Just wondering how accurate this wikipedia summary is about the final years of the Oilers down here. Hard to imagine the now Texans fans becoming so apathetic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Oilers

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At the same time, Adams again lobbied the city for a new stadium, one with club seating and other revenue generators present in recently–built NFL stadiums. However, mayor Bob Lanier turned him down almost out of hand. Although Houstonians wanted to keep the Oilers, they were leery of investing more money on a stadium so soon after the Astrodome improvements.[2] The city was also still struggling to recover from the oil collapse of the 1980s. Adams, sensing that he was not going to get the stadium he wanted, began shopping the Oilers to other cities. He was particularly intrigued by Nashville, and opened secret talks with mayor Phil Bredesen. At the end of the 1995 season, Adams announced that the Oilers would be moving to Nashville for the 1998 season.[3] City officials there promised to contribute $144 million toward a new stadium, as well as $70 million in ticket sales. At that point, support for The Oilers in the Houston area all but disappeared.
The 1996 season was a disaster for the Oilers; they played before crowds of fewer than 20,000 and games were so quiet that it was possible to hear conversations on the field from the grandstand. Meanwhile, the team's radio network, which once stretched across the state, was reduced to the flagship station in Houston and a few affiliates in Tennessee, and was cutting off games prior to their finish in favor of preseason basketball.[4] The team went 8–8, finishing 6–2 in road games and only 2–6 in home games. Adams, the city and the league were unwilling to see this continue for another season, so a deal was reached to let the Oilers out of their lease a year early and move to Tennessee.

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Any teams fans would stop showing up if the owner announced they were leaving town

Why won't he just die already. There has been an empty cot in hell with his name on it for quite a while.

And that was after his threat to move to Jacksonville to force those so-called improvements to the Dome.

Adams also refused to play McNair at QB making the team even worse. Why support a team that was leaving with an owner trying to lose ball games. **** Bud Adams

I was just a kid at the time but I was heart broken about the oilers leaving town. Those last 3 years were rough. After the 93 season Bud basically had a firesale and traded off most of the team including Warren Moon. The 94 team went 2-14 and i remember it was about that time bud was campaigning to build a new stadium. the city had just spent millions (that we're still paying off to this day) refurbishing the dome in 88 for bud and just 6 years later he wanted more. It'd be the equivalent of the Astros asking for a new stadium this year when they were fielding a minor league squad. Was it bad timing? perhaps. It didn't help that the Oilers had bottomed out right at the same time that the Rockets were making their title runs and the Astros were really good as well. The Oilers were the only crap team in this city in the mid 90's.

Bud was such a p.r. disaster back in the day. He showed up at a press conference for a big announcement of how he and the Astros were going to build a brand new stadium downtown (on the the tax payers dime)...even had a model of the stadium.

One problem - he didn't inform the Astros of this idea. Press got in touch with Uncle Drayton and he said the Astros weren't interested.

What a schmuck.

Very accurate description.

He would stage pep raillies at noon on a Friday and be shocked when people didn't show.

I was at one of those games with fewer than 20,000 fans. It was like.....well going to any of the Astros games this year.

Bud ruined the Astrodome by removing the scoreboard and making it a cookie-cutter boring stadium.
Then 5 years later his team had the worst choke in sports history
Then they went 2-14
He followed that by demanding a new stadium

Kind of sounds like the Astros with their stupid TV station.

(Anybody remember when Cody Carlson was the "future QB" of the Oilers?)

[This message has been edited by Frok (edited 10/11/2013 10:41a).]

I remember Billy Joe Tolliver and Bucky Richardson competing for the starting job after Carlson went down.

I went to a couple of those lame duck games because people were always giving away good seats,and I wanted to see the visiting team. Bud was a grade-A d-bag. The whole city grew to hate his guts.

Keep in mind this was all following the debacle in Buffalo in which the Oilers delivered a historic choke job.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Comeback_(American_football)

I wrote the Oilers off after that unforgivable FU to the city of Houston.

Also keepin mind the A-hole wouldn't sell the name & logo for the Oilers to the new franchise (now Texans) even though he wasn't using it any longer. If any town in America should have that name,it's Houston.

Satan needs to jam a flaming football right up Bud's ass every day when he finally dies.

I worked for the TV stations in the booth next to the guys calling the game for NBC/FOX. In the years prior to announcing they were moving it was ridiculously loud in the Dome no matter how bad they were. I could barely do my job, after they announced i could hear everyone i needed to. I don't remember it being so quite you could hear conversations.

I started wearing steelers gear to each game, and my dad and his buddy that did the official team stats were selling shirts that said "Leave you Blue" and a Tennessee license plate on back at the games.

[This message has been edited by whiteman (edited 10/11/2013 12:52p).]

Bud also let the Dome's field get so bad they had to cancel a pre-season game - or else the field was ok but Bud cancelled it anyway blaming the city for having a bad field. Either way, the game was cancelled.
He also had some comment about how he loved Jacksonville so much during the time he blackmailed Houston into tearing out the scoreboard in the Dome.
I had forgotten the scheme to partner a stadium with the Astros and him not even talking to the Astros about it!
What a tool.

Oh bless his heart.

also, I was very happy when the Titans failed to win the Super Bowl as their receiver was tackled on the 2 yd line to end the game. I was hoping Bud would've had a heart attack right then & there, but alas he survived.

(remember when his introductory news conference after drafting Vince Young was held in Houston and not Nashville - Bud was poking that in Houston's eye as many Texans fans wanted to draft Vince & not Super-Mario. Again, what a tool.)

I was at the preseason game when Bud canceled it b/c the field was unplayable. You saw some officials, then a few players walking around look at the turf, then 30 minutes later the game is cancelled.

That was my last oiler game.

This was basically the town hating the owner so much that they let the team leave. He was trying to hold the city hostage. I was glad to see them leave, which means it was bad.

here's some real class....
http://www.unathleticmag.com/2009/11/16/bud-adams-flips-off-the-buffalo-bills/

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I was at the preseason game when Bud canceled it b/c the field was unplayable. You saw some officials, then a few players walking around look at the turf, then 30 minutes later the game is cancelled.

That was my last oiler game.

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Same for me. My dad used to take me to one game a year and that was the last time I got to see the Oilers in person. I remember going to an Astros game the night before so perhaps they incorrectly put the football turf down in the stadium shift.

there was a bad gap between one of the seems that i don't think could be repaired in a reasonable amount of time. Believe that was against the Chargers.

[This message has been edited by whiteman (edited 10/11/2013 6:28p).]

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Also keepin mind the A-hole wouldn't sell the name & logo for the Oilers to the new franchise (now Texans) even though he wasn't using it any longer. If any town in America should have that name,it's Houston.

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This is all too often forgotten. Really pissed we couldn't go back to the Oilers. Perhaps down the road after the ****er finally croaks?

Bud Adams wouldn't allow tailgating. F' Bud Adams.

Oilers were a much better team/mascot for the city of Houston than "Texans", which was undoubtedly created by some marketing/pr firm with the philosophy of not offending anyone.

Oilers is to Houston as Steelers are to Pittsburgh or Packers are to Green Bay. The name just worked.

in case you haven't noticed but the Titans brought the entire history with them. The Titan Ring of Honor has guys that never played in Tennessee. there is no chance of that name being used here, it's not like when the Browns left to become the Ravens and left the name and history to the city of Cleveland.

Bud was and is still attached to that name and it's not leaving his grasp. Every time you buy some throwback jersey or shirt with Houston Oilers the money is going go to that cock sucker.

[This message has been edited by whiteman (edited 10/12/2013 1:58a).]

Bud Adams still wears an Oilers bolo around Houston. Talk about a giant middle finger to the city.

I remember the last game I went to had 4 guys with the following headgear:
- A Hershey's Kiss
- A giant R
- A Donkey Mask
- A giant Bottle of Budweiser

Wish we had camera phones back then.

And I agree, the worst thing about it is that they have taken the entire history of the Oilers with them. What does Tennessee care about Campbell, Childress, Moon, etc.?

Mojo didn't make it

The Wiki summary in the OP is how I recall it went down. I was an Oiler season ticket holder from 1990-95 but dropped them after Adams announced the move.

IIRC, the bonds sold to finance the Dome's 1988 renovation still haven't been paid off.

Yeah I thought the county was still paying the renovations off

He kind of ruined the dome for baseball by pushing for the expansion of the seating that led to the removal of the original Scoreboard in Centerfield.

I worked for a time at the dome during the end of the Oilers era(mid/late 90s). Bud had two suites during that time, one for business and one for family and friends. They would routinely move food/bev from the family/friends side to replenish the food/beverages in the business suite. Was pretty odd over the top frugal behavior from someone of his wealth. they would also not show up until just before game time(minutes) and then leave immediately following the end of the game thereby minimizing the expenses incurred in the suite, apparently he hosted pre and post game functions at his residence.

On the plus side I will say in those days that he hosted a Ronald McDonald house fundraiser on the floor of the dome each year, and he and his wife donated a lot of money to that very worthwhile charity.

I always thought of him as pretty Eccentric and weird more than anything else.

Another issue for him that I think always created friction during his time in Houston especially in the later years was that the Astros/Astrodome USA controlled the dome, along with heavy influence from the Rodeo. I suppose it was just a function of the multi-use stadium era. Nowadays it seems the norm that each of the major sports teams in most cities are the primary tenant/have controlling interest in their stadiums.

Somebody should make a movie of the jerk wad depicting his debacle of ownership and how he became known and despised as the most hated human since the Jesus nailing Romans.

The GM mooned a wedding party at the hotel before a game.
The asst coaches fought on the sideline.
Not only was Bud class, but he hired class as well.

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IIRC, the bonds sold to finance the Dome's 1988 renovation still haven't been paid off.

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This is hard to say for sure. They are constantly rolling the bonds over into new bonds with lower interest rates and whatnot, so a reporter's research into this common statement ended up being questionable, but probably untrue, according to best estimates.

Anyone remember the outrage Bud garned when he raised parking prices to $5? Ahh, the good old days.

Read the Book "Loser Takes All" by Ed Fowler

Gives a great history of Bud, the Oilers, and the brush off to the city of Houston.

Some great stories about Bud and his cronies.

I remember getting autographs signed in the parking lot after the game. I have Haywood Jefferies and Alonzo Highsmiths autographs from approximately '89. They were both driving Ferraris and I literally walked up while they were getting into the car with their girls.

In the bathroom at one of the bars this weekend in Memphis there was an old Tennessee Oilers sign which someone had scribbled a hearty "F*** BUD ADAMS" in the middle of