Nothing would make me happier if the Texans could somehow get the name and colors from Bud. It'll never happen, but it's a nice dream, I guess.
Dang, the Titans really screwed up by not drafting the Tennessee alum Arian Foster!! He was playing in their backyard and they didn't even see it. I wonder how many Titans fans have become Texans fans because of Arian Foster. :grin: "If they don't draft hometown boy Foster, I'm DONE with the Titans!"
Bud threatens to move to Jacksonville in the 80s if we don't renovate the Dome. So we ruin the Dome by taking out the huge scoreboard and spent $95 million to put in more seats to satisfy Bud. Then, before we pay off the bonds for the Dome renovation, he wants a ridiculous new stadium that would include the Rockets (without Alexander's knowledge). The city says no and he bolts. How is that Bob Lanier's fault?
So we can't get back our history from Bud, but maybe his successor would be more willing to make a deal.
Some fault does lie with the Houston city leaders and with Drayton McLane. Also, in regards to the almost move to Jacksonville, had part of the stadium not collapsed during that time, they might just have moved back then. That said, f*** em'. GO TEXANS!
The Houston Oilers can't be 50 years old. The Tennessee Titans, maybe. One makes obnoxious gestures and isn't liked by many people... the other is a furry mascot.
To paraphrase an earlier post, my interest in pro football took a HUGE hit when AssBite Bud took the Oilers to TN. Couldn't follow the Titans, tried but just couldn't. Can't follow the Texans, didn't even try. Anyway, wifey is kinda glad I'm a one sport husband. Gooooo Rockets! Long Live the Houston Oilers!!!!
You are right. The Oilers died in the mid-90's. This would have been there 50th if they were still alive
It was the changing of the economic times, the Dome was too old....and Bud needed to keep up with other organizations with PSLs etc.... How is that Astrodome doing these days, anyway? Right after the Oilers left the Astros pulled the same crap and got Minute Maid... Bud even offered to pony up $60 million of his own money to help build the new facility.......Bud Adams gets a real bad rap in Houston, but IMO, he does not deserve it. He is an arse, but in all honesty, he is just a good businessman who brought football to Houston in the first place....and never wanted to leave, Lanier told him to stuff it, and he took a better offer. Lanier is as much at fault as Adams... DD
Too bad Bud didn't offer to pony up that $60 million when the city/county gave him $67 million in improvements to the Astrodome. There is still $30+ million in debt from the 1987 acquiesence to Bud.
Your post was most excellent, here is some snippets of it: http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-nfl-oilers-a-case-study-in-corporate-welfare/ -------------------------- The Mayor Refuses Lanier first declared that property taxes would not be used for any new sports facilities. Then, buttressed by polls in early 1994 showing that anywhere from 56 percent to 71 percent of the public thought the taxpayers should not finance a new dome for the Oilers, Lanier argued against any public funding. (Houston’s resolve against the Oilers may have had something to do with the team’s growing reputation as choke artists. In a 1993 playoff game, the Oilers blew a 35-3 halftime lead to lose to the Buffalo Bills—one of the greatest football collapses of all time.) Support from fellow team owners in Houston couldn’t be lined up either. Adams could not get the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets—playing in the city-owned Summit—interested in his deal as a co-tenant of the proposed facility, and Astros’ owner Drayton McLane also gave it a thumbs down. Mayor Lanier stuck by his refusal to put tax money into a new stadium. However, other taxpayer-funded schemes started to float about, like a $90-million upgrade for the Astrodome and $30 million for The Summit. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue came to town to aid Adams’s quest in mid-1994. In recent years, a major part of Tagliabue’s job has been to travel to cities where teams want the taxpayers to pay for new stadiums and to offer both carrots and sticks to state and local governments. He arrived in Houston promising that the city would host the Super Bowl one day if a new stadium was built for the Oilers. Amazingly, though, Lanier’s resolve only strengthened. He declared that he would not go along with “taking Joe Sixpack’s money and putting it into supporting a stadium . . . for owners with $100 million assets and players making $1-million-plus on salary.” The editorial page of the now-defunct Houston Post even chimed in with some down-home common sense: “If it is a good deal, private enterprise will do it.” Confronted by this unprecedented opposition, Adams once again drew the ultimate weapon: the threat of a move from the city. First, he pitted nearby county against county in a bid for a new stadium. Then, for good measure, the Oilers commissioned a study from a major accounting firm—the kind of study that ignores basic principles of economics, the failure of government industrial policy, and the efficiency of the private sector—which asserted that a new dome for the Oilers would be worth $20 million annually to Houston. Still, none of it turned the tide in Adams’s favor. Nashville Woos the Oilers So, in August 1995, he opened negotiations with the city of Nashville. Unlike Houston, Nashville and the state of Tennessee had wooed Adams. The city had long wanted to be “big league.” Mayor Phil Bredesen had already built a new hockey arena without a National Hockey League tenant; so he stood more than willing to build a football stadium for an actual NFL team. And Tennessee Governor Don Sundquist announced that state taxpayers also would be tapped to help bring the Oilers to Nashville. Back in Houston, Lanier started to crack. He offered a deal to build an open-air stadium for Adams. But Adams decided it was too little too late, and besides, it supposedly was too hot to play outside in Houston. A deal between the Oilers and Nashville was announced in November 1995. -------------------------------------- DD
I'm so tired of the "who's to blame" discussion for the Oilers leaving. Ancient history. I hope the Texans beat the ever-living dog crap out of them.
