This game is best remembered for the often-replayed collision at home plate between Reds star Pete Rose and catcher Ray Fosse of the Cleveland Indians.

Riverfront was a multi-purpose, circular "cookie-cutter" stadium, one of many built in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s as communities sought to save money by having their football and baseball teams share the same facility.

One feature of Riverfront that distinguished it from other cookie-cutters was that the field level seats for baseball were divided in half directly behind home plate, with the third-base side stands wheeled to left field and the ones on the first-base side remaining stationary for conversion to a football seating configuration.

The site Riverfront Stadium sat on originally included the 2nd Street tenement, birthplace and boyhood home of cowboy singer and actor Roy Rogers, who joked that he was born "somewhere between second base and center field."

Place, SkyDome) installed sliding pits as the original layout, and the existing artificial turf fields in San Francisco, Houston, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis would change to the cut-out configuration within the next few years after Riverfront's opening.

Despite Cincinnati's love of baseball, it was the prospect of a professional football team that finally moved the city to end 20 years of discussion and build a new stadium on the downtown riverfront.

The win earned the Bengals their first of two trips to the Super Bowl (XVI) while playing at Riverfront Stadium, and the first of three in team history overall.

Riverfront Stadium hosted the 1988 AFC Championship Game, as the Bengals beat the Buffalo Bills 21–10 to advance to their second Super Bowl appearance.

During the Bengals' tenure, they defeated every visiting franchise at least once, enjoying perfect records against the Arizona Cardinals (4-0), New York Giants (4-0), and Philadelphia Eagles (3-0).

They posted a 5–1 record in playoff games played in Riverfront Stadium, with victories over the Buffalo Bills (twice), San Diego Chargers, Seattle Seahawks, and Houston Oilers.

Until the late 1990s, there wasn't a logo at midfield or any writing in the end zone, which had long become standard in NFL stadiums.

Prior to the 2001 baseball season, the stadium was remodeled into a baseball-only configuration, and the artificial turf surface being replaced with natural grass.

In the Reds' final two seasons in the stadium, ongoing construction on Great American was plainly visible just beyond the outfield walls while the team played their games.