The Pontiac Silverdome once stood as one of America’s great sporting venues.
With a seating capacity of 82,600, it was home to the Detroit Lions from 1975 to 2001, and was the largest stadium in the NFL until FedExField expanded its capacity to over 85,000 at the turn of the millennium.
The Lions shared the Silverdome with the Detroit Pistons for a decade between 1978 and 1988.
While glory widely eluded the two teams during their tenures in Pontiac — the Lions failed to reach the Super Bowl, while the Pistons won their first NBA Championship a year after moving out — the Silverdome remains iconic to many.
It also hosted a range of other massive events, including WrestleMania III — which boasted a record attendance of 93,173 — and the first-ever indoor FIFA World Cup match.
The 1994 soccer tournament, played in nine venues across the United States, is considered one of the most successful ever held.
It broke World Cup records for total attendance (3,587,538) and average attendance per match (68,991).
Both are records that stand to this day.
The tournament also witnessed the first goalless final, between Italy and Brazil, with the latter capturing their fourth title with a 3-2 penalty shootout win.
It was also the first World Cup to adopt a new three points for a win system, instead of the old two points for a win approach, and goalkeepers were no longer allowed to pick up deliberate back-passes in another rule change.
Three decades later, and it is odd to think about what soccer was like without those rules.
But it’s fair to say the first indoor World Cup match was a harder sell.
US players described the Silverdome as the toughest climate they played inGetty The Silverdome hosted just four matches at the ’94 World CupGettyThe Silverdome hosted the tournament’s first indoor game on June 18, 1994, when hosts the USA held Switzerland to a 1-1 draw in front of a crowd of 73,425 for their Group A clash.
Grass for the surface was grown locally by Michigan State University, and later installed in the venue, which went on to host four more matches.
Switzerland beat Romania 4-1 in the second match at the Silverdome, while Sweden later beat Russia 3-1 in Group B, before drawing 1-1 with Brazil.
The Silverdome was the only venue of the nine used that didn’t host knockout round games at the ’94 World Cup, and the four it did host was the lowest total of any stadium.
Part of the reason for that, perhaps, was the far from ideal climate inside.
The Silverdome didn’t have a working cooling system and because it was an air-supported stadium, the air could not escape through circulation, so temperatures inside would climb past 90F (32C) in the summer, with 40% humidity.
Temperatures inside the Silverdome could reach 32C in the summerGettyUS midfielder Thomas Dooley described it as ‘the worst place I have ever played at.’
Tab Ramos, meanwhile, said it was ‘probably the hottest game’ he had ever played in, and noted that ‘the field felt like we were running in sand.’
While soccer stars struggled inside the Silverdome at the 1994 World Cup, it remained the home of the Lions for seven more years.
They moved to Ford Field in 2002, and after that, activity in the Silverdome dropped drastically.
It still staged some low-key events, like Monster Jam in 2006, while the parking lot was also converted into a drive-in theater for three years between 2003 and 2006.
As the city of Pontiac began to experience several years of serious financial problems in the wake of the Lions departure, it attempted to sell the stadium.
More than two decades on, and a $2.4bn plan to abandon another NFL franchise’s 80-year home is in doubt.
But back in 2009, the Silverdome itself was purchased for just $583,000, despite a cost of $225million to build in 1975, by Greek-born Canadian real estate developer Andreas Apostolopoulos.
After the Lions moved out in 2002, activity in the Silverdome fellAFP It was later demolished and replaced by an Amazon distribution centerGettyHe vowed to ‘revive the stadium as a big-event venue’ by investing millions of dollars, and it reopened in 2010 with another monster truck event.
AC Milan and Panathinaikos FC even played an exhibition game there August in 2011, but ultimately, the lack of events coming into the venue, combined with the 2013 roof collapse, put any further development plans on hold.
In March 2014, the owners announced they would be auctioning off the contents of the facility, and by December, the Silverdome was in a state of abandonment.
The venue was condemned and cleared for demolition three years later, and by March 2018, the last free standing wall of the Silverdome was destroyed, leaving a 50ft-deep hole where the stadium once stood.
The Silverdome, which hosted the Super Bowl, was demolished in 2017Getty More than 93,000 fans packed in for WrestleMania III in 1987GettyAnother of the NFL’s oldest stadiums, meanwhile, is hoping to avoid a similar fate and has been handed a $4.7 billion project lifeline.
Amazon later developed the Silverdome site into both a distribution facility and delivery center.
The delivery center opened in September 2020, while the distribution center came 12 months later, and the project cost an estimated $250m.
What stands on the site is now a far cry from the Silverdome in its heyday, which will be remembered fondly for hosting NFL, NBA and World Cup games — even if the latter offered far from ideal playing conditions.
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