Last week, the Houston Chronicle wrote a solid article that went into how bad the city was financially suffering from the stadium deal with the Houston Texans. It is worth a read. Currently, Harris County Sports & Convention Corp, directly manages the stadium and nearby facilities for the county. However, the local government is “in charge of maintenance — not the Texans”. Recently, Harris County asked for and received a stadium report that clearly showed that assigned taxpayer funds for the stadium were not enough to satisfy the constant and expensive upgrades demanded by the Texans.
Surely, this stadium must generate revenue in the off-season. I hear this argument every week by stadium proponents.
“The county…it has not managed to turn its control of NRG’s off-season calendar into a cash-generating machine that could cover the recurring costs…The Texans…do not have to contribute significantly toward maintenance costs, and the county does not have enough money to meet its maintenance obligations.” — Houston Chronicle, 01/24/25
Essentially, and I will quote the article on this, the current stadium setup “isn’t working”. Why is this suddenly becoming a story? Because the stadium and surrounding development currently need about $2 billion in “capital repairs over the next 30 years”. In 2019, the price for upgrades was just one-third of the 2025 price. Residents of Harris County should pay attention to this part because “taxpayers will have to pitch in to close that gap”. You better because the Texans, a team worth over $6 billion, are “frustrated” at the “lack of maintenance”. When Houston got the Super Bowl in 2017, the team got angry at the county because of their refusal to pay for expensive upgrades that would just be used for the Super Bowl. Don’t you worry though, as city leaders got Super Bowl tickets for free, rather than having to pay the $3,000-$4,000 required for a ticket.
Some people have argued that the Texans do, in fact, pay $4 million in rent every year! Yes, and in seven of the last eight years, the team has gotten tax rebates that are worth more than their rent payment. How lucky. Houston also had two other sports venues for their NBA team and MLB team. Both of those venues allow the owner to upgrade whenever they want, but from their own pocket. These two venues also keep the revenue from all off-season events, which can be a financial help if properly used.
The Texans responded in a statement by pointing out that they “provided capital to support the construction and on-going needs of the building”. I read this and my initial question is…have they? Let’s start with the Texans gifting the public with money for upgrades. Whenever I read about improvements to the stadium, I see stories like this, where the upgrades “are being paid for with loans from the sports authority”. Now let’s talk about the construction of the stadium. If we wanted to start at the beginning, we can start with Harris County before 2002 proclaiming that a new stadium would cost just a little over $300 million. The final cost was just over $475 million. Just a bit outside. But wherever I look, I don’t see the Texans providing anything really for the construction of the stadium. In fact, can anyone show me that a dime of the construction came from McNair himself? The billionaire?
A 2002-story in Business Journal notes $50M was being given for the construction of the stadium through Texans PSL sales. When the stadium first jumped up by 18M, the Texans covered $11M of that increase. That was all that I could find on the Texans giving to the stadium construction.
But we need to cut the Texans and their owner, Bob McNair, a break:
“Another factor in the county’s decision to take on maintenance, according to Patterson and others involved in the negotiations, was that McNair had to pay substantially more than he envisioned in his pursuit of a team. When he first started organizing his effort, he believed he would have to pay a $250 million expansion fee to the NFL. He ultimately paid $700 million. “The turnip had been sucked dry on that particular day,” said Dave Walden, who was chief of staff to Mayor Bob Lanier in the 1990s and later lobbied for the Texans” — Houston Chronicle, 01/24/25
