last four seasons and revenues for at least the past three, can only extend its economic dominance with the additional seats.

Despite the additions to the luxury seating, 90 percent of the expansion will be general seating, Swanson said. Prices for those seats peak at $79 a game.

The expansion project, projected to cost more than $12million, was first reported by trade publication Sports Business Journal. FedEx Field has undergone several additions to its seating capacity since opening in 1997. After seating 78,600 in that first season, then-team president John Kent Cooke added 1,516 seats. The Redskins and current owner Dan Snyder then conducted a major expansion in 2000, adding more than 5,000 seats, scattered throughout the facility. Snyder than added another 1,077 seats in 2001, primarily in the club level, bringing FedEx Field to a capacity of 86,484 that stood for the 2001-03 seasons.

The return of Gibbs has eliminated several years of softness in the team’s ticket sales. Despite a waiting list that now extends to nearly 90,000 names for general season tickets, fans for several seasons could easily buy club seats without waiting. Such seats start at $2,200 per season and require a multi-year commitment.