There is a lot of venom displayed for the Titans and for Bud Adams in particular. I was an Oiler fan before most of you were born. Bob Talamni spoke at my pee-wee football banquet in 1965. I worked for the Oilers at their summer camp in 1973 at Shriner Institute in Kerrville and at home games that following season. I drove John Matuszak, Gregg Bingham, and Joe Blahak to Kerrville from the San Antonio airport after the College All-Star Game. I BLED COLUMBIA BLUE AS MUCH AS ANYBODY... But I moved away from Texas in 1975, so the details of exactly why and how the Oilers relocated are fuzzy to me. Can someone detail it for me? I thought Bud asked for (and really needed) stadium improvements and didn't get them. Wasn't this on the heels of Earl Campbell and the Luv Ya Blue period? Why was it denied? Why so much enmity for Bud Adams? In the end, I hope the two teams get Vince (Titans) and Bush (Texans) since they are my favorite teams, but if it is reversed I'm sure I'll live happily ever after. Just don't let the Saints get one of them (sorry Max)...
That's like asking a man why he hates his ex wife who cheated on him, then left him for another man after taking all his money.
I don't blame Bud Adams one bit. It was the idiot mayor Bob Lanier's fault the Oilers were forced to move out of Texas. If the city got them their stadium like cities should, they wouldnt of had to go to Nashville.
Maybe people hated Bud Adams because he blackmailed the city of Houston in 1987-8 to add 10,000 seats to the Astrodome and then did the same bs less six, or seven years later for a new stadium. You can get away with threatening to move a team once, but doing it again would make any fanbase turn against any owner. The fact that the Oilers had crushed the souls of so many of their fans might be another factor in the venom people have against the Titans. It certainly was a factor in them leaving. If the Oilers had beat Buffalo, or Kansas City then Bud Adams would have got their stadium. It cost the city more in the long-run to lose the team, but that's ancient history now.
There's a lot more to this story that you're leaving out (or you don't know). It wasn't as simple as Bud putting in a mild request for a new stadium, getting rejected, and him deciding to move... it was a pattern over the last 10 years of Bud always threatening, even getting a remodeling of the Astrodome (which we're still paying for), and just being a complete a$$hole of gigantic preportions. People HATED Bud Adams before he even thought about moving to Tenessee.... why do you think that is the case?
Bud Adams spent money on making the Oilers good (pre-salary cap days). He deserved to have his own stadium. If we were willing to pay for a stadium for the tightwad McLane, we should have done so for Adams. The Oilers were the heart and soul of Houston. Everything should have been done to ensure that they stayed in town. As a result, we are stuck with this disaster known as the Texans. Reliant Stadium should be the Oilers home, not the Texans.
Another thing people forget is Bud Adams, at that time, was willing to pay for a large chunk (about 1/3) of the stadium costs. Mayorbob was the one out of touch with reality but public sentiment was turned against Bud anyway. It was irrational IMO. I also wish the Oilers never left and I have no animosity towards Bud Adams. He did what he HAD to do. He was forced to leave that dump of a stadium. Mayorbob thought he was going to make an example out of Bud.
Get over it. I was an avid fan as well, but got tired of the drama. Bud was never satisfied. He made promises that he would stay if we added seats (thus removing the scoreboard in the Dome). He went against his word and made threats a few years later. Bud is a bottem line business man. He's happy in Tennessee and I'm happy Bud is gone. It has nothing to do with the team itself.
If you are happy that we kicked Bud out of the city, even if it meant losing the Oilers, I really have to wonder if you truly cared for the Oilers. To my knowledge, Bud hasn't demanded anything out of Nashville ever since they got a new stadium in 1999. Plain and simple, we should have given him his own stadium, despite the so-called "upgrades" made to the Astrodome.
Sorry, Deckard, but I kind of wince at all the Titan-hating that is revealed here. I don't think Bud Adams is the most magnanimous owner of all time, but I think he has been willing to do what he needed to do to make his teams competitive. Seems like the city officials wouldn't respond in kind.
VY goes to TENN I will be a Titan fan. No hate here (if Vince goes) and I have a freaking song about hating the Titans.
DING DING DING !! And the move was so brilliant that it cost the city THREE times the money to get the Texans here..... BRILLIANT !! DD
Nashville did grumble about Bud raising ticket prices or something to that affect, seems like that guy is easy to dislike. The guy just seems slimey. Bob Lanier was one of our better mayors, but he sometimes was too much of an idealist. He gave all that money to Calvin Murphy's marching band because it was the right thing to do, but later reports show that the money was wasted away. He balked at Bud's demand because he didn't think the city should be held hostage to the typical sports corporate greed even though getting another team eventually costed more. So the guy had principals, hang him. BTW, Bud was showing off another prototype of a Domed Stadium at the time he was demanding one, we would have had another typical Enormodome if he had stayed and not the nice retractable one we have right now. Not that it matters.
When you ask for stadiums, they don't magically appear. It has to go through legislation. This requires support by the citizens, usually in the form of taxing. The Bud Adams deal wasn't worth it by the majority of the people. Not just me. I hated to see the Oilers go. I was a true fan, but there was no way in satisfying Bud. At the time. Bud wasn't going to put his own money into the investment ala McNair. At least as far as I remember. That was a long time ago.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.... Bud Adams offered to chip in like 80million of the stadium costs out of his own pocket. History about Oilers leaving No one else did that....did Drayton? Did Les Alexander? No....not a one....and when Bud was complaining (rightfully so) about the Astrodome being a crappy stadium, Drayton was saying that it was a great stadium to play in....although one year after the Oilers left, Drayton started saying the same things to get MM park. Bud was no Saint, but he was PURE Houston.....and would have bent over backwards to stay...... The city of Houston screwed up and it cost them a lot more money to get a new team which has been horribly run up to now. Lots of former Oiler fans are not following the Texans....I am one of them....if Vince Young gets drafter, my passion for a Houston football team will return, if not, then I will happily check the box scores on the crapper on Monday morning. DD
Wow, everybody sure has got it wrong. The simple fact of the matter is that Lanier bent over backwards to get Bud a stadium and would have agreed (against his better judgement and risking enormous political backlash) to build a football only stadium. But it wasn't about a new stadium for Bud, it was about a new stadium in which he was the lease-holder for another team, specifically the Rockets. How can everybody forget the BudDome? He went to Lanier with a model and, without even talking to new Rockets owner, Les Alexander, explained how it could be converted to use for the NBA and the Rockets. He used the Alamodome as an example. Of course, HE would be the lease holder and the Rockets would pay him rent and cut him in on parking, concessions. To his credit, Les even considered it...until he saw his first game at the Alamodome. He laughed Bud right out of his office. The Oilers played in Jeppesen (now Robertson) Stadium, Rice Stadium and the 'Dome. He signed a lease to play in all three. Guess how many of those leases he broke. Yup. All three. He had a lease to play in the Liberty Bowl for two seasons. Broke that one too. Do you know how much Bud Adams invested in the Oilers? One million dollars. The $80 million he would have supposedly paid for a new stadium would have been the only time he would have invested dime one in the franchise since his initial investment. Read "Loser Take All" (oddly the dimbulbs who wrote that paper apparently gleaned only what they wanted from Fowler's book) it lays it out nicely. Bud COULD have had a stdium in Houston, but he didn't just want that. He wanted to lord over the Rockets as well. The only mistake Lanier made (which he admits to) is that he let it get personal in public. And Bud Adams was absolutely despised by the business and social community. The Oilers left because of one man and one man only, Bud Adams. He could have had in HOuston EXACTLY what he got in Nashville, an open air football-only stadium and lease-holder to a college program. He would have had to chip in some scratch, but he'd have weaseled his way out of a portion of it (just like he did in Nashville). Bud Adams is a vile human being.
You do realize that every single Texans home crowd has been larger than ANY home crowd the Oilers/Titans have played in front of in their 46-year history, right? The few Bud-worshippers that inexplicably remain in Houston haven't been missed at Texans tailgates. Hm...tailgating. Anybody know how tailgating at Texans games compares to tailgating during the Bud era?
