I was trying to explain what Bum and Bud dying a few days apart from each other meant to a friend in MN last night. My friend asked was this like Mother Theresa and Princess Di dying a week apart (when many felt that Princess Di was getting a lot of undeserved attention from the death of someone who was more deserving). No, I said for Houstonians this would be like Mother Theresa and Hitler dying within a few days of each other.
Don't forget the minute Bud left, Uncle Drayton threatened to move the Astros to Northern Virginia. No one wanted to admit the Astrodome was done.
Helped build the local energy sector when a lot of it was still run out of New York, helped get pro ball across the entire continent when Halas and Bell wouldn't go west of the Mississippi or south of the Chesapeake. Kept the league from turning into MLB by enforcing caps and floors; and put his money where his mouth was while DeBartolo and Jones made a mockery of it.
Yet Bud was willing to pony up $50 million of his own money to get the ball rolling and in the end Houston paid more than 4 times as much money to get the Texans as it would have to keep the Oilers. Bud was not perfect, he was just a businessman who loved Houston and a fraternity brother of mine. Sigma Chi Bud Adams - may he rest in peace. DD
Yet nobody loved Bud. Not one businessman came to his side when he was petitioning the city for the new stadium. Not to mention, he would have zero support for a referendum, which would have failed miserably. Houston didn't pay the billion for the Texans... McNair did, with the support of the entire city. The stadium costs would have been comparable, accounting for inflation, again with a referendum passing due to large local business support. Also, "not perfect" is being too kind.
But the fact remains that if Bud had wanted the Oilers to stay in Houston, the Oilers would have stayed in Houston. Read "Loser Takes All", it lays out pretty well what an awful owner Bud Adams was. He was threatening to move as early as '64! He broke every lease he ever signed in Houston. He let Hofheinz do all the heavy lifting on the 'Dome and then threw a tantrum when he wasn't allowed to reap the rewards. He tried to cash in on the Rockets success in the mid-90's by trying to force them into becoming his tenant in a downtown multi-purpose dome and then took his ball and went home when Les declined. He is the sole reason the Oilers left.
It was all illusory, DaDa. Including the assurances made to the city that this Dome would be home to the Rockets. Hard to have much credibility when you misrepresent something like that in the midst of making these demands within a decade of asking the same city to spend $70 million on renovations to the Astrodome. No one took him seriously, because he stood on zero credibility with that whole mess. And then he signed a deal with Nashville where he had to negotiate with them exclusively for a year. Nothing Houston could do at that point. After that period expired, he was offered an open air stadium here in Houston...but he told us it was too late. He already signed the deal in Nashville during the exclusive negotiation period. Zero cred...he had cried wolf so many times before...we were still paying interest on bonds issued to pay his requested Dome renovations...and ultimately he ended up with a crappy stadium in Nashville. McNair's Texans are among the most valuable franchises in all of sports. Adams played his hand poorly...and he never built real relationships in the city he spent his entire professional career in.
The city paid 2x what it would had to for the oilers. Reliant is a TERRIBLE deal for the city like most stadiums are.
Interestingly, Arlington, TX made out like a bandit when Jerry Jones built Jerry World aka Cowboys Stadium aka AT&T Stadium aka the Death Star. Their contribution was capped at $300 million while Jerry (after watching the SuperBowl at Reliant Stadium) went nuts and ended up spending over $1 billion the majority of which came out of his pocket. Now, they have Jerry World for the next 30 years for a fraction of what it cost to build it. Now, this wasn't going to be the case with Bottom Line's proposal because he wanted the city to put up the majority of the money to build him a stadium where the revenue from luxury suites, PSLs and concessions ALL went into his pocket. This is a always overlooked by those trying to blame Lanier and the HSA for the Oilers' leaving.
Yeah, I was in Nashville some years ago and that stadium is most definitely not what you'd consider to be state of the art.
Accounting for inflation, both stadiums would have been comparable... and add to the fact that the Bud Dome would have been built in the non-retractable roof era (not that we are using the roof now), with less of the amenities that teams now look for in a stadium. Basically, they would have been building a Houston version of the Alamadome in San Antonio (built in 1993), or the Edwards Jones Dome in St. Louis (built in 1995) ... and low and behold, the Rams now considers that stadium obsolete and in need of major upgrades (or a new stadium altogether). The Rams are again a prime relocation candidate if they can't get a new stadium deal. So, you end up building a crappy (yet expensive) stadium for Bud, and he's likely looking for a new stadium or major renovations in just about 10-12 years... or else the team threatens to move (again). Say what you want about Reliant... and the lack of use of the roof... the entire stadium remains state-of-the-art (with the new video boards), and there's not a bad seat in the building. Also, the stadium was built well enough to attract two Super Bowls... you have to account for the economic impact of that (there will never be a Super Bowl in Nashville or St. Louis, given the current stadiums).
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piss on him. I will never forgive that A-hole for taking my football team away. He should have allowed us to keep the name and named the Texans the Oilers.
