| The
home of the USFL's Houston Gamblers was billed as the
"eighth wonder of the world" when its doors
opened in 1965 as the "Harris County Domed
Stadium." Built as the home of baseball's
Houston Astros, the facility was the first in the
so-called "cookie cutter era" of stadium
building: round, coliseum-style facilities capable
of hosting different types of events, but incapable of
being perfectly suited to any of them. The AFL's
Houston Oilers became tenants in 1968, but after three
decades would leave for Tennessee when the City of
Houston dragged their feet on requests to replace the
facility. It would only be after the Houston
Astros also threatened to leave town that the city
acted, building new facilities for both baseball and
football. By
the time the Gamblers came on the scene in 1983, the
Astrodome was already beginning to show signs of
age. Rats were sometimes seen at Astrodome events,
not enhancing the image of the facility or the
team. Not that it mattered - despite having Jim
Kelly behind center and the best young receiving corps
in all of pro football, despite a 1984 debut season that
saw the Gamblers go 13-5-0 and win the USFL Central
Division, attendance averaged less than half of the
stadium's capacity, and by 1985 attendance had dropped
below an average of 20,000.
Today, save the periodic event, the Astrodome is vacant,
dwarfed in popularity and size by its replacement,
Reliant Stadium, which was opened in 2002 as home to
Houston's new NFL team, the Texans. As part of the
deal to build the new stadium, Reliant received naming
rights to the Astrodome as well.
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HOUSTON
ASTRODOME |
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Houston,
Texas |
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(pictured
at right, next to
Reliant Stadium) |
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