Opened in 1923, the venue currently seats around 63,000 for football;[7] its playing field runs northwest to southeast at an approximate elevation of 410 feet (125 m) above sea level.

[8] It has been named one of the top college football stadiums by various publications,[9][10] and it was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on November 27, 2006.

The chair of the architectural committee was John Galen Howard, the university's chief architect, and his influence is evident in the stadium's neoclassical motif.

However, by 1904, California's football team had become so popular that West Field became too small, therefore, the university decided to build a new stadium with an excess of 20,000 seats.

The new stadium was located much closer to the center of campus (where Hearst Gymnasium now stands) and was able to draw unprecedented crowds for the time.

California Field is also where the Golden Bears gained national prominence under head coach Andrew Latham Smith.

With the funding secured, the university broke ground in January 1923 hoping to open the new stadium in time for the 1923 Big Game.

Both teams were having a good season in 1923 with California going undefeated up to that point (with a tie to Nevada) and Stanford going into the Big Game with a record of 7–1.

Due to the seismic vulnerability of the old press box, the University of California dismantled the structure and installed a temporary facility that stood until the 2010 season.

[13] The capacity of the refurbished stadium is now 63,186, and was sold out for the first game of the 2012 season in a 31-24 Cal loss against the University of Nevada Wolf Pack.

[15][16] On March 23, 1962, to commemorate Charter Day (the anniversary of the founding of the University of California), President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at Memorial Stadium in front of an above capacity crowd of 88,000.

[17][18] Real Madrid and Inter Milan played at Memorial Stadium on July 26, 2014, one of their matches in the 2014 International Champions Cup.

The Raiders ended the Dolphins' NFL record 18-game winning streak with a 12–7 victory on four field goals by 45-year-old George Blanda on September 23.

However, the grant of the injunction was reversed by the California Court of Appeals, who found it to be a revenue measure, despite the fact that the city had made the measure immediately effective "due to danger to the public peace, health, and safety of the City of Berkeley as a result of the holding of professional sports events there.

"[22] Originally a natural grass field, AstroTurf was installed in Memorial Stadium in 1981 and remained for fourteen seasons.

[13] This allowed for minimal maintenance and increased utilization of the stadium, for football practices and other sports, on the space-limited campus.

[12] A 1998 seismic safety study on the California campus gave the stadium a "poor" rating (meaning that the building represents an "appreciable life hazard" in an earthquake), and estimated the cost of making the structure safe at $14 million.

Phase I consisted of building the 142,000-square-foot (13,200 m2) Simpson Center for Student-Athlete High Performance next to the west wall of the stadium.

The center was built to be the home of football and 12 of California's Olympic sports that were previously housed in Memorial Stadium.

Phase I of the renovations were originally scheduled to begin the spring and summer of 2006 but was delayed by a court injunction due to three lawsuits against the project.

A small group of tree-sitters occupied the oak grove on the west side of the stadium beginning on the "Big Game" day in December 2006 but in September 2008 the court injunction was lifted, the protesters came down, and construction of the athletic center began.

The surface of the field was lowered four feet to improve the view from the lowest midfield seats on the west side, which previously were blocked by standing visiting team members.

Before the start of the stadium reconstruction, Professor Brian Barsky showed that the financial plan was unrealistic and calculated that although $215 million had been claimed to have been raised as of January 15, 2010, the true figure was closer to only about $20 million as of December 2010, and that the total financial obligation including interest would exceed a billion dollars.

[34] On November 3, 2017, Chancellor Carol Christ announced that the university would overtake the earthquake retrofitting expenses part of the renovation.

Except the historic façade, the entire west side of the stadium was demolished, allowing the university to make the venue seismically safe, and add modern amenities.