I never really thought that other places were a live possibility, and now that has been confirmed.
Team owner Cal McNair said the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo have decided to make things work in Harris County.
Team president Mike Tomon said the Texans have not ruled out building a new stadium within the park but are focusing on renovating Reliant Stadium, which is said to be significantly behind on needed maintenance.
“What we’ve talked to the Rodeo (about) is we’re going to make it work, and so we’ll figure out a way to make it work and have everybody a winner in this thing,” McNair said Monday at the team’s annual charity golf event, which raised more than $565,000.
In February 2025, the Texans began negotiating a new lease with Harris County and the Rodeo. The current lease expires in 2032. At the time, the Texans said they wanted to remain in the greater Houston area but not necessarily in Harris County.
But McNair’s latest comments represent a significant shift in their line of thinking. Whereas other nearby counties were thought to be viable candidates to potentially house a new stadium for the Texans and Rodeo, if it came to that, Harris County is now the sole focus.
“The reason we feel that way is if you take a step back and you look at Reliant Park, the attributes of it, you have 350 continuous acres on major arteries with (Interstate) 610, and soon to be the third-largest city in the United States,” Tomon said. “That is pretty special. So when we think about our partnership with the Rodeo, we’re both aligned on we’ll do everything we can to make it work on that specific site because we really think that can be transformative for the city of Houston.”
The facilities the Rodeo uses are also in need of renovations. Reliant Park is owned by the county, which leases the facilities to the Texans and the Rodeo. As part of the current lease agreement, the county is responsible for the facilities within the park and their upkeep. But the county is behind on those maintenance needs.
A new lease agreement will likely shift that responsibility to the Texans and the Rodeo, who could also own the park and have more say in the park’s future.
When asked if there was a timeline of when he wanted to get the new lease agreement done, Tomon indicated that they have time.
“Yesterday, but we have six years before the lease expires when we need to have a solution,” Tomon said.
[…]
The Houston Chronicle previously reported that the Texans have explored the possibility of building a new stadium but had not committed to that path. The discussion on whether renovations makes the most sense or a new stadium remains ongoing. The decision will likely depend on the costs associated with renovating the park versus the costs of building new facilities.
If those costs are similar, the county would have an interesting decision on its hands. Reliant Stadium was built in 2002.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time on that,” Tomon said. “The thing I relay is a great deal of confidence out there is we’ve been pretty exhaustive on how we’re looking at these things. I think right now our focus remains on the renovation, but we’ve really kind of come towards the end of making a final decision. So we’ll have to come back when we totally close the loop on it.
“But it’s been an exhaustive process of studies, and parties weighing in on it. So I feel really good with whatever output we come with, will be one that has been fully vetted.”
See here and here for some background. The Texans and the Rodeo apparently came to the same conclusion that anyone else might have, which is that while they probably could score a cheap piece of land up north of the Woodlands or wherever, what they have now is really valuable and hard to replicate. It’s centrally located, the light rail line solves a lot of access issues, everything basically works as is. If you did build that exurban palace, it would like great and undoubtedly come along with a ton of tax incentives, but it would also make the fan experience a lot worse for much of the fan base. I don’t know how much that sort of concern weighs on any capitalistic venture these days, but it had to be worth something.
As far as the renovate-or-rebuild option goes, renovating is surely the cheaper option, though it may be more disruptive and it may make it impossible to add the very latest in the sort of stadium upgrades that allow the truly rich to spend even more on their super-luxury boxes. Building a new stadium would require either a new location or figuring out how to do it all in the existing space, whether or not the Astrodome remains an impediment. That’s their problem, and I’m sure they’ll figure something out. In the meantime, here’s to keeping something more or less as it is, rather than reaching for pie in the sky thing that no one had asked for.
(My decision to never stop calling it Reliant Stadium sure looks smart now, doesn’t it?)