I had an appointment two blocks from Reliant Stadium on Friday morning, and as I was driving up Kirby Drive from the Loop, I found myself almost overwhelmed by the sheer size and scale of the stadium. It is difficult to adequately describe how imposing Reliant Stadium is when you're up close and personal with it. Huge? Massive? Brobdignagian? This is, after all, a structure that dwarfs the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Astrodome, which is hard next door to Reliant, and, no, adjectives fail me. It's THAT large.
Everything about Reliant is outsized: the construction cost ($449M), the height of the roof (265 feet above the playing surface)- everything is BIG. It has a footprint of 1,900,000 square feet, it seats up to 72,000, and it has 221 luxury boxes. Reliant also boasts the largest scoreboards in the NFL: 42' x 275' each.
I haven't been to a Texans game yet, but She Who Endures My Myriad Eccentricities and I went to a Rolling Stones concert at Reliant. I spent most of the concert trying (and failing) to absorb the sheer scale of the place. Un-freakin'-bee-leev-ub-bull....
Over the past five years, Houston has built five state-of-the-freakin'-art jock worship palaces. First came Minute Maid Park, which, in my humble opinion, is the single best place to watch a baseball game in the free world- period. The Astros have an absolute jewel of a ballpark. By comparison, the Astrodome is a mausoleum.
Next came Reliant Stadium, which can be taken as a validation of one man's (Bob McNair) determination to bring the NFL to Houston. It is every bit as grandiose and expansive as Minute Maid Park is intimate.
In between Minute Maid Park and Reliant Stadium is Toyota Center, the new home of the Houston Rockets. For a 20,000 seat arena, it has sightlines and amenities that are truly impressive. Sure, the intimacy of the seats make it feel like you're sitting on a Southwest Airlines flight squeezed between Louie Anderson and Tony Siragusa, but it's an enjoyable place to watch a basketball game. The layout of Toyota Center also makes it an excellent place to watch a hockey game. Could an NHL team be far off??
In case you haven't figured this out by now, I will admit to having a fascination with stadia. There is something about the complexity and scope of an edifice large enough to hold many thousands of people that I find endlessly fascinating.
Of course, even with my fascination I am aware of the financial realities behind Houston's edifice complex: close to a billion dollars has been sunk into our three jock worship cathedrals. It would be interesting to see how much good could have been done with that money. Yep, Houston may not be able to pave it's streets or maintain it's infrastructure, but we damn sure have three beautiful new stadiums. Gottaproblemwiddat??
