Unique stadium that hosted Michael Jordan and The Rock now sits eerily abandoned next to stunning NFL venue
Imagine a decaying, unused Premier League stadium sitting next door to Stamford Bridge.
Picture a once state-of-the-art sports venue being just a few hundred yards away from Craven Cottage, yet both buildings remaining standing while one is allowed to gradually fall apart.
That’s the weird, almost unexplainable reality in Houston, Texas.
NRG Stadium is the official home of the NFL’s Houston Texans and annually hosts the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which is like 30 NFL games crammed into a single month.
The Astrodome, once known in the sports world as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World', is less than a mile away from NRG Stadium.
But that slowly decaying facility, which once housed MLB’s Houston Astros and the NFL’s Houston Oilers, has long been vacant and continues to occupy prime real estate in one of America’s largest and busiest cities.
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"We're really in a conundrum trying to figure out how to reuse it, how to make it work," Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis told earlier this year.
He added: “We've got to make sure we comply with historic preservation and rehabilitation standards but also come up with some design and philanthropic or private-sector funding to make it work. I hope it happens. I haven't seen it."
The modern anomaly that is the Astrodome reappeared last April, when the NCAA men’s Final Four was played inside a packed NRG Stadium.
While Dan Hurley’s Connecticut Huskies stomped San Diego State 76-59 for the college basketball national championship, the once-revered Astrodome was ignored and unused – and there are no plans to change that in the foreseeable future.
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Sports and Houston history once filled 'The Dome.'
Elvis Presley performed a concert inside a venue that was once praised for its contemporary flourish and proud embrace of a new sparkling era.
Muhammad Ali, the era-changing 'The Battle of the Sexes' tennis match and the 'Game of the Century' – a nationally televised college basketball contest between the University of Houston and UCLA - are among The Astrodome’s biggest events.
A record crowd of more than 67,000 watched WrestleMania X-Seven headlined by Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock inside what was initially known as the Harris County Domed Stadium and opened to grand fanfare in 1965.
At the time, the Astrodome was far ahead of the curve in sports stadiums. Its dome was a then-contemporary marvel, air conditioning was a technological breakthrough, artificial turf was a trendsetter, and the multi-purpose venue inspired major cities across America to try and replicate the Astrodome’s versatility.
In 2005, 'The Dome' became a temporary living space for evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the New Orleans, Louisiana area.
But 58 years after its unveiling, the Astrodome has been condemned and is no longer functional.
And that’s where things get weird.
The Astrodome can’t be torn down, thanks to the building being designated with a Texas State Historical Marker in 2018. That designation made the building a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, which is judged by the state to be historically and architecturally significant.
But a push to renovate the Astrodome also peaked in 2018.
The movement to make 'The Dome' usable in the 21st Century was then pushed aside due to economic concerns and the coronavirus pandemic.
Since 2004, Houston has hosted two Super Bowls and multiple Final Fours.
NRG Stadium has been the home venue for those prestige events, though, while the Astrodome has become increasingly overlooked and forgotten.
The weirdest part: Online mapping shows both oversized American sports venues – which could hold almost 140,000 people combined – being separated by just 0.6 miles.
In reality, the distance is even closer.
The greying and now odd-looking Astrodome can be seen in full view simply by stepping outside of the NFL home of the Texans and looking across a small walkway.
There sits the Astrodome: Empty and useless.
Playing Premier League games inside historic venues that date back to 1896 is an accepted fact in the UK, but then again Wembley doesn’t tower above The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium or The Emirates.
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In America, a condemned NFL venue that once seated 66,000 sits next door to a relatively new NFL venue that housed 71,159 for a 31-20 Indianapolis Colts victory over the Houston Texans in Week 2 of a new season.
By preserving the Astrodome for history – and leaving The Dome' eerily empty -- Houston has created an American anomaly.