The Doomed Dome - Seattle Kingdome - The History and Failure of the Dome

The King County Stadium, or Kingdome as it was more commonly called was a multi-purpose stadium that stood in Seattle, Washington from 1976 until its closure and demolition in 2000. The stadium was home to the MLB’s Seattle Mariners, the NFL’s Seahawks, the NBA’s SuperSonics, and the NASL’s Seattle Sounders. Having nearly every major popular professional sport represented shows what a truly versatile yet flawed stadium the Kingdome was. It was truly a Jack of All Trades, but Master of None. Before we dive in I’d like to encourage you to subscribe for more sports history and news content from the Archive of Everything. Now let’s learn more about the Kingdome.
The first talk of a domed stadium in Seattle came in 1959 when local businessman David L. Cohn wrote a letter to the City Council suggesting a covered stadium be built to lure a professional sports team to Seattle. At the time Seattle had no professional sports teams. With the frequent rain it was universally believed that Seattle would have to have a domed stadium to have any chance of being granted an expansion baseball or football team. The city council agreed, although it took a number of years before the proposal for a domed stadium reached the 60% threshold needed to approve the public bonds.
In 1967 the American League of the MLB granted Seattle an expansion franchise to be called the Pilots. A condition of this expansion was Seattle must rush construction of a domed stadium to be ready by the 1970 season. Seattle officials agreed to the proposal, with the Seattle Pilots set to temporarily call Sick’s Stadium, a small baseball venue in the city home until the dome was complete. This turned out to be a grave mistake.
The Sick’s Stadium venue was so horrible, that team ownership had to declare bankruptcy due to lackluster attendance. The team was bought and moved to Milwaukee to become the Brewers before the beginning of the 1970 season. Seattle was now once again without a major sports franchise, and without a good reason to build a dome.
By 1970 a new voter referendum was introduced to build a domed stadium at Seattle Center. Voters rejected the plan due to no professional teams on the horizon who could immediately occupy the facility. Finally in 1971 a proposal for a domed stadium at a new site in the International District was approved. With that nearly 13 years after it was first proposed in various places, construction was started on King County Stadium.
Although the stadium was finally approved with groundbreaking in 1972, this was only the beginning of a tumultuous nearly 4 year construction timeline that saw the project go nearly $20 million dollars over its $35 million dollar budget. The construction issues stemmed from the fact that the Seattle City Council chose Drake Construction of Portland, Oregon instead of the more experienced Kiewit Construction of Omaha. Drake undercut Kiewit’s bid but lacked the scale to complete the project. When work fell severely behind, Drake was fired around halfway through the project. Kiewit was brought in to fix the mess that Drake had started leading to the cost overrun, and quality issues that would plague the stadium throughout its lifetime. Finally the stadium opened in a dedication ceremony on March 27, 1976. The first professional event at the 66,000 seat stadium was a NASL game between the Seattle Sounders and the New York Cosmos. Soon after the Seahawks and Mariners moved in, with the SuperSonics joining them two years later. From there the problems of course continued.
The largest problem with any multi-purpose stadium is the playing surface. It has to be able to be quickly and easily converted from events like soccer to baseball to football. The Kingdome accomplished this by having a series of complicated zippered AstroTurf surfaces. The AstroTurf was known to have holes, divots, and uneven areas that caused injuries to many athletes who called the facility home. Things were so bad that the playing surface was rated dead last in the NFL by players after the 1998 season. There were efforts over the years to improve the quality of the playing surface, but none were successful. This poor reputation amongst NFL players led to 5 bids to host a Super Bowl being declined by the NFL. If Seattle was to ever host a Super Bowl something had to change.
The straw that finally broke the camel’s back for the doomed stadium was a series of ownership changes and structural failures. After both the Seahawks and Mariners were sold in the 1990s, new team owners demanded new sport specific stadiums be built for their teams, or else both would be moved to newer venues out of state.

[@rylandspencer]

I grew up in the Kingdome. Seahawks, Mariners and the NCAA Final Four. So many great memories of that dump.

[@John8.7]

“a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

[@alk61695]

Should take a look at Tropicana Field in Florida. That has an interesting story behind it.

[@adamdorgant9454]

True!!!

[@MrCubsfan3]

The Kingdome implosion was one of the coolest in my view

[@mamaluigi2064]

I suggest Anaheim Stadium It's my local stadium Even though it's still around It does have a very fascinating story going through three phases The original The football dual purpose era and the modern era where they basically tore the whole thing down and rebuilt it on the old frame

[@mrmoose6619]

Not my local stadium by a long shot, but the Big A would be an interesting video.

[@mamaluigi2064]

@@mrmoose6619 When it was first built It was surrounded by Orange Groves I remember in the '80s growing up I lived a couple miles from the stadium My parents always bought me season tickets for both the Rams and Angels and i remember riding my bike to either see a Rams game or an Angels game and after the game walking a couple hundred yards to the big orange grove and picking a fresh orange and eating it before riding my bike home Good times

[@timbunker4061]

You should look into the history of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

[@satoncho]

In the video game World In Conflict the Soviet Union destroys the Kingdome in the 80's, like for real look it up, the story is kind of like Red Dawn the movie but more realistic

[@robfreedman6496]

You should do on Gila River Arena because Coyotes will be leaving that arena to move into the 5,000 ASU Hockey Arena.

[@anthonyrivera0917]

Do a video for Busch stadium 1966-2005

[@dennisud]

A suggestion, Check out the Miami Orage Bowl History. That ia an interesting saga as now we have The Miami Marlins playing Loan Depot Park on the old site and the Dolphins and Hurricans playing at the Hard Rock Stadium (Which in itself is ihas an interesting history!)

[@WesternStar4949]

Loved it man

[@ArchiveofEverything]

Thanks for the suggestion!

[@1906tpir]

I never knew the Kingdom was so terrible. It seemed so nice on television, especially on Monday Night Football

[@justinturley7071]

The Kingdom could get loud I liked it.

[@jeremyweber8874]

Lot of the issues with the kingdome was where they built it. It sat in marsh land so settling caused a bunch of issues with the roof.

[@markpreston6930]

It was named King County Stadium. That's why King County Sheriff staffs Lumen Field and T Mobile Park. KCS moaned about loss of jobs when King County Stadium was eliminated so they were written into T Mobile Park and Lumen Field.

[@tyfamousaurusrex1957]

Could you do a video on Busch Stadium II

[@stats1233]

Please do Giants Stadium (1976-2009)

[@marcushoustonsr]

Riverfront stadium

[@adamdorgant9454]

Great video!!!

[@JStorm13]

Have you done the Metrodome?

[@loganb.1984]

It's all all good, now we have no longer Centurylink, which is one of the best NFL stadiums.

[@de132]

T-Mobile Park

[@StevenEveral]

The Kingdome was a piece of crap, but if you're an M's or Seahawks fan, it was OUR piece of crap, darn it!

[@blacksportsguru]

Do one on new comiskey park, aka guarantee rate field

[@MelissaAndAlex]

Safeco field was built, and changed to t mobile park in 2020

[@mbdeuceduece4451]

"The King-dom"

[@oscarwinner2034]

The County didn't select the contractor because they wanted to. They were bound by the state's bidding laws to accept the lowest bidder and give them the contract. The process to fire a contractor for projects like these is quite extensive. Don't blame the county, blame the legal folks who make them do it this way.

[@kmlynden1]

The Pilots failed because Kansas City forced MLB to have the Pilots and Royals begin play in 1969. The Royals had a stadium ready to go. There was simply not enough time to prepare Sicks stadium.

[@davidlafleche1142]

When the Athletics moved to Kansas City in 1955, the plan was to use Muelebach Field (an old minor league stadium with one deck) and simply add a second deck. Engineers discovered that the pilings couldn't support another deck. With only three months till opening day, Kansas City decided to teat it down and build a new stadium from scratch. They worked triple shifts through brutal winter conditions, but they did it. Municipal Stadium wasn't a palace, but it was a decent stadium. Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta and Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro were both built in exactly one year. I can't understand why Seattle couldn't do that.

[@Davidjon1946]

Wow I had no idea that was that young All they had to do was tear the dome off refurbish the bowl update all these stadiums I get the molished less than 20 years f****** make them modern

[@esthercharity5635]

I love this dude!!! If you want to get more fans research P-R-O-M-O-S-M!!!