Sunday’s game won’t be the first Super Bowl in the Houston Texans’ stadium.
But when the big game was there in 2004, the stadium had a different name and a different playing surface.
The 72,000-seat, retractable-roof stadium opened in 2002 as Reliant Stadium. Its name was changed to NRG Stadium in 2014 at the request of NRG Energy, which had acquired Reliant Energy in 2009. The company is one of Texas’ largest electricity providers.
The stadium had a natural-grass field for NFL games through its first 13 seasons. That was no small feat, requiring the movement of large trays of sod into and out of the stadium multiple times each year. The troublesome system was scrapped in September 2015 and replaced with an artificial turf surface.
So, in what is now called NRG Stadium, on what is now artificial turf, the Super Bowl between the Falcons and the New England Patriots will be played Sunday night.
“I think it’s a beautiful stadium,” said Scott Jenkins, general manager of Atlanta’s new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, who has visited NRG Stadium several times.
The Patriots also played in the previous Super Bowl in the stadium, beating the Carolina Panthers 32-29 on Feb. 1, 2004.
The 2004 Super Bowl, like most Texans games over the years, was played with the stadium’s retractable roof closed. The NFL has said it hopes to play Sunday’s game with the roof open, provided there is no threat of rain. A final decision is expected Saturday or early Sunday.
Houston also hosted the Super Bowl in 1974, that one at Rice Stadium.
NRG Stadium has been the site of college basketball’s Final Four on two occasions, 2011 and 2016.
The multipurpose stadium also is the home of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, held for three weeks each March, a major event that the building was designed to accommodate.
NRG Stadium is about 8 miles from downtown Houston, where most of the high-profile ancillary events associated with the Super Bowl have been held over the past nine days.
The stadium has a famous next-door neighbor: the Houston Astrodome.
Called “The Eighth Wonder of the World” when it opened in 1965, the Astrodome hasn’t hosted an event since 2009, when the city declared it unfit for occupancy. Before that, the Houston Oilers had left for Tennessee in 1997 and the Astros had moved to Minute Maid Park in downtown Houston in 2000.
Most pro sports stadiums in this country are demolished when their major tenants leave, as will happen to the Georgia Dome this summer when the Falcons move next door to Mercedes-Benz Stadium. But the Astrodome still stands, considered by many to have too much sentimental and historical value to demolish.
The Astrodome costs about $170,000 a year in county funds to maintain and is used on a limited basis as storage space for NRG Stadium and other nearby facilities. The latest plan calls for it to be converted into a conference space and parking garage.
The more immediate plan is to turn on the lights and call a bit of attention to the famous old building on Super Bowl Sunday.
NRG Stadium is in a 350-acre complex, collectively called NRG Park, that also includes NRG Center (exhibit and meeting space) and NRG Arena (for events of less than 10,000). Both of those venues will be used for pregame events Sunday. The complex includes 26,000 parking spaces.
The stadium was the first in the NFL with a retractable roof. There now are three others — the Arizona Cardinals’ Indianapolis Colts’ and Dallas Cowboys’ stadiums.
Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium will join the group later this year, with an eight-petal retractable roof that will have a 58-foot-tall halo-shaped video board built into the roof structure.
“I would say (Houston’s) roof is typical of NFL stadiums’ retractable roofs, and I would say ours is anything but typical,” Jenkins said.
Before the conversion to artificial turf in 2015, NRG Stadium’s playing surface drew much criticism as potentially risky for players. Critics said the assembly of pallets of grass grown off-site produced an uneven surface with seams.
The stadium’s artificial turf has passed muster with the NFL, which will play the Super Bowl on largely the same field that the Texans used this season.
Sections of turf were replaced in the end zones and at midfield in order to eliminate the Texans’ logos and install those of the Falcons, Patriots and Super Bowl.
NRG STADIUM AT A GLANCE
Opened: Aug. 24, 2002
Construction cost: $352 million
Seating capacity: Approximately 72,000
Roof: Retractable
Previous mega-events: 2004 Super Bowl, 2011 and 2016 NCAA Final Four
