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12/14/13, "Astrodome Gave Birth to Modern Crony Capitalism in Sports," Breitbart, Leahy
"Late Sunday night, a construction company demolished
three ramp towers of the Houston Astrodome. It was the first step in
what is likely to be the complete demolition of the entire facility.
Known at the time as "The Eighth Wonder of the World," the
Astrodome opened in 1965 as the new home of the Houston Astros Major
League Baseball team and the Houston Oilers of the NFL. The Oilers left
after the 1996 season to become Nashville's Tennessee Titans. After the 1999 season, the Astros moved into the newly constructed Minute Maid Park.
The Astrodome was the first domed stadium. It blazed the path for the
modern sports stadium. No earlier sports stadium contained its
previously unknown levels of opulence, both on and off the field. The
Astrodome also set a new standard for the role of public financing in
the construction of professional sports stadiums.
Prior to World War II, most professional sports teams played in
privately owned stadiums. Yankee Stadium, for example, which could hold
60,000 fans and had twice the seating capacity of other Major League
Baseball stadiums at the time, was built in 1923 with $2.5 million in private funding provided by New York Yankees owners Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston.
In 1931, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, built at a cost of $2.5 million (later
increased to $3 million by over runs) and owned by the city of
Cleveland, was one of the first professional sports stadiums paid for by
taxpayers. For more than six decades it was home to Major League
Baseball's Cleveland Indians, and later, the NFL's Cleveland Browns.
Throughout its history, it was a financial drain on the taxpayers of
Cleveland.
After World War II, several other professional sports franchises were
able to convince local city and county governments to help finance the
construction of new stadiums. The size of those financings, however, was
significantly less than the Astrodome's. Baltimore's Memorial Stadium,
home to Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and the NFL's
Baltimore Colts, was built in the early 1950s at a cost of $6.5 million.
At a total cost of $43 million, the Astrodome blew the lid off previous stadium construction costs. Of that initial cost, $37 million was paid for by a municipal bond guaranteed by the taxpayers of Harris County, and only $6 million was funded by private investors.
In November, just a month before the demolition of the three towers, voters of Harris County rejected
a proposed $217 million bond offering that would have converted the
Astrodome into a convention and exhibition center. Given that taxpayer
rejection, the future of the facility remains unknown.
As the Houston Chronicle reported,
the vote brought "the iconic but decaying stadium . . . a step closer
to the wrecking ball." Sunday's demolition of the three ramp towers is
likely to be followed relatively soon by the demolition of the entire
facility.
Judge Roy Hofheinz was the
man who conceived the idea of the Astrodome and organized the public
and private groups that turned it into reality. The flamboyant Hofheinz
got his start in 1930s, when he managed future President Lyndon Baines
Johnson's first political campaign.
From 1936 to 1944 he served as the presiding judge (an elected
executive position ) of Harris County. From 1953 to 1955 he was the
mayor of Houston, an independent city within Harris County.
In the late 1950s, Hofheinz organized a group of investors, the
Houston Sports Association, who secured the Major League Baseball
expansion franchise for the Houston Colt 45s in October 1960.
This major business success was accomplished one month before
Hofheinz's political mentor, Lyndon Johnson, was elected Vice President
of the United States. The team began play in 1962 at Colt Stadium, and changed their name to the Astros when they moved into the Astrodome in 1965.
In the 1960s, Harris County sold $36 million in municipal bonds to finance most of the Astrodome. Harris County then leased the Astrodome for $750,000 annually for forty years to Hofheinz's Houston Sports Association." image from Air 11, Sunday Dec. 8, 2013 demolition of Astrodome exterior ramp
.
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