The Kingdome (officially King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium ) is a multi-purpose stadium in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. Owned and operated by King County, Kingdome opened in 1976 and is best known as Seattle Seahawks home stadium of the National Football League (NFL), Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB), and Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The stadium also serves as outdoor and indoor playgrounds for the Seattle Sounders of the North American Football League (NASL) and hosts numerous amateur sporting events, concerts and other events. The Kingdome is 660 feet wide from its inner wall.
The idea of ​​building a closed stadium for a major soccer league and/or baseball team was first submitted to Seattle officials in 1959. Voters rejected separate steps to approve public funding for such stadiums in 1960 and 1966, but the results were different in 1968.; King County voters approved a US $ 40 million issue in municipal bonds to build the stadium. Construction began in 1972 and the stadium opened in 1976 as a home stadium Sounders and Seahawks. Mariners moved the following year, and SuperSonics moved the following year, only to return to the Seattle Center Coliseum in 1985. The stadium hosted several major sporting events, including the Soccer Bowl in August 1976, Pro Bowl in January 1977, Major League Baseball All-Star Game in July 1979, the NBA All-Star Game in 1987, and the NCAA Final Four in 1984, 1989, and 1995.
During the 1990s, the ownership groups of each Seahawks and Mariners began to question Kingdome's suitability as a place for each team, threatening to move unless a new publicly-funded stadium was built. The problem is the fact that no team sees their share division as a profit, as well as the integrity of the stadium roof as highlighted by the collapse of the ceiling tiles to the seating area before the scheduled Mariners game. As a result, public funding packages for new and specially built stadiums for Mariners and Seahawks were approved in 1995 and 1997, respectively. Mariners moved to Safeco Field in mid-1999, and Seahawks moved temporarily to Husky Stadium after the 1999 season. The Kingdome was destroyed by an explosion on March 26, 2000; Seahawks' new stadium, Seahawks Stadium (now known as CenturyLink Field) was built on the site and opened in 2002.
King County paid the bonds used to build and repair the Kingdome in 2015, 15 years after its demolition.
Video Kingdome
Concept and construction
In 1959, Seattle restaurant owner David L. Cohn wrote a letter to the Seattle City Council stating that the city needed a closed stadium for a major professional sports franchise. A domed stadium is considered a necessity because of the frequent rain in Seattle. At the time, the city had Husky Stadium and Sick's Stadium for college football and minor league baseball, respectively, but both were deemed inadequate for the major league teams.
In 1960, the city council put a $ 15 million bond of size issues on a vote to fund the construction of the stadium, but voters rejected it because of the doubt the stadium could be built within the budget, and the lack of assurances that the city would have a team to play at the stadium. In 1966, the National Football League and the American League both considered giving the city a franchise expansion, and as a result the King County Council put the size of another bond issuance on a ballot, which voters rejected as well.
In 1967, the American League gave Seattle a franchise expansion that would be known as the Seattle Pilots. The league made it clear that the Sick Stadium was inadequate as the premier league stadium, and determined that as a condition for obtaining a franchise, the bonds had to be issued to finance the construction of a domed stadium to be completed in 1970; In addition, the capacity at Sick's Stadium should be expanded from 11,000 to 30,000 by the 1969 Opening Day, when the team is scheduled to start playing. The pilot was supposed to start playing in 1971 along with the Kansas City Royals. However, when Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri got wind of the plan, he demanded both teams start playing in 1969. The American League has spawned the Royals and Pilots as a result of the Kansas City Athletics move to Oakland, and Symington will not accept the prospect of Kansas City waiting three years to return baseball.
In February 1968, as part of a group of Advanced Bond propositions, King County voters approved the issuance of $ 40 million worth of bonds to fund the construction of the "King County Multipurpose Stadium". That year a committee considered over 100 sites throughout Seattle and King County for the stadium, and unanimously decided the best site would be in the Seattle Center area, 1962 World Exhibition venue. Community members denounced the idea, claiming that the committee was influenced by groups, special interest groups.
The pilots started playing as planned in 1969, but Sick's Stadium proved to be a problematic place for fans, media, and visiting players alike, and it soon became clear that it was inadequate even for temporary use. The pilot only attracted 677,000 fans that season, not enough to break even, and petitions by the stadium opponents kept the Sick's Stadium project stalled. The Pilot ownership group ran out of money at the end of the season, and with the stadium plan in a limbo state, the team was forced to declare bankruptcy. Despite efforts by Seattle area businessmen to buy teams as well as efforts to keep the team in Seattle through the court system, the Pilot was sold to Milwaukee Kem Selig businessman, who moved the team to Wisconsin and named it Milwaukee Brewers the week before the start of the 1970 season.
The urge to build the vaulted stadium continues despite the lack of major league sports teams to occupy it. In May 1970 voters rejected a proposal to build a stadium at the Seattle Center. From 1970 to 1972, the commission studied the feasibility and economic impact of building a stadium on King Street adjacent to Pioneer Square and the International District - a site ranked at the bottom when the commission initially narrowed down the possible field of sites in 1968. This attracted sharp opposition especially from the International District community, who feared the impact of the stadium on the environmental business located on the east of the site. The King Street site was approved 8-1 by the county council in late 1971, and the groundbreaking ceremony of 1972 was held on 2 November. Some protesters attended the ceremony, disrupting the speakers, and at one point threw mud balls at them.
On December 5, 1974, the NFL gave Seattle a franchise expansion to occupy the new stadium; the team was later named Seattle Seahawks. Construction lasted two more years, and the stadium held its opening ceremony on March 27, 1976. It hosted its first professional sporting event two weeks later on April 9, an exhibition football match between Seattle Sounders and the New York Cosmos of the NASL. This is a record for the biggest soccer audiences in North America at 58,120.
Maps Kingdome
Football
Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks expansion of the NFL played their first game on August 1, 1976, a pre-season game against the San Francisco 49ers at Kingdome. Seahawks' first regular season game is against St. Louis Cardinals at Kingdome on 12 September. At the end of the season, the venue hosted the Pro Bowl, an all-star NFL game, on January 17, 1977.
Seahawks hosted Monday Night Football matches at Kingdome twelve times in its history and 9-3 in the game. The Seahawks and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders played five Monday Night matches at the Dome in 1980 with Seattle holding the 3-2 edge including a 37-0 thrashing victory in 1986. The following year, in 1987, Bo Jackson of the Los Angeles Raiders rushed as far as 221 yards, most at MNF, and scored 2 goals. One of the scores is 91-yard touchdown and the other is plowing history into Seahawks high-profile rookie linebacker Brian "The Boz" Bosworth.
The last NFL game Kingdome was played on January 9, 2000, a first-round playoff defeat to the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins scored the fourth in the quarter to win 20-17; it was the NFL's last victory for Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino and head coach Jimmy Johnson.
The Seahawks have an overall record of 104-84 (.553) at Kingdome, and 2-1 in the postseason.
Amateur
Higher Education
The first college football game to be played at Kingdome was also in 1976, between Washington State Cougars and USC Trojans on 9 October. With 37,268 in attendance, USC ran back Ricky Bell rushing for 346 yards and set the pac-8 single game rushed record, and the Trojans won by nine points, 23-14.
University of Puget Sound Loggers 'and the success of Pacific Lutheran University Lutes' in bringing a large crowd to the newly opened Tacoma Dome in 1983, 1984, and 1985, caught Kingdome's attention to move the competition match to the Totem Pole Trophy to Seattle. It was played on Kingdome for two years - 1986 and 1987. While it was relatively successful for a small college football, the organizers realized that they would never get the 50,000 needed to fill the Kingdome and game back into Tacoma.
SMA
The stadium also hosted the WIAA high school football championship in an event called King Bowl until 1994; game titles were moved to the Tacoma Dome near Tacoma in 1995.
The Seattle Police Department and Tacoma play an annual game called Bacon Bowl to raise money for charity; Since then moved to CenturyLink Field.
Baseball
Not long after Pilot's departure to Milwaukee, the city of Seattle, King County, and Washington state sued the American League, claiming a breach of contract. The league agrees to give Seattle another franchise in exchange for dropping the lawsuit, and the team that later became known as the Seattle Mariners was born. Mariners held their first game at Kingdome in 1977 against the California Angels on 6 April.
The Kingdome is somewhat problematic as a baseball place: the gross area is large enough, the outfield dimensions are small enough, and the seating area is set back away from the field, with the seat on the upper deck as far as 617 feet (188 m) from the home plate. Part of the problem is that Kingdome is not a multipurpose stadium in the true sense. Instead, it was built as a football stadium that could be converted into a baseball stadium. For example, most fans in outfield seats at level 300 can not see the right and center of the field; these areas are not part of the football field.
For most of the first 18 years of Mariners, their bad game (they did not have a winning season until 1991) combined with Kingdome design, led to a bad presence. Some writers and fans call it "Tomb" (due to gray concrete and lack of noise) and "Puget Puke." After their first home openers, Mariners did not have any more sales until 1990. At one point Mariners covered the seat on the top deck on the right and center-right with a tarp to make the stadium feel "less empty". In addition, Kingdome acoustics create problems for stadium announcers, who must face significant echo problems. However, when the team's fortunes began to change in the mid-1990s and they began to attract a larger crowd, especially in the post-season, the noise created an electric atmosphere and gave the home team a distinct advantage similar to the effect on football matches.
Although the interior is spacious, the dimensions of the Kingdome field are relatively small. It has a reputation as a beater park, especially in the 1990s when Ken Griffey, Jr., Edgar MartÃÆ'nez, Jay Buhner, Alex Rodriguez and other slugger players played there.
A large number of in-play objects - speakers, cables and roof tape - contribute to the feel of a "baseball". The Kingdome improved somewhat in 1982 with the addition of a 23-foot (7.0 m) wall on the right field nicknamed "Walla Walla" (after Walla Walla, Washington), "featuring a new outdoor city scoreboard, which In 1990 and 1991, home plate movements closer to the backstop, the addition of a box seat below the third bottom line and the removal of several rows of seats in the left field reduces the gross area and increases the outfield dimension.
The most important baseball game in Kingdome history took place on October 8, 1995, when the Seattle Mariners beat the New York Yankees 6-5 in 11 innings in an ALDS rubber match in front of 57,411 fans. At the bottom of 11, Martinez doubled to the left, sending Joey Cora and Griffey home with victory and jumping Mariners to ALCS for the first time in franchise history.
In 1996, the match between Mariners and Indian Cleveland on May 2 at Kingdome was suspended in the seventh home of the seventh inning because of a small earthquake. The quake occurred during a pitch change as the Indian thrower Orel Hershiser was walking from the mound following a home run by Edgar MartÃÆ'nez. Upon inspection by the engineers, the match resumed on the following night, which resulted in victory for the Indians.
In 1989, Griffey Jr., in the first plate appearance at Kingdome on April 10, reached the home run. On 27 June 1999, Griffey Jr. hit the last home run at Kingdome.
Basket
Seattle SuperSonics
In addition to Mariners and Seahawks, the stadium also hosts Seattle SuperSonics in the NBA for several years. The 1978-79 season was the first year the Sonics played at Kingdome on a full-time basis (they had played several games there over the previous two seasons) with the addition of portable stadium seating added to the arena floor as well as additional scoreboards and new basketball courts. Fred Brown and Gus Williams led the team that year to the first and only championship. At the time it was known in the NBA because the most noisy arena for basketball as well as the biggest crowd with stadium vendor Bill the Beerman took on the task of being a cheerleader. In the 1979-1980 season, SuperSonics set an average NBA record of 21,725 ​​fans per game (due to damage). In 1978, SuperSonics set the record of a single NBA match attendance at 39,457, and then again in 1980 at 40,172 (also, due to damage). The regular season of Kingdome, 38.067 single game attendance record set in 1991. SuperSonics hosted the 1987 NBA All-Star Game there.
Logistics will be a problem during the playoffs, as Mariners (the main tenant of Kingdome) objected to letting the Sonics play there in the spring. Therefore, the Sonics will only play at playoffs at Kingdome while Mariners are on the road, with most matches played at the Seattle Center Coliseum, and some matches must be played at the Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the University of Washington.
The Sonics owner, Barry Ackerley, decided to leave Kingdome and build a new basketball arena. Plans are being made to build a new arena south of Kingdome (where Safeco Field stands today) called Ackerley Arena, but after financing fails, the team returns to the Coliseum, occasionally playing at Kingdome over the next few years. The Coliseum was finally rebuilt as KeyArena, reopened for the 1995-96 season. The Sonics played there until the team was bought and moved by Oklahoma City clayton businessman "Clay" Bennett before the 2008-09 season.
Higher Education
The NCAA Final Four college basketball was held three times at Kingdome - in 1984, when Georgetown defeated Houston, in 1989 when Michigan defeated Seton Hall in overtime, and in 1995 when UCLA won their first championship since retiring coach John Wooden 20 years earlier in 1975, defeating Arkansas.
Other sports and entertainment
Soccer
Kingdome's first sporting event was a 1976 match between the New York Cosmos NASL and Sounders Seattle on April 25, with 58,128 fans in attendance.
The Kingdome hosted the Soccer Bowl '76 between Minnesota Kicks and Toronto Metros-Croatia on 28 August 1976.
The Kingdome held the 1984 Final NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship between Clemson University, coached by Dr. I. M. Ibrahim, and defended Indiana University's national champion led by Coach Jerry Yeagley. Clemson University wins in regulation to bring home the first national championship in football.
All celebration stars
The Kingdome hosted the NFL Pro Bowl in 1977, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1979, and the 1987 NBA All-Star Game, making it the only place that has hosted all star games for three major sports leagues.
Concert
Many rock concerts are held there, though there are significant echoes and noise issues caused by large cave sizes.
More events
It also hosted the AMA Supercross Championship round from 1978 to 1999.
The biggest crowd to attend a single event at Kingdome came early, for an eight-day Billy Graham crusade in 1976. The Friday night edition on May 14 attracted 74,000 and featured singer Johnny Cash; 5,000 rejected.
Last year
Relocation threat
In the 1990s, the suitability of the stadium as the NFL and MLB venues was in doubt. Both the ownership groups of each Seahawks and Mariners see the joint arrangement of an economically viable stadium. After several years of threats to relocate Mariners because of poor attendance and income, owner Jeff Smulyan sold the team to the ownership group led by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi in 1992. Almost immediately, the new ownership group began campaigning with local and state governments to secure public funding for a new baseball stadium. In March 1994, King County Executive Gary Locke appointed a task force to study the need for a baseball-only stadium.
the collapse of the ceiling of 1994
Kingdome's roof was troubled from the start. A leak was found on the roof two months before the stadium opened, and some improvement efforts made the situation worse and/or had to be canceled. In 1993, the county decided to take off the outer roof layer and replace it with a special coating. Sandblasting failed to disarm the old roofing material, and the contractor changed its method to washing pressure. This pressure washing produced water seep through the roof, and on July 19, 1994, four 26-pounds (12 kg), acoustic ceiling tiles flooded into the seating area. Tiles fell when the Mariners were on the pitch preparing for a scheduled match against the Baltimore Orioles, half an hour before the gates opened for fans entering the stadium. As a result, Kingdome is closed for repairs.
Mariners were forced to play the last 20 games of the 1994 season on the road after the guild players vetoed a "home" game at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, or some neutral sites, like unions believing their members should only play on - premier league place. The extended ground trip could last more than two months, but was shortened due to the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike, which began on 12 August and finally canceled the rest of the MLB 1994 season and delayed the start of the 1995 season. Seahawks had to play pre-season games and three regular home games 1994's first regular season at the nearest Husky Stadium.
The Kingdome held a reopening ceremony on the weekend of November 4-6, 1994, culminating with the Seahawks back to the stadium for regular season games against the Cincinnati Bengals. Fixing the roof eventually cost US $ 51 million and two construction workers lost their lives due to a crane accident during the repair. The incident also motivated plans to replace the stadium.
Substitution
On September 19, 1995, King County voters beat the size of a ballot that would fund the construction of a new baseball stadium for Mariners. However, the following month, the Mariners made it to the MLB postseason for the first time, and defeated the New York Yankees in the 5th game that set the ALDS in 1995 on the heels of two double wins scored by Edgar MartÃÆ'nez. The Mariners' run postseason show that there is a fan base in Seattle that wants the team to live in the city, and as a result, Washington State Legislature approves a separate funding package for the new stadium.
In January 1996, Seahawks owner Ken Behring announced that he moved the team to Los Angeles and the team would play at the Anaheim Stadium, which was recently emptied as a football venue when the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis. The reasons for the decision include unfounded security issues surrounding Kingdome seismic stability. Behring went so far as to relocate the team headquarters to Anaheim, California, but his plan was defeated when lawyers discovered that Seahawks could not terminate his contract with Kingdome until 2005. As a result, Behring tried to sell the team. He found a potential buyer at Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who stipulated that a new publicly-funded stadium should be built as a condition of his team's purchase. Allen funded a special election held on June 17, 1997, featuring a measure that would allocate public funding for the new stadium for Seahawks to be built on the Kingdome site. The move passed, Allen officially bought the team, and the fate of Kingdome was sealed.
The Mariners played their last game at Kingdome for a sold-out crowd on 27 June 1999, and played their first game in their new home, Safeco Field, on July 15, almost 3 weeks later. The Seahawks, meanwhile, moved temporarily to Husky Stadium after the 1999 season. While Kingdome was demolished, their new stadium, Seahawks Stadium, was built on Kingdome's footprint, and was opened on time for the 2002 NFL season.
Demolition
Controlled Demolition, Inc. destroyed Kingdome with an explosion on March 26, 2000 (around the opening 24th anniversary of Kingdome), setting a record recognized by Guinness World Records for the largest building, by volume, ever destroyed by an explosion. The Kingdome is the first major vaulted stadium to be destroyed in the United States and Kingdome's demolition is the first live event covered by ESPN Classic. The Kingdome was destroyed before debts incurred to pay for its construction were paid in full and by September 2010, the County's inhabitants were still responsible for over $ 80 million of debt in the destroyed stadium. In January 2015, the debt is expected to retire in March 2015, nine months earlier than the original bond maturity and 15 years after dismantling in March 2000. 2% of the 15.6% hotel/motel taxes allocated to Kingdome debt are no longer required instead to the district's 4Culture program for art, inheritance, and conservation.
Successor
Two separate facilities replaced Kingdome. Safeco Field, a baseball park created exclusively for the Seattle Mariners, broke down in 1997 on a site located adjacent to Kingdome, at the Royal Brougham Way, and opened in 1999. CenturyLink Field, a multipurpose stadium built primarily for Seattle Seahawks is built on top of the former Kingdome site that started after the demolition of Kingdome in 2000. CenturyLink Field (formerly known as Seahawks Stadium and Qwest Field) has been a Seattle Seahawks home field since it opened in 2002, and has become a home field for Seattle Sounders FC from MLS since 2009.
Seating capacity
In popular culture
The Kingdome made an appearance in the 2007 RTS game World In Conflict , where Kingdome was destroyed by Soviet artillery during the Soviet invasion of Seattle.
In 1978, Kingdome became the backdrop of rescue in Emergency! TV movie "Most Deadly Passage", featuring the work of paramedics Seattle Medic One.
Also mentioned in the episode of Full House "Crushed" Season 5 Episode 6 by "Tommy Page."
The Kingdome is mentioned in the 1998 episode of the Seattle sitcom-set Frasier . In Season 6 Episode 6, "The Secret Admirer," Martin describes Daphne's frustrated driving that repeatedly leads them into various traffic delays: "So Daphne takes a left at Madison, Bumper to bumper all the way to Pike, then right on Pike." And what do you know? The traffic of King Dome [sic]! "
The Kingdome is mentioned in the Foo Fighters 'New Way Home' song which was featured on 1997's 'The Color and the Shape'
See also
- Delta Dome
- Thin shell structure
- List of thin shell structures
References
External links
- The story behind The Seattle Kingdome blast
- Kingdome: The Controversial Birth of the Seattle icon (1959-1976)
- Video from Kingdome Implosion
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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