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Reliant Stadium
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Reliant Stadium is a multiple-use stadium in Houston, Texas. The stadium is the home of the National Football League's Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Texas Bowl, host to many international soccer matches for the USA National Soccer Team and other events. The stadium served as the host facility for Super Bowl XXXVIII on February 1, 2004.
Reliant Stadium is part of a collection of venues (including the Astrodome), which are collectively called Reliant Park. The entire complex is named for Reliant Energy under a 32-year, US$300 million naming rights deal in 2000.
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Encyclopedia
Reliant Stadium is a multiple-use stadium in Houston, Texas. The stadium is the home of the National Football League's Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Texas Bowl, host to many international soccer matches for the USA National Soccer Team and other events. The stadium served as the host facility for Super Bowl XXXVIII on February 1, 2004.
Reliant Stadium is part of a collection of venues (including the Astrodome), which are collectively called Reliant Park. The entire complex is named for Reliant Energy under a 32-year, US$300 million naming rights deal in 2000. Reliant Stadium has a seating capacity of 71,500, a total square footage of with . of natural grass playing surface. The stadium was constructed at the cost of $352 million. Reliant Stadium is the first facility in the NFL to have a retractable roof.
History
The Houston NFL Holdings group came to HOK Sport to begin the schematic design for the first-ever NFL retractable roof football stadium in 1997. The intention was to create a football stadium to replace the Astrodome that would operate like an open-air facility but have the intimacy and comfort of an indoor arena. With the design for football and the square footage requirements of the rodeo, the building was designed in the range. Groundbreaking for the stadium was on March 9, 2001 and the building was officially topped off in October 2001. The stadium opened on August 24, 2002 and hosted its first football game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans on September 8, 2002. Construction was completed in 30 months. The first rodeo was held in the stadium in February 2003.
Hurricane Ike damage
On the night of September 12–13, 2008 the stadium sustained damage from Hurricane Ike forcing the Houston Texans home opener scheduled for September 14 to be postponed. Part of the roof cladding came off and there was wind and water damage to other sections of the stadium. There were also large pieces of debris inside the stadium from various things from the hurricane.
The Texans home opener against the Baltimore Ravens was initially postponed one day from Sunday, September 14, 2008 till Monday the 15th. When the extent of the damage from Ike became known, the Ravens–Texans game was rescheduled to week 10 (November 9, 2008). The Texans' game against the Cincinnati Bengals was moved from Week 10 to week 8 (October 26), and the Ravens and Texans took their bye week on the weekend of the hurricane, which was Week 2.
The stadium reopened on October 5, 2008 when the Texans hosted the Indianapolis Colts. The Texans hosted three additional home games in October.
The stadium was repaired by Houston-based rope access inspection and construction firm Reel Group Americas on February 13, 2009.
Design and technology
The stadium was designed by the architectural firms of Hermes Reed Architects and Lockwood, Andrews and Newnam who were teamed to create the Houston Stadium Consultants (HSC). The architects of HOK Sport and the HSC worked together with engineers from Uni-Systems to design the stadium utilizing the principles of kinetic architecture. The facility offers a sense of transparency with its roof fabric and expansive areas of glazing. At night, the building glows from within. The extensive use of glass provides an open-air feel to the facility's concourses, which are open to the field of play. Reliant Stadium has over 7,000 club seats, 166 luxury suites and multiple lounges and bars. The stadium can be configured to utilize a space for meetings, specialty functions, exhibits and concerts. With 12,000 tons of air conditioning capacity, the stadium is the largest indoor air-conditioned space in Texas and, other than multi-terminal airports, is the state's largest public assembly space.
One of the most notable aspects of the design is the fabric retractable roof. The roof mechanization consists of two bi-parting large panels that part at the 50 yard line, lying over each end zone when in the resting position. Ten parallel tri-chord trusses ride on two parallel rails, each supported by a large supertruss long. Roof operation is controlled in the stadium press box from a personal computer, containing live images of the travel path of each roof panel, as well as live feedback from all roof components throughout the operation. The roof panels are able to open or close in as little as 7 minutes, moving up to per minute.
One bleacher section behind the north end zone, called the "Bull Pen", is the designated fan section for the team. The fans in the Bull Pen interact directly with the action on the field and help to create and implement fan traditions, songs, chants and other elements of the game-day experience to create a positive atmosphere for the team and everyone in attendance at the game. Fans in the Bull Pen are encouraged to stand throughout the game, sing, cheer and otherwise support the team in an enthusiastic manner.
Stadium usage
Sports
Professional football
The Houston Texans have played their home games at Reliant Stadium since their inception in 2002. The annual calendar consists of 8 regular season and 2 pre-season games, plus any playoff games the Texans might host. The first game played was on August 24, 2002, as the Texans played the Miami Dolphins in their first preseason game. The first regular season game was played on September 8 of that year, where the expansion Texans defeated the Dallas Cowboys 19-10 in front of 69,604. The first Monday Night Football game in Texans history was held on December 1st, 2008 at Reliant Stadium. Playing in front of a franchise-record crowd of 70,809, the Texans defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 30-17. Since then that record crowd has been broken in the next 2 previous Texans home games. The home game against the Tennessee Titans on December 7 drew a crowd of 70,831 and the December 28 home finale against the Chicago Bears drew the current franchise-crowd record of 70,838.
Reliant Stadium hosted Super Bowl XXXVIII on February 1, 2004, where the New England Patriots defeat the Carolina Panthers, 32-29 in front of a Reliant Stadium crowd record of 71,525 and site of the controversial Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show.
Rodeo
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a co-tenant of Reliant Stadium. "The building is as much for the rodeo as it is for the National Football League," according to Leroy Shafer who is assistant general manager of the rodeo's marketing department. The rodeo is held three weeks in March, each year. During this time Reliant Stadium also hosts an event on the Xtreme Bulls tour, the bull riding-only tour that is part of the PRCA, who also hosts the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
The stadium includes a service area level to house rodeo livestock. The bulls, broncs, steers and roping calves are housed in the north end of the stadium under the lower bowl. Loading and unloading dock space to support the rodeo is located on the north end of the stadium. During rodeo performances, rolling doors will separate the dock into two receiving areas to isolate the food and concession deliveries from the rodeo equipment and livestock deliveries. A concert performance stage is located at the south end of the stadium during rodeo events and is moved into the center of the facility by a hydraulic drive system for rodeo concert performances. During the 2008 rodeo, Miley Cyrus performed a concert before 73,459 rodeo attendees on Sunday, March 9.
College football
College football's Texas Bowl is annually hosted at the stadium. The stadium hosted the Houston Bowl before the Texas Bowl's inception and also hosted the 2002 and 2005 Big 12 Conference Championship games. The University of Houston, Rice University, and Texas Southern University each have played selected home games at Reliant Stadium. The Bayou Bucket was held in Reliant Stadium in 2004, and the East-West Shrine Game was held there in 2007.
The first-ever Texas Bowl in December 2006 featured a game between Rutgers University and Kansas State University, with Rutgers winning, 37-10.
Soccer
Reliant Stadium hosts several international club matches each year. The games are generally held in the spring and summer before the NFL season starts. The stadium hosted CONCACAF Gold Cup matches in 2005 and 2007. The Gold Cup matches in 2007 included Round 1 matches, and a quarterfinal doubleheader match. The venue's attendance record was set during a preparation match between the Mexican National Team and the U.S. Men's Soccer Team.
On February 6, 2008, USA-Mexico was held at Reliant Stadium to an over-capacity crowd. The previous USA vs. Mexico match in Reliant Stadium drew a sellout crowd of 69,582 fans on May 8, 2003 and is the largest home crowd for the U.S. Men's National Team this decade.
College basketball
The stadium is scheduled to host the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament several times in the future, including the 2008 South Regional Finals, the 2010 South Regional Finals, and the 2011 Final Four.
The stadium is also scheduled to host the 2016 Final Four. During the 2008 NCAA South Regional Finals, people in Reliant Stadium saw the University of Memphis Tigers blow out Michigan State in the Sweet 16, and the University of Texas beat Stanford in the same round. In the Elite Eight, most of the spectators left the stadium unhappy because Memphis defeated the local favorite University of Texas.
Professional wrestling
Reliant Stadium will host WrestleMania XXV, the forthcoming twenty-fifth annual WrestleMania professional wrestling event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment. The event is scheduled to take place on April 5, 2009. According to WWE's 25th Anniversary of Wrestlemania special edition magazine, the roof will remain closed for the event.
Concerts
- On August 2, 2003, Metallica along with Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Mudvayne and Deftones played a concert in Reliant Stadium during Metallica's Summer Sanitarium '03 tour. It was at this concert that Linkin Park shot some footage for their DVD Live in Texas.
- On April 7, 2005, Reliant Stadium played host to a tribute concert for the late pop-singer Selena called Selena ¡VIVE!, held on the 10th anniversary of her final concert before her death, held at the Reliant Astrodome. The concert was broadcast live on the Spanish-language television network Univision. The concert would earn a 35.9 Nielsen household rating, making it the most watched Spanish language program in American television history. A video of the finale of her now infamous 1995 concert in Houston was used as the finale of the tribute, as the late icon sang her classic Como La Flor and bid farewell to her Houston fans one last time.
Other events
The Offshore Technology Conference is held annually in Reliant Center and utilizes the stadium for exhibits. In 2006, 59,236 were in attendance which was the largest convention in Houston in 2006 and the highest attendance for the event since 1982.
See also
External links
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