{{No footnotes, date=October 2020
Octorad is a term coined to describe a style of
stadium
A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...
architecture in the late 1960s. The term suggests eight radiuses, the design incorporating four
arc
ARC may refer to:
Business
* Aircraft Radio Corporation, a major avionics manufacturer from the 1920s to the '50s
* Airlines Reporting Corporation, an airline-owned company that provides ticket distribution, reporting, and settlement services
* ...
s of a large circle to comprise most of the structure, and four arcs of a smaller circle to round out the corners. It was a variant on the archetypal multi-purpose stadiums of the time, many of which were either conventionally circular or oval, and were often criticized for poor sight line angles for many spectators at baseball and
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
games.
The most prominent examples of the octorad style were San Diego Stadium in San Diego, which opened in 1967 and was demolished in 2021; and Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, which opened in 1971 and was demolished in 2004.
Both stadiums accomplished the goal of providing better sight lines for spectators. However, the architecture of those two stadiums still put a large majority of the fans far away from the action.
Other terms sometimes used for this design were " super circle" and "square circle".
File:Superellipse rounded diamond.svg
File:Qualcomm Stadium-baseball.jpg
File:Veterans stade.png