Talked to a guy who was on the stadium crew when I was there for the Big 12 Championship game between Nebraska and Texas. Naturally, because it was an indoor stadium and a convention center it had a concrete floor. The synthetic turf would be laid out for football games. When there was a convention they'd roll up the turf on these huge rollers where it would be placed in store rooms. The problem was the store rooms had not been designed tall enough to accommodate standard turf on the rollers. It wouldn't fit. Their solution was to use a thinner turf so when they rolled it up it would fit in the store rooms. Think laying a piece of carpet, with no padding, on a concrete floor. The guy said the Ram players complained about it all the time and many left the team when they could because of it.
The dome was state of the art when it opened. The advantage of the dome was how loud it got. The dome was rocking and the loudest stadium in the NFL for some time. St Louis competed with Seattle when it came to crowd noise. I always loved hearing the comments from visiting fans "this place is loud". Don't forget the dome hosted some great events from rolling Stones to the largest indoor mass in the US with Pope John Paul II. Plus the only XFL city to sell out an upper section an hour. But the game was cancelled due to Covid.
I played HS football in MO back when teams played championship gm in the dome. 4 years of HS I had 1 mindset to make it to the dome but we always came short in the playoffs.
I’m sorry to hear that I’m in Ohio and our championship is at the hof stadium in canton after 4 years we made the playoffs for our senior season this year we didn’t make it to the championship but in the 2nd round we played canton McKinley and their home stadium is the hof stadium and we got to play there and we won
Correct! But when you have greedy millionaires and billionaires holding cities hostage and greedy idiotic politicians, it produces these horrible deals. Only a few owners have In sports have self funded new sradiums, the last owner I'm aware that did it was Paul Allen for both his NFL team Seattle Seahawks and NBA team Portland Trailblazers.
I loved stadium designs as a child and never thought anyone would ever take the time to review stadium history, design, and economics. I love this channel and wish I could give it three thumbs up but then that would be weird having a hand with three thumbs so I'll leave a positive comment with thanks- THANKS! :-)
It's a shame that the NFL makes these cities jump through hoops and spend all this money just to have a team and the facility gets used by them 10 weeks a year. They make enough to build their own stadiums instead of stressing out their fans and holding them hostage. As a Raider fan I could never focuss on the season or the team because the inevitable would always be looming over everything like the elephant in the room. I hope smaller leagues like the XFL will come along and break their monopoly.
That's rough, man. It certainly doesn't help that the Raiders were stuck playing in the Oakland Colosseum. That's a special kind of hell where you either have to put up with teams and local governments fighting over paying $1 Billion for a new stadium, or be left to rot in an dilapidated shithole stadium that should've been replaced decades ago.
@@scaryhobbit211 and the league made enough to help the situation. They could've put up part of the money and made it back over the seasons from revenue. and concert events instead of pressuring a broke city to ignore their schools and other concerns and build them a new stadium. The fans were some of the best and they deserved better than what they got from the league and the politicians.
@@aaronblaylock2092 as devil's advocate, the league did offer 200 to 250 million to help with the Raiders' new stadium, wherever that was going to be. Raiders also took out a 600+ million dollar loan from Bank of America. Rest was paid by Vegas' hotel tax. It's not like Oakland and Alameda aren't used to wasting money. Why snub a team that wants to stay when you're still paying on the old stadium? Now they don't have the Warriors or the Raiders. That mayor Schaaf is a clown.
Lived the city of San Diego & the Chargers’ cluster for years. Chargers should have stayed! Lost their fan base & we fans lost all respect for ownership in the process. Ownership has ruined the Cowboys too.
nhl or nba arenas are much more profitable than nfl stadiums. Thats a reality. Longer schedule, concerts, whatever. I never understood the profit of NFL public funded
because theres only so many nfl games a year. while nba arenas have tons of games. like over ten times as many games. a strictly nfl stadium needs to follow green bays road and just build one with the plans for updates and renovating every ten years. building a new one everytime is beyond crazy
A multipurpose NBA/NHL arena would hold 82 games a season. MLB ballparks hold 81 games a year. The NFL has a measly 8 or 9 home games per year. Not to mention how much cheaper it is to build an arena or ballpark compared to a football stadium. The value for money is definitely better for Arenas and Ballparks.
It also helps because most NHL and NBA teams share Arenas if they got multiple teams in the same city such as Red Wings and pistons do at Little Caesars Arena
They Should have never left L.A. Georgia Frontier was a Fraud , never negotiated in good faith with ANAHEIM, she took the money and Ran. Now they are where they BELONG.
Man stl was winning back then the whole city plenty of decent jobs chrysler ford gm an tons of other places bush got in office stl went from sugar to shit expeditiously
Like the Hoosier Dome, the Edward Jones Dome was built "on spec", meaning that the stadium was built with the hopes of luring a team. As it was built on the cheap, it quickly served its purpose. Unlike Indianapolis, where they worked with the Colts to build a state of the art stadium, Stan Kroenke was intent on moving to Los Angeles. That said, and to his credit, the stadium was paid almost entirely with private funds.
I went to the BattleHawks home opener and I’ve gotta say....I don’t think it was a bad stadium at all. A few minor cosmetic updates inside such as newer seats and a bigger jumbo screen would make it even better. But I absolutely loved the dome!
Yes, the Dome was a lot more lively during those 2 Battlehawks games than it was for the Rams. Big difference when you actually have a team worth cheering for. Fingers crossed we get more games come 2023!
@@Gage_Brumley Those are Band-Aids. The real problem for the Dome is the lack of natural light. The Dome could be good enough as a temporary venue for an NFL team now while a new one is being built but definitely not as a permanent home for a new team. Then again, the XFL might just be good enough for St. Louis. Nevertheless, based on the high attendance for the Battlehawks, I have to think the NFL is taking a hard look at St. Louis to see if they can put a team there. My vote would be to move the Jaguars. Jacksonville is a soft NFL market that is not actually as big as it might seem on paper. The St. Louis metro area has A LOT more people than the Jacksonville metro area.
When the Rams were good that dome was so loud that opposing teams hated to play there. But the team owner spent billions of his own money to build a stadium in Los Angeles so obviously money was not the problem, the fix was in. One problem the Dome had was parking space and no real place for tailgating.
Diehard Rams fan from California..I flew to STL to watch games there and I had lots of fun there. I hope it doesn't get torn down sadly..So much great history there with GSOT🙏🙏
I also think that it is pretty decent. The Edward Jones Dome is pretty unique, because it is a dark place. Plus, The Greatest Show on Turf never would've happened in a outdoor stadium, only for that the stadium had a good purpose.
@@Jordozer Yeah, my impression from seeing the stadium on TV was that it was dark, but I liked that (I also like that the Superdome is super bright, so I can work either way).
Kroenke was looking for an excuse to move the team to a bigger market because the billions he has was not enough. When you marry one of the heirs to Walmart and get the exclusive rights to build and lease properties attached to a Walmart, you can forget where you came from. St. Louis does not miss Kroenke.
I've been to this place, though the seating was comfortable, facilities were clean, when you walked in there, it didn't feel like you were in a football stadium
I know, and while I never set foot inside of it myself, it seemed like a place where you wondered if you were really inside a football stadium, or maybe just a very large hockey arena instead! XD
I myself have been there before (I live in st.Louis) and I must say if it’s good for one thing. It’s for Monster Jam. Every year it’s nothing but insane and the floor is massive so it’s always special in the eyes of Monster Jam fans.
Fellow Monster Jam fan from the Detroit Area. Ford Field is far cooler stadium than the Silverdome. However, Monster Jams were far better at the Silverdome because of the larger floor space. I swear stadium amenities do not matter when it comes to those events.
St Louis was so desperate to getting a NFL team back they were willing to agree to ANYTHING when Georgia Frontiere moved the Rams in 1995. The team was committed to St Louis as long as Georgia was alive since that was her hometown and preferred to stay there, but once she died and Stan took over full ownership, the Rams’ time in Missouri was over and it was only a matter of time before the Rams returned back to LA where they belong.
I remember going to a Rams Packers game towards the end of the lease and when I was inside I couldn't believe how small it felt compared to other stadiums.
Probably because they didn't have a team commitment when it was built. Make it open and you can't do as many concerts and events as you can in a dome...
@@randallfloyd4476 it’s a shame, St. Louis has a small but dedicated fan base. If the NFL wants to keep expanding it’s going to have to expand into other cities
You should do one on the old Boston Garden. That place was such a pit, visiting team locker rooms playing the celtics mysteriously had their hot water turned off and the rats in and under the building were legendary. The biggest shithole in history. Every time i went there something bad happened.
Hahahaha you ain't said nothing. Baltimore's old Memorial stadium was a dump also. But it was dubbbed ' the largest outdoor insane asylum' because of our passionate (rabid) fan base. You can see more on one of the first ever 30 for 30's on ESPN called " the band that wouldn't die" about the old colts marching band that stayed together after the Colts left for Indy in 1984.
The Boston Garden had some charm to it but it was a dump overall. I saw some Bruins games when I was a kid in the 70's and it was antiquated back then. Tiny and uncomfortable seats (many with obstructed views), no air conditioning, and those sloped walkways leading into the building always smelled like piss.
I dunno, either one of two stadiums in Buffalo (The Aud and Ralph Wilson) could make a viable claim to the "biggest shithole" crown. At least the Celtics and Bruins were fun to watch sometimes. The old ballpark in Cleveland might be up there too.
Edward Jones Dome might have been it’s last name but I’m pretty sure most people remember this as the TransWorld Dome, the Rams were pretty much only ever terrible during the years when Edward Jones was the sponsor.
This place was so bad because St. Louis is really a great American city with so much history and so much to see, and this place embodied none of that. The Rams were basically playing in a dark convention center that had no personality and no soul. So many things they could have done with the St. Louis location and instead it was....this.
Well st Louis pretty much built it for the rams with they’re own money and Stan Kroenke used it as place to hide out until his team got better and he could move back to LA and never had plans to stay
@@irocz11 No, this place was not built for the Rams. It was built in hopes for an expansion team. When that did not happen, they went for a team. Unfortunately for St. Louis, it was the Georgia and John Shaw version of the Rams. J Shaw is everything people hate about lawyers and he raked St. Louis over the coals with a lease that had numerous clauses in it that was beneficial only to the Rams. These clauses allowed Stan K the ability to move the team out of the city before the entire contract was completed.
Hel of a 20 year run. Say what you want about the Doom. St louis showed up and showed out until it became clear that organization wanted to leave.. They turned the team into a clown show. I'm glad that St. Louis has moved on but they're building a new stadium for a soccer team . I hope they don't suffer the same faith.
Well technically the RCA dome (shown in the video) never hosted a super bowl either. It was Lucas oil that hosted the super bowl. An entirely different building
That whole "built during the transition" thing is what caught out Guaranteed Rate Field (formerly New Comiskey Park), which was the last park built before the "new retro" phase of ballpark construction took place. It made it look dated almost from the day it opened-and not in the good way that Camden Yards or Target Field do.
I actually liked the Jones dome. Ive only been once, but i thought it had a pretty cool, intimate feeling. You could really hear the players and hits and stuff. It was a fun experience.
Bill Fuckin' Belichick! Had the Rams beaten the Patriots in SB36, they'd still be playing in St. Louis today, I guarantee. Needless to say, that loss started the downward spiral for what was the greatest show on turf.
Sounds much like the now demolished Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. The echo was awful and the upper deck was too damn far away from the game. At least it wasn't downtown but out next to the expressways.
With me living around St. Louis, I’ve only been there for supercross and monster jam. I had no issues with the venue. Others seemed to think otherwise.
The Edward Jones Dome was not the only indoor stadium to not host a superbowl. The RCA Dome and the Astro Dome never hosted any superbowls either. The Pontiac Silver Dome was ranked even lower than those 3 dome stadiums. But it somehow managed to host a superbowl along with the Metro Dome which was ranked the same level as those 3 dome stadiums that never hosted a superbowl.
This sounds strikingly similar to the Key Arena in Seattle. Which many in Seattle know, ultimately, led to the Sonics being sold and then moved to Oklahoma City.
Seattle lets a bunch of losers take over city blocks while your coward police dept and mayor did nothing because they were afraid. Your city is a joke. I'd leave, too.
Used to go to the Dome all the way til 2016 when FIRST Robotics used to hold their world championships there. It was in serious disrepair the last couple of years. It leaked badly during torrential downpours which happen often in St. Louis ( we almost got hit by an F4 in 2012 during the event). My friend who is a radio producer in St. Louis and knows all the sports teams well since they broadcast their games heard that they are considering knocking the dome down to expand the convention center. Honestly I don't blame them.
Los Angeles Rams were in LosAngeles for 50 years before Georgia Frontier moved them to her home state.. there is so much more to it why and how she got ownership.. thankfully Rams back home in Los Angeles. Mad love to the Lou Rams Fans Rams fans all one horns up 🤘🏼
From an average fan's perspective, sunlight, retractable roof, luxury suites / amenities don't mean anything. The game played here is as good (or as bad) as played anywhere else. It's all in the eyes of the owners. Owners, please pay for your own stadiums and stop extorting tax payers' money!
@@Yuan-lo3zz What does them winning have to do with it? The Rams left St. Louis just like the Raiders who won 2 Super Bowls as the Oakland Raiders left Oakland for a much better venue in Las Vegas. Meanwhile St. Louis is left with a stadium they don’t need in a deal that hurts the city, not to mention lost revenue moving forward because all those vendors who made money off the Rams aren’t doing that anymore. Try telling them the Rams “still won” which by the way is not the focus of this video.
@@moonytheloony6516 It’s pretty simple. Despite never hosting a super bowl game, encompassing the various issues of the franchise both on and off the field, St. Louis was one of the best city’s where football was played for a particular period of time, and great enough to win a championship. A primed football location, in a small market city, where success was still acclaimed. That is what matters at the end of the day, actually being able to win something with what you have; you understand it now Moony The Loony? Or do I have to dum it down even further for your understanding?
@@Yuan-lo3zz Is that any way to talk to one of God’s children? And to answer your question. No you pretty much sound about as dumb as possible. I don’t think you can get any dumber but thank you for offering to be dumber. I know you’re good at that. Now listen here Mr. Insecurity, I was talking about anything but the fan perspective when a team leaves town which, frankly speaking is a St. Louis trend being 0 for 2. You didn’t like that… Well Eric…guess how much sleep I’ll be losing over your feelings….check this out egghead. 0 Zero Now go play frogger on the freeway.
I worked there 3 years, and it was plain vanilla the day it opened, and went down from there. You don't want to even know about the rats and roaches, leaks...on and on.
It’s still a better venue than Jacksonville Jaguars stadium. I say move that team to the Lou and they can still be in the AFC South with nearby Indianapolis and Nashville!
Actually the Jaguars stadium isn't all that bad, they just really don't care for football, being an expansion team with a state that already has 2 other teams.
@@H3roin1620 that’s because there’s Atlanta, Tampa, and Miami within driving distance to watch Pro Football. Jacksonville is more on College Football which is great too.
Politicians were too involved with the planning of the dome. In order to "sell it" (to get support of the local governments)...it was built as a "convention center" first...as opposed to a real NFL stadium. From that point on...everything else about the design was geared more towards its use as a convention space. This led to the interior lighting being installed too low (because the dome floor was lit by the same lights during conventions...they would be lowered). Apparently this was how the convention first proponents wanted it designed. This led to the roof & lights being so low that balls would sometimes hit the lights or ceiling (embarrassing). Then there were enough bathrooms for conventions....but not enough for games....and they weren't placed in the right locations. This reportedly led to long lines. The floor/turf was apparently rough for players...because again...the focus was not on the NFL....but on conventions...so that the misguided, self-serving politicians would buy into it and support the project. The turf had to be removable...to make room for conventions. So a softer field wasn't an option. The turf constantly had to be moved...so they went with what was cheap and easy to roll up. There were several other issues with how it was built. But yes...the seeds of failure were planted from the very beginning.
We have a local baseball stadium, built to attract an MiLB team. I fear it will suffer the same fate as this one. Although it was hailed as the best AA Ballpark its first season, the team got a very similar lease agreement as the Rams did with the Edward Jones Dome. If the city won't (or can't afford to) update the stadium to "top-tier" in year 15, the team can break the lease without consequence. And the team gets to decide what updates are necessary to make it "top-tier ". This will end up with an empty ballpark and an MiLB team in another city after a relatively short stay here.
I live in Tupelo MS and would drive up twice a year for games. One division and one non division. Fisher got hired and I never went to another game. Now I just catch them close to home. Enjoyed then in ST Louis.
Definitely do the Georgia Dome. Stadium wasn't even that old when they tore it down for Mercedes-Benz and it hosted so many big events throughout the years.
Our Dom3 doesn’t have to be abandoned and it has been seven yearz now since it been vacant; but da NFL can give us our expansion team that was givin two other market$ in da 90$.
Wow!! I forgot about the football team Cardinals being in St Louis. I’m somewhat not surprised the city has struggled to keep a team. I visited a few months ago and was excited to explore downtown since I loved the Rams! However besides the Gateway Arch it wasn’t that fun. Came off as poorly designed filled with inconvenience for those on foot.
I always loved going to see my team play the Rams in this dome. That's because nobody showed up to support the Rams and you could get seats 5-15 rows from the field for super cheap. I remember buying 2 tickets for Halloween (Thursday night, maybe Monday Night) football 4 rows back from Endzone for less than $130. Also bought 2 tickets 35 yard line about 10-15 rows from the field for about the same price. It was awesome.
@@roccosteo8328 I loved the end zone seats. Randy Moss, Steve Young, and Jerry Rice stopped by at halftime for a few minutes to wave to us. We were probably less than 20 feet away.
Went to a game once and sat up high. Was too far away from the field, strangely quiet and I got bored. Almost took a nap. There was nothing special about it.
The bad thing was they built the stadium first before it had a team. At least they did get a football team unlike San Antonio when it built the Alamo Dome.
I saw the Rams lose all three games that I saw them play there. It was an okay stadium. I found that the Titans and Bears had about as many fans at the games I attended as the Rams did. The Redskins were outnumbered by a decent bit but not overwhelmingly in fan support by the Rams for that other game.
went to a couple super-cross races there back in the day, always thought it was terrible for sound and the race fumes that the dome trapped in was nauseating.
I'm pretty sure that once Georgia Frontierre passed away and Stan Kroenke took over majority control of the team his plan was to always move the team to LA. He just had to bide time until he was capable of breaking the lease and pretend to go through the motions of hearing the proposals for a new stadium in St. Louis.
I feel bad for Saint Louis pro football fans. They supported their teams well but got got messed over by situations total out of their control. I hope they get a pro team in the future & that the team ownership does right by their fans.
Bill Bidwell: "Build a domed stadium, or I'll move to Phoenix." St. Louis: "No." Bill Bidwell: (Moves to Phoenix.) St. Louis: (Builds domed stadium) "Hey, NFL, can we have a team?" NFL: "No, but Charlotte and Jacksonville can, because you couldn't take care of the one you had." Rams: "Well go play in St. Louis" NFL: "If you do we'll make you come out here and play the same teams anyway." Rams: "Fine. Be that way." NFL: "Fine. We will." Rams: "This sucks. This town doesn't take care of their football teams. Let's go back to LA." (Moves back to LA). St. Louis: "Hey, come check out our Boat Show. It's inside."
@@skidawg22 I know- Gussie getting pissed that Bidwell didn't wanna sell his beer, the city agreeing to the ridiculous lease on the dome, Randy Karraker crying at the meeting...
Jaguars' owner, Shahid Khan tried to buy the Rams in 2010. He entered into an agreement to buy 60% of the team from Chip Rosenbloom. However, Stan Kronke, a minority owner, exercised a clause to match any proposed bid. Khan is a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate. In other words, he's a homeboy who would have kept the Rams in St. Louis.
