Kingdome

King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium
The Kingdome The Dome World's Largest Chia Pet
Location	201 S. King Street Seattle, Washington 98104
Broke ground	November 2, 1972
Opened	March 27, 1976
Closed	January 9, 2000
Demolished	March 26, 2000
Owner	King County
Operator	King County Department of Stadium Administration
Surface	AstroTurf
Construction cost	$67 million
Architect	Naramore, Skilling, & Praeger
Tenants	Seattle Seahawks (NFL) (1976–2000) Seattle Sounders (NASL) (1976–1983) Seattle Mariners (MLB) (1977–1999) Seattle SuperSonics (NBA) (1978–1985) NCAA Final Four (1984, 1989, 1995)
Capacity	Baseball: 59,166 Football: 66,000 Basketball: 40,000

File:Map of Pioneer Square Historic District - cleaned and corrected.jpg

This 1996 map of the Pioneer Square-Skid Road Historic District shows the location of the Kingdome (at the lower right in the map).

The Kingdome (officially King County Multipurpose Domed Stadium) was a multi-purpose stadium located in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood. Owned and operated by King County, the Kingdome opened in 1976 and was best known as the home stadium of the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB), and the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The stadium was also the home stadium of the Seattle Sounders of the North American Soccer League (NASL) and hosted numerous amateur sporting events, concerts, and other events.

The idea of constructing a covered stadium for a major league football and/or baseball team was first proposed to Seattle officials in 1959. After voters rejected separate measures to approve public funding for such a stadium in 1960 and 1966, in 1968 King County voters approved the issue of $40 million in municipal bonds to construct the stadium. Construction began in 1972 and the stadium opened in 1976 as the home stadium of the Sounders and Seahawks. The Mariners moved in the following year, and the SuperSonics moved in the next year, only to move back to the Seattle Center Coliseum in 1985. The stadium hosted several major sports events, including the Pro Bowl in 1977, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 1979, the NBA All-Star Game in 1987, and the NCAA Final Four in 1984, 1989, and 1995.

During the 1990s both the Seahawks' and Mariners' respective ownership groups began to question the suitability of the Kingdome as a venue for each team, threatening to relocate unless new, publicly funded stadiums were built. At issue was the fact that neither team saw their shared tenancy as profitable, as well as the integrity of the stadium's roof as highlighted by the collapse of ceiling tiles onto the seating area before the start of a scheduled Mariners game. As a result, public funding packages for new, purpose-built stadiums for the Mariners and Seahawks were approved in 1995 and 1997, respectively. The Mariners moved to Safeco Field midway through the 1999 season, and the Seahawks temporarily moved to Husky Stadium following the 1999 season. The Kingdome was demolished by implosion on March 26, 2000; the Seahawks' new stadium, Seahawks Stadium (now known as Qwest Field) was built on the site.

Concept and construction

In 1959, Seattle restaurateur David L. Cohn wrote a letter to the Seattle City Council suggesting that the city needed a covered stadium for a major professional sports franchise. At the time, the city already had Husky Stadium and Sick's Stadium for collegiate football and minor league baseball, respectively, but both were deemed inadequate for a major league team. In 1960, the city council placed a $15 million bond issue measure on the ballot to fund construction of a stadium, but voters rejected it due to doubt that the stadium could be built within that budget, and lack of a guarantee that the city would have a team to play in the stadium. By 1966, the National Football League and the American League were both considering granting the city an expansion franchise, and as a result the King County Council placed another bond issue measure on the ballot, which was also rejected by voters.

In 1967, the American League granted Seattle an expansion franchise that would later be known as the Seattle Pilots. The league clearly stated that Sick's Stadium was not adequate as a major-league stadium, and stipulated that as a condition of being awarded the franchise, bonds had to be issued to fund construction of a new domed stadium that had to be completed by 1970; additionally, the capacity at Sick's Stadium had to be expanded from 11,000 to 30,000 by Opening Day 1969, when the team was scheduled to begin playing.

In February 1968, as part of the Forward Thrust group of bond propositions, King County voters approved the issue of US$40 million in bonds to fund construction of the "King County Multipurpose Domed 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 on the grounds of Seattle Center. Community members decried the idea, claiming that the committee was influenced by special interest groups.

The Pilots began play as planned in 1969, but Sick's Stadium proved to be a woefully problematic venue for fans, media, and visiting players alike. After just one season, the Pilots' ownership group declared bankruptcy and, despite efforts by Seattle-area businessmen to buy the team and an attempt to keep the team in Seattle through the court system, the Pilots were sold to Milwaukee, Wisconsin businessman Bud Selig, who relocated the team to Milwaukee and renamed it the Milwaukee Brewers a week before the start of the 1970 season.

The stadium under construction circa 1973

The push to build the domed stadium continued despite the lack of a major league sports team to occupy it. In May 1970 voters rejected the proposal to build the stadium at Seattle Center. From 1970–1972 the commission studied the feasibility and economic impact of building the stadium on King Street adjacent to Pioneer Square and the International District—a site that ranked at the bottom when the commission originally narrowed the field of possible sites in 1968. This drew sharp opposition primarily from the International District community, which feared the impact of the stadium on neighborhood businesses located east of the site. On November 2, 1972, a groundbreaking ceremony was held on the King Street site. Several protesters attended the ceremony, disrupted the speakers, and at one point threw mud balls at them.

On December 5, 1974, the NFL awarded Seattle an expansion franchise to occupy the new stadium; the team would later be named the Seattle Seahawks. Construction lasted another two years, and the stadium held an opening ceremony on March 27, 1976. It hosted its first professional sporting event on April 9 of that year, a soccer match between the Seattle Sounders and New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League.

American football

Seattle Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks were the first major professional sports team to call the Kingdome its home. They hosted their first game on August 1, 1976, a preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers. The Kingdome hosted the 1977 Pro Bowl on January 17, 1977.

Due to its concrete construction and the Seahawks' raucous fans, the Kingdome was known as one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL. Opposing teams were known to practice with rock music blaring full blast to prepare for the high decibel levels typical of Seahawk home games. In 1987, Bo Jackson of the Los Angeles Raiders rushed for 221 yards, the most ever on Monday Night Football, and scored 2 touchdowns. One of his scores was a 91 yard touchdown and the other was a historic plowing into Seahawks high-profile rookie linebacker Brian "The Boz" Bosworth.

The Kingdome's final NFL game was played on January 9, 2000, a first-round playoff loss to the Miami Dolphins. The Dolphins scored a fourth quarter touchdown to win 20-17; it was the last NFL victory for Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino and head coach Jimmy Johnson.

Amateur

The first collegiate football game played in the Kingdome was between the Washington State Cougars and USC Trojans, when Ricky Bell set the NCAA single-game rushing yardage record (later broken by Reuben Mayes of Washington State).

The University of Puget Sound Loggers and Pacific Lutheran Lutes success in bringing large crowds to the newly opened Tacoma Dome in 1983, 1984 and 1985 enticed the Kingdome to move the rivalry game for the Totem Pole Trophy to Seattle. It was only played in the Kingdome for two years - 1986 and 1987. While it was relatively successful for small college football, the event organizers realized that they would never get the 50,000 needed to fill the Kingdome and brought the game back to Tacoma where it has been played ever since.

The stadium also hosted the WIAA high school football state championships in an event called the King Bowl. Since the stadium's implosion the state championships moved to the Tacoma Dome in nearby Tacoma.

The Seattle and Tacoma Police Departments played a yearly game named the Bacon Bowl to raise money for charity; it has since moved to Qwest Field.

Baseball

Shortly after the Pilots' departure for Milwaukee, the city of Seattle, King County, and the state of Washington sued the American League claiming a breach of contract. The league agreed to grant Seattle another franchise in exchange for dropping the lawsuit, and the team that would later be known as the Seattle Mariners was born. The Mariners held their first game at the Kingdome on April 6, 1977, against the California Angels.

The Kingdome was somewhat problematic as a baseball venue. Foul territory was quite large, and seating areas were set back far from the playing field, with seats in the upper deck as far as 617 feet (188 meters) from home plate. Additionally, most fans in the 300 level were unable to see parts of right and center field; these areas were not part of the football playing field.

The inside of the Kingdome during a Mariners game, ca 1996

For most of the Mariners' first 18 years, their poor play (they did not have a winning season until 1991) combined with the Kingdome's design, led to poor attendance and led some writers and fans to call it "the Tomb" and "Puget Puke." After their inaugural home opener, the Mariners didn't have another regular-season sellout until 1990. At one point the Mariners covered seats in the upper decks in right and right-center with a tarp in order to make the stadium feel "less empty". Additionally, the Kingdome's acoustics created problems for stadium announcers, who had to deal with significant echo issues. However, when the team's fortunes began to change in the mid–1990s and they began drawing large crowds, 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 games.

Despite its cavernous interior, the Kingdome's field dimensions were relatively small. It had a reputation as a hitter's park, especially in the 1990s when Ken Griffey, Jr., Edgar Martínez, Jay Buhner, Alex Rodriguez and other sluggers played there.

The large number of in-play objects—speakers, roof support wires and streamers—contributed to an "arena baseball" feel. The Kingdome was somewhat improved in 1982 with the addition of a 23 foot (7 meter) wall in right field nicknamed the "Walla Walla" (after Walla Walla, Washington)," featuring a new out of town scoreboard. In 1990, new owner Jeff Smulyan added some asymmetrical outfield dimensions.

The most noteworthy baseball game in the Kingdome's history took place on October 8, 1995, when the Seattle Mariners defeated the New York Yankees 6–5 in 11 innings in the rubber game of the American League Division Series in front of 57,411 raucous fans.

One game between the Mariners and the Cleveland Indians in the Kingdome was suspended in the home half of the seventh inning because of a minor earthquake, on May 2, 1996. The earthquake occurred during a pitching change as Indians' pitcher Orel Hershiser was walking off the mound following a home run by Edgar Martínez. After an inspection by engineers, the game was continued the next evening, resulting in a win for the Indians.

Basketball

Seattle SuperSonics

In 1980, the Seattle SuperSonics total attendance exceeded that of all other sports or shows held in the Kingdome.

Besides the Mariners and Seahawks, the stadium also hosted the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics for a number of years. The 1978–79 season was the first year the Sonics played in the Kingdome on a full time basis with the addition of portable stadium seating added onto the floor of the arena as well as additional scoreboards and a new basketball court. Fred Brown and Gus Williams led the team that year to their first and only championship. At the time it was known in the NBA for being the noisiest arena for basketball as well as the largest crowds with stadium vendor Bill the Beerman taking the duties as cheerleader. In the 1979–80 season, the SuperSonics set an NBA record average attendance of 21,725 fans per game (since broken). The SuperSonics also set NBA records for single-game playoff attendance in 1978 and 1980 with crowds of 39,457 and 40,172 respectively (also since broken). The Kingdome record attendance for a regular season game was in 1991, with 38,067. The SuperSonics hosted the 1987 NBA All-Star Game there.

Logistics would be a problem during the playoffs, as the Mariners (the Kingdome's primary tenants) objected to letting the Sonics play there in the spring. Most of the games would be played at Seattle Center Coliseum, and a few of the games had to be played at Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the University of Washington.

Around 1990, Sonics owner Barry Ackerley made the decision to leave the Kingdome and to build a new basketball arena. Plans were underway to build a new arena south of the Kingdome (where Safeco Field stands today) to be called Ackerley Arena, but after financing fell through, the team went back to the Coliseum, which was later rebuilt as KeyArena, reopening for the 1995-96 season. The Sonics played there until the team moved to Oklahoma City before the 2008-09 season.

Collegiate

The NCAA Final Four was held three times at the Kingdome - in 1984, when Georgetown defeated Houston, in 1989 when Michigan beat Seton Hall in overtime, and in 1995 when UCLA won their first championship since the retirement of coach John Wooden, defeating Arkansas.

Other sports and entertainment

The Kingdome's first sporting event was a game between the NASL's New York Cosmos and Seattle Sounders on April 25, 1976, with 58,218 fans in attendance.

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 venue that has hosted all star games for three major sports leagues.

Numerous rock concerts were held in the venue, despite significant echo and sound delay problems attributable to the structure's cavernous size.

The largest crowd to attend a single event in the Kingdome was 74,000, on May 17, 1976, for a Billy Graham crusade, featuring Johnny Cash.

The first-ever rock concert in the Kingdome was Wings on June 10, 1976. The Seattle concert was the centerpiece of the Wings Over America Tour, which was the first time Paul McCartney had toured America since 1966, when The Beatles stopped touring.

Led Zeppelin performed on July 17, 1977, on what turned out to be the band's last US tour (this performance is available on VOIO and ROIO).

The stadium held The Monsters of Rock Festival, featuring Van Halen, Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica and Kingdom Come, on July 27, 1988.

Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour played the last show of the infamous tour at the stadium October 06,1992

Final years

Relocation threats

By the 1990s, the stadium's suitability as an NFL and MLB venue came into doubt. Neither the Seahawks' nor the Mariners' respective ownership groups saw the shared stadium arrangement as economically feasible. After several years of threats to relocate the Mariners due to poor attendance and revenue, owner Jeff Smulyan sold the team to an 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-only stadium. In March 1994, King County Executive Gary Locke appointed a task force to study the need for a baseball-only stadium.

1994 ceiling collapse

The Kingdome's roof had been problematic from the beginning. Leaks were discovered in the roof two months before the stadium opened, and several attempts at repairs made the situation worse and/or had to be undone. In 1993, the county decided to strip off the outer roof coating and replace it with a special coating. Sandblasting failed to strip the old roof material off, and the contractor changed its method to pressure washing. This pressure-washing resulted in water seepage through the roof, and on July 19, 1994, four 26-pound (12 kg), waterlogged acoustic ceiling tiles fell into the seating area. The tiles fell while the Mariners were on the field preparing for a scheduled game against the Baltimore Orioles, a half-hour before the gates were to open for fans to enter the stadium. As a result, the Kingdome was closed.

The Mariners were forced to play the last 20 games of the 1994 season on the road after the players' union vetoed playing the "home" games at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma, BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, or some neutral site, as the union believed its members should only play in major-league venues. The extended road trip could have lasted over two months, but was shortened due to the 1994 Major League Baseball strike, which began on August 12. The Seahawks had to play both preseason games and the first three regular-season home games of the 1994 regular season at nearby Husky Stadium.

The Kingdome held a reopening ceremony the weekend of November 4–6, 1994, which culminated with the Seahawks returning to the stadium for a regular-season game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Repairing the roof ultimately cost US$51 million and two construction workers lost their lives in a crane accident during the repair. The incident also motivated plans to replace the stadium.

Replacement

The Kingdome imploding in March 2000

On September 19, 1995, King County voters defeated a ballot measure that would have funded the construction of a new baseball-only stadium for the Mariners. However, the following month, the Mariners made it to the MLB postseason for the first time and, on October 8, defeated the New York Yankees in the decisive fifth game of the 1995 ALDS on the heels of a walk-off game-winning double hit by Edgar Martínez. The Mariners' postseason run demonstrated that there was a fan base in Seattle that wanted the team to stay in town, and as a result, the Washington State Legislature approved a separate funding package for a new stadium on October 14.

In January 1996, Seahawks owner Ken Behring announced he was moving the team to Los Angeles and the team would play at Anaheim Stadium, which had recently been vacated as a football venue when the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis. His rationale for the decision included unfounded safety concerns surrounding the seismic stability of the Kingdome. Behring went so far as to relocate team headquarters to Anaheim, California, but his plans were defeated when lawyers found out that the Seahawks could not break their lease on the Kingdome until 2005. As a result, Behring tried to sell the team. He found a potential buyer in Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who stipulated that a new publicly funded stadium had to be built as a condition of his purchase of the team. Allen funded a special election held on June 17, 1997, that featured a measure that would allocate public funding for a new stadium for the Seahawks on the Kingdome site. The measure passed, Allen officially purchased the team, and the Kingdome's fate was sealed.

Despite the intention of the Mariners to start playing at their new home at the beginning of the 1999 season, construction delays meant that installation of its retractable roof would not occur on time, leading to another sale threat by the team's owners. However, the team eventually agreed to play at the Kingdome from the start of the season until after the All-Star Game, with construction on the new home starting on March 8, 1997. Two years later, a sold-out crowd of 56,530 watched as the Mariners defeated the Texas Rangers 5–2 in their final game at the Kingdome on June 27, 1999; they played their first game at their new home, Safeco Field, nearly three weeks later on July 15.

Meanwhile, the Seahawks temporarily relocated to Husky Stadium following the 1999 season. To make way for construction of their new stadium, the Kingdome was stripped down and prepared for demolition. During the process, a security incident occurred on February 21, 2000, when a skateboarder disguised himself as a construction worker, climbed up onto the roof, and skated on it with two friends filming him on the nearby Alaskan Way Viaduct; demolition crews were unimpressed by the incident and implemented tighter security measures in response. On the morning of March 26, 2000 at 8:30 AM, the Kingdome was demolished by Controlled Demolition, Inc. via implosion, just one day short of 24 years after the stadium's opening; it set a record recognized by Guinness World Records for the largest building, by volume, ever by implosion. The Kingdome was the first large, domed stadium to be demolished in the United States; its demolition was also the first live event covered by ESPN Classic. The new stadium, Seahawks Stadium, eventually opened on July 20, 2002, in time for the beginning of the NFL season that year.

The Kingdome was demolished before the debt issued to finance its construction was fully paid, and as of September 2010, residents of King County were still responsible for more than $80 million in debt on the demolished stadium. The debt was retired on March 2015, nine months ahead of the original bond maturity and 15 years after the stadium's demolition. The 2% of the 15.6% hotel/motel tax earmarked for the Kingdome debt no longer needed went instead to the county's 4Culture program for arts, heritage, and preservation.

Successors

Two separate facilities replaced the Kingdome. Safeco Field, a purpose built baseball park for the Seattle Mariners, broke ground in 1997 on a site located adjacent to the Kingdome, across Royal Brougham Way, and opened in 1999. Qwest Field, a multipurpose stadium built primarily for the Seattle Seahawks and professional soccer, was built on the Kingdome's former site beginning after the demolition of the Kingdome in 2000. Qwest Field has been the home field of the Seattle Seahawks since it opened in 2002 and has been home field for the Seattle Sounders FC since 2009.

In popular culture

In the real-time strategy game World in Conflict, the Kingdome is featured in the "Dome" multiplayer map, as well as in the first campaign mission, featuring the same map. The dome is demolished by Soviet artillery fire in both normal and multiplayer campaigns.

The Kingdome is mentioned in the Foo Fighters song "New Way Home" off the 1997 album The Colour and the Shape.

In the video games Gran Turismo, 2 (for PlayStation), 3 and 4 (for PlayStation 2), the Seattle circuit features the Kingdome and Safeco Field (under construction) near the end of the lap.

The destruction of the Kingdome factors heavily into Mike Daisey's book 21 Dog Years.

In Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie one of the characters mention the Kingdome when pieces of a roof start falling in a scene from This Island Earth.

In the song "My Oh My" by hip-hop artist Macklemore the Kingdome is mentioned as the song focuses on the Seattle Mariners 1995 ALDS rubber game against the New York Yankees. The destruction of the Kingdome can also be seen in the music video.

External links

• The Story behind the implosion of The Seattle Kingdome
• Kingdome: The Controversial Birth of a Seattle Icon (1959-1976)
• Video of Kingdome Implosion