Lumen Field Near Bottom Of Study Ranking Cleanest NFL Stadiums

A new study ranking the cleanliness of all 30 National Football League (NFL) stadiums has revealed there may be more dirty birds in Seattle than you might think.

The study, which was conducted and published by Betway Insider, used a computer algorhythm to scour travel sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp for reviews containing words such as "clean" and "tidy" or "dirty" and "stinky".

Seattle's Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, came in 20th on the list with an overall rating of 2.576, placing it over a full point behind the study's rank for cleanest NFL venue - Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, which posted a benchmark score of 3.680.

Now, I don't know about you, but I find it rather ironic that a stadium which is named after one of the most notorious substances for wreaking environmental havoc was named the league's cleanest, but that's the handshake between the NFL and corporate money for ya.

The study's second-cleanest NFL digs also involve the namesake of something that uses oil, that being Detroit's Ford Field, which was followed by Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, and Everbank Stadium in Jacksonville at spots three through five.

As for the study's filthiest place to take in an NFL game, at least Seahawks fans can have pride in being far less likely to cheer while standing in someone else's unmopped vomit or use the restroom without contracting hepatitis than they are in our nation's capital.

FedEx Field, the home of the Washington Commanders, came in dead last in the study by a wide margin with a rating of just 1.037; which means going to a football game in D.C. just might be as dangerous by public health standards as walking around in Brentwood or Anacostia after dark without a side piece by criminal barometers.

Get our free mobile app

Believe it or not, the brand new, state-of-all-arts, high-tech, crown jewel of the league's 30 Circus Maximi - Sofi Stadium in Inglewood, California (home of the Rams and Chargers) - came in next-to-last with a rating of 1.409. I guess that just serves to further underscore the fact that 70,000-square-foot Jumbotrons and self-flushing motion-sensing toilets will always be trumped in fan voting by finding a human finger in your popcorn or fecal matter smeared on the walls of the men's room spelling out "We're #2!".

The remaining three places where NFL patrons should feel the most shame and in need of a tetanus shot while watching their favorite bloodsport were ranked as Lambeau Field in Green Bay, the New Orleans Superdome, and Cleveland Browns Stadium - which does earn more than a modicum of respect from me for being about the only venue in the league that hasn't sold its concrete soul to the namesake of a corporate sponsor - dirty or not. Hey, it's still better to have a grimy nosebleed section and a clean soul. I mean, after all, cleanliness is still next godliness is it not?

As for the Hawks' nest at Lumen Field, it seems to have fairly robust ratings on both TripAdvisor and Yelp (with 4.5 and 4.1 stars out of 5 respectively), with many fans boasting about its friendly staff, comfortable seating, and safe atmosphere. But among the volumes of praise one can also find a glut of words an algorhythm programmed to find the Grinch in all things might spy as being unattractive, including reviews that henpecked at its subpar crowd control measures, poor-quality food, and one person who said there are too many people spitting during Seahawks games.

In the end, I suppose squalor is squalor and pristine is pristine, but most public reviews of just about anything are far from empirical and highly subjective. So if you've been to a Seahawks game and felt good about going past the ol' five-second rule when dropping your Milk Duds on the concourse, I say, who cares about what some silly robot-minded study says. Go enjoy yourself!...but do keep an eye out for rats and roaches, along with any severed body parts or egregious amounts of bodily fluids in the wrong place.

If you'd like to view the complete rankings, click here.