The Rockets WOULD have left Houston, if not for Jeff. After winning 2 championships, they were just about to be forced out of town by a city that didn't care. They were voted down by the great city of Houston that you all pledge undying allegiance to for some reason. This is the ROCKETS we're talking about here.
do you have even the first clue of what you're talking about??? the referendum ultimately passed by the largest margin of any sports arena referendum in the history of such referendums in this country. the original deal was voted down because it sucked...the second proposal was better and was overwhelmingly passed.
You can blame some misinformation from some groups in the city for that. When Houstonians saw what the deal was without any political spin, they realized it was worth keeping them. Let me ask you this. At what point do you believe a city has a right to say "No" to an owner demanding whatever, regardless of how many championships that team has won? If Les demands a new stadium in three years and the voters of Houston say no, can you blame them, or should the taxpayers have their checkbooks open eternally for the 94 and 95 championships?
You give the average voter WAY too much credit. The reason the second one passed is more a testament to people like Jeff who worked long and hard to build support and excitement for it than it is an indication of voters being able to analyze the particulars of each proposal.
Obviously it has to be within reason. The Summit is like the oldest building in the league. I think it comes down to the city either wanting sports or not. 'Save our Rockets' should not have been necessary.
huh??? the fact is almost NO ONE in the big political circles of Houston came out in support of the first proposal...while Jeff did a great job, for sure, i'd say Bill Archer's ads had a huge effect...ads he would not have done for the first proposal. second...we all knew a second deal was coming...there was zero urgency the first time around. the rockets still had time left on their compaq center lease... and...we had just funded two new stadiums...we hadn't even finished constructing the second one when this was on the ballot. so ultimately...this city you want to rag on ends up with three of the nicest sporting venues in their respective sports in the country...we will play host for sure to the super bowl, the MLB all star game, just hosted the big XII championship...and will likely host the NBA all star game and some NCAA tourney games as well...let me know when nashville gets around to hosting those events.
Since this has fallen into territory I understand, let me make a few comments... First, on the Oilers leaving and the cost of the new stadium, 3x isn't really that far off. The city never really offered the Oilers an open-air facility. They half-heartedly floated that idea out there when the Oilers seemed serious in their intention to re-located. Bud had actually offered to pay $100 million on a $180 million retractible roof (sound familiar?) facility across 59 from where Minute Maid is currently located. He suggested that it be a football/basketball facility similar to the Alamodome. Les laughed as he should have. At the time, Lanier (who has admitted it was probably a mistake to call Bud on his bluff) and most of the city leadership laughed and referred to the idea as the Bud Dome after Adams even had a model built for it. Drayton McLane said there was nothing wrong withe current Astrodome and it was ridiculous to ask for a new facility. Two years later, he would call the Astrodome and out-of-date venue and demand a new ballpark or move the team. Bud left and the city decided to attempt to keep the Astros with a referendum in 1996. It passed by literally a few thousand votes. Of course, all the complaints about traffic, crime, people not willing to drive into downtown turned out to be completely false and Minute Maid, the name change notwithstanding, turned out to be a tremendous success both in terms of drawing fans and spurring development. However, what voters didn't catch was the fact that, despite the tight controls on how much could be spent on the ballpark, the referendum gave the newly-formed Sports Authority the right to negotiate exclusively on behalf of the taxpayers with any potential new owner of an NFL franchise for a new stadium. Because the Authority was REQUIRED to build the facility, Bob McNair was in the driver's seat for negotiating and, unlike Minute Maid AND the new arena, there were not built-in cost guarantees, overrun protection, completion date guarantees, etc. As a result, Reliant was built almost exclusively with city and county bonds to be paid for with the hotel and car rental taxes created in the 1996 referendum and with the subsequent bill passed through the state legislature in 1997. And, it cost much more than it very likely would have had the city been in a better bargaining position with the Texans. McNair put VERY little into the new facility. Actually, the rodeo is spending more. Reliant is set to cost just over $400 million for taxpayers. Since Bud was only asking for $80 million, well, you do the math. In fact, the very concept of booting out an owner we hated only to spend and additional $300 million for a new team and stadium was one of the most effective arguments I had AGAINST opposition in the 2000 arena referendum. If the Rockets leave, we build a facility anyway but WITHOUT money from the tenant. THAT is a bad deal. Now, on to 1999. Max made the comment that the deal in 1999 stunk and that's why it failed. Well, not really. In fact, as a matter of strictly money, the deal wasn't any better than the 1999 deal. It is basically the same in fact. There are some small perks for the city - parking garage money, percentage of naming rights, some dates to use the facility for free, etc - but from a monetary standpoint, the deals are nearly the same with the exception that the cost to taxpayers in 2000 was higher - about $30 million - thanks to rising construction costs. They simply re-structured the way it would be paid for and how they would get paid by the Rockets, but the overall deal is really NOT better. I tried not to emphasize the significant changes in the deal overall. It wasn't really worth it. From my perspective, the protections it afforded and the small additions made really didn't make the significant difference. The significant difference in the referendum failing by 10 points one year and passing by 20 the next were political and emotional, not financial. One of the big differences was the opening of then-Enron Field. The development spurred by the ballpark and the rush of fans and visitors to downtown to see it altered the landscape of what people thought about venues. It was akin to arguments against rail in Dallas. One year after they opened their 6 mile rail line in downtown and were poised to ask for more tax dollars to expand the system, anti-rail groups used the cry of "no one will ride on it" as their rallying cry. Truth was, EVERYONE ALREADY used it. It made no sense. The same thing happened here when people argued that no one would want to come downtown or the parking would suck or whatever. That was proven false by the opening of Enron. In addition, the ballpark captured the imagination of people. It gave them a glimpse of what a great downtown could mean to the city and that was significant. Maybe most important of all was the support from the business community and its decision to exert influence on members of the Harris County GOP. The members of the local Republican Party were absolutely livid when their then-chair Gary Polland announced they would not actively oppose the 2000 referendum. That meeting, from what I understand, was pretty wild with members screaming to campaign against it. Ironically, the primary difference was the involvement of Ken Lay (you guys all remember him, right? ) who essentially went to his fellow GOP members and asked them to stay quiet for the sake of supporting downtown and business interests. He along with Don Jordan, formerly of Reliant Energy, and a few other big business types in the Greater Houston Partnership who also happened to be prominent GOP members and financial supporters, really put the squeeze on the GOP to prevent them from actively campaigning against it. It was their opposition in 1999 that led directly to the loss. Make no mistake, guys like Polland and Paul Bettencourt had absolutely NO love for this arena. They wanted nothing more than to actively campaign against it and use the same, mostly overstated, rhetoric they had used to kill the 1999 referendum. But, the opening of the ballpark and the pressure from business interests was too much for them. As a result, the opposition was limited to fringe elements - Green Party, Libertarians and far-right conservatives - who were very ineffective in their efforts and mostly sounded like fringe elements. There was no identifyable political or community leader who was available to help rally the anti-arena troops. They were, in essence, out-gunned. As for my role (thanks for the kind words, by the way, Freak) was relatively small. I just got fans motivated. I'm glad I could help but I'm not naive enough to believe that the real success of the referendum was due to the tremendous political pressure put on city leaders to get this thing done and keep the Rockets from becoming the Oilers part II. You can say what you want about the 1999 initiative, but I've seen all the paperwork. What we got in 2000 wasn't markedly different. It still costs money and, ultimately, taxes (albeit not property or sales taxes) will fund the bulk of the building. However, the alternative of allowing the team to leave and spending two or three times that to get a new one would've have been as ridiculous as with the Oilers. At least, with the Texans, we got a good organization. But, financially, it was still a dumb idea. The combination of the rational understanding of the costs based on what we saw with the Oilers versus the Texans, the political pressure put on the GOP by business and the emotion generated by the opening of the ballpark were the primary catalysts when it came to getting the 2000 referendum to pass. --- thus ends my novel ---
You see, Running Bud out of town cost a lot of tax Payer money. And, now we have to suffer through an EXPANSION team, while our old team has gone the the Super Bowl and may again. Bud Adams got a raw deal. He was only running the team as a business, and the fact that he offered to chip in on the construction is amazing in today's NFL. Bud wanted to stay, and I think the sensible Houston fans who can overlook the biased media reporting realized that he was good for the community and cared about winning. Bud Adams was a good owner, though he lacked class (the finger at the city), he still did what he thought was right to try to win. DaDakota
Let's not get crazy! Bud was/is not a great owner. He was average at best. His decisions with personnel, coaches and GM's have run the gamut from near genius to utter stupidity. I hope McNair is better. Time will tell. However, you are correct in saying that the city's decision to allow him to leave was not a good one financially. It wasn't. Fans and voters are often misdirected by rhetoric and we got a huge dose of that from Lanier and others leading the city at the time. To his credit, Lanier has admitted as much. But, I'm glad we have the Texans. By all rights, we should be without a team right now, but LA was inept and McNair was pretty damn smart. Good fortune smiled on us.
The Oilers getting a collective "oh, well" had less to do with finances than it did with other factors...namely, the fact Bud Adams, in all his years here, hadn't made even one friend who was able to stand up and support him when he said he needed a new stadium. No one...and I mean no one...came to his aid. That's pretty damn telling, I'd say, particularly for a man who lived here as long as he had at that time. The performance of the team on the field in playoff choke after playoff choke didn't help, either. But remember...we had heard it all before. The talk on sportsradio at the time centered around whether or not Bud was bluffing again. He threatened to move the team to J-Ville just a few years prior..he agreed to stay, provided we make improvements to the Dome. In fact, Tagliabue came to town and promised us a Super Bowl if we made the improvements. We made them, and were still paying the interest on the loans for those improvements when he came back demanding a new stadium. The subsequent negotiations with the city were VERY short...most likely because the man had zero political clout and nobody liked him. I mean, he started the negotiations talking about how the Rockets would share his new facility with him...only problem was the Rockets had never been contacted about it! He lost all credibility right there, if he even had any to begin with. But he ultimately signed an exclusive agreement to negotiate ONLY with Nashville...so then what??? We couldn't do anything for a year!! In the meantime, he's got Nashville bending over backwards to get an NFL franchise. Ultimately, Houston never even had a chance to counter. As for the open-air stadium...Lanier was the one who proposed it...Lanier was the freaking emperor of Houston...I don't think there's much doubt he could have made that happen. Bud didn't give it a second thought.
At the time it happened, no question that was what it was about. Everyone hated Bud Adams. The city and county are, in fact, STILL paying for renovations to the Astrodome Bud demanded when he threatened to move the Jacksonville. However, there is no question it cost the city a helluva lot more now that Reliant has been built. Lanier had an inkling that this was possible but he thought it would be political suicide to try and push through a stadium initiative. We learned later that it was one of his greatest disappointments that the Oilers left on his watch. I even called into a couple of sports shows at the time and said, "Look, if we just hate Bud so much we want him out of town and are willing to suffer the consequences, fine. So be it. However, DO NOT run him out of town (along with his money) and turn around and spend MORE just to replace him." That makes absolutley NO sense financially and it ended up costing taxpayers more than $300 million. In essence, we spent $300 million just for the pleasure of kicking Adams out of town. Personally, that sounds like a pretty high price tag to me just to make someone look like an ass, when, in reality, he went to Nashville and became more successful there than he ever was in Houston. [quoteAs for the open-air stadium...Lanier was the one who proposed it...Lanier was the freaking emperor of Houston...I don't think there's much doubt he could have made that happen. Bud didn't give it a second thought.[/QUOTE] Lanier offered this option only after it was clear that Adams intended to move the team. Most everyone knew that Adams would reject the offer. In fact, Bud felt like the city disrespected him with the offer replacing a high rise penthouse (the Bud Dome) with an open-air shack. He left. End of story. My only problem was that it made no FINANCIAL sense to do it. Ok, if we really wanted the satisfaction, fine. But I remember members of the local GOP bending over backwards (cough...Robert Eckles...cough) to kiss Bob McNair's ass only a few years after they told Bud to kiss theirs. Then, all the while, they complained about how an arena, that will hold 5 to 7 TIMES as many events as the football stadium, was a waste of taxpayer money. That is absolute and utter nonsense. At least be consistent.
DaDakota, PhiSlamJamma, TheFreak, and drapg, Make some room. Because another diehard Titans fan just joined this tag-team event. I have not posted here in some time but when I saw this post it just got my juices flowing. The Titans seem to be putting it together this year. To me what makes this year even more exciting than the 99 SuperBowl year is that McNair has developed into a MVP level player. This team offense is so much better than the 99 team. That team was Eddie right, Eddie left, and Wycheck on third down. This team still loves to pound it with Eddie but McNair now runs this team. You could see it on the Monday night game. He has made all the key plays. McNair is the QB that Michael Vick wants to become. McNair can win the game with his arm. Lets not forget he can still run over players like a Mack truck. Just ask the Giants or Ty Law from the Patriots. To me that is what has me so excited about every Titans game. McNair is developing into something special. Bring on the Jags this week and than next week bring on the Texans. If Fisher keeps the players focused as he has been doing the past two months. The sky is the limit for this Titans team!!! Go Titans!!!!! ps = Mo - Bring on your Raiders. I would love to play you guys again in the Playoffs!!!! "Just bring it"
Lanier offered this option only after it was clear that Adams intended to move the team. Most everyone knew that Adams would reject the offer. In fact, Bud felt like the city disrespected him with the offer replacing a high rise penthouse (the Bud Dome) with an open-air shack. He left. End of story. My only problem was that it made no FINANCIAL sense to do it. Ok, if we really wanted the satisfaction, fine. But I remember members of the local GOP bending over backwards (cough...Robert Eckles...cough) to kiss Bob McNair's ass only a few years after they told Bud to kiss theirs. Then, all the while, they complained about how an arena, that will hold 5 to 7 TIMES as many events as the football stadium, was a waste of taxpayer money. That is absolute and utter nonsense. At least be consistent. [/QUOTE] 1. but that's the point, jeff...at the time we were still paying interest on the improvements on the dome he demanded....and after he said he was moving to J-ville (and then didn't) he lost all credibility. few people believed that when push came to shove, he would actually move the team. of course after he signed an exclusive agreement to negotiate ONLY with Nashville, what could you do at that point?? which leads me to my next point... 2. yes, the open air stadium wasn't offered until late in the game...but that was because he couldn't even negotiate with us at all until late in the game! he signed that one year exclusive, and that effectively made up his mind. it was a foregone conclusion that he was gone in the midst of that period...but it's hard to blame lanier for being too late on that one...again...bud took houston completely out of the game by signing that exclusive agreement. real hard to make offers and negotiate with an organization that is under contract to NOT negotiate with you.
Max: I am not arguing with you on ANY of what you said. I agree with all of that above without question. My point was that, financially, it was dumb to allow the Oilers to move and spend $300 million EXTRA just for the privelege of a new team. No matter how you slice it, that was a dumb move if all you are talking about is money. I didn't like Bud either and his credibility was in the toilet. But, I'm just saying it was a pretty high price to pay for letting him leave. Emotionally, hell, I'm glad he's gone. But, fiscally, it made no sense at all and this isn't all on Bud. The leadership the city had at the time was also the same group who pissed all over light rail. In fact, Lanier ran his whole campaign against Whitmire on an anti-rail platform. The city was going through some real grwoing pains because business wanted us to move out of the blue-collar, good-ol-boy network and into the 21st century because they were having an impossible time luring employees to Houston. Enter the Greater Houston Partnership which foisted a lot of those changes onto the city government. Up until that time, if you even suggested doing anything to fix up a part of town that didn't include pouring concrete for new freeways or upgrading the sewer service in the suburbs, politicians would laugh you out the door. New stadiums? Downtown??? Are you joking??? Revitilization? What the hell is that? In this case, Bud and the city administration share the blame for the way it went down. Fortunately, we managed to rebound pretty damn well.
Rocketman95 stated that December 29 the Texans would beat the Titans??? Hope you enjoyed your Superbowl game... Well Texans fans you may beat the Titans one day but that one day is not today!!! ;p Go Titans!!! Congrats to the team for winning 10 out of their last 11 games.. Coach Fisher deserves a lot of credit for keeping this team together after the 1-4 start. I can't say enough about McNair. He is our MVP and he will take us to the Superbowl again. This time he will be the Superbowl MVP.... I will gladly take a first round bye. I will hope whichever team is playing the Raiders the best of luck. If not I look forward to winning our playoff game and moving on to Oakland. This is a different Titans team than the one that lost to Oakland earlier this year. Well Texan fans at least you get to start planning your draft board. Why was it that you drafted Tony Boselli and his huge contract from the Jags????
