On March 16, 1999, the NFL owners, by a 29–2 vote, approved a resolution to award Los Angeles the expansion 32nd franchise. Meanwhile, Ovitz now had competition coming from his own market, as real estate developer Ed Roski announced a rival bid for a future Los Angeles team his proposal centered around putting a 68,000-seat stadium inside the shell of the historic Los Angeles Coliseum. In late October 1998, Tagliabue announced that the NFL owners would indeed expand the league to 32 teams, and would decide by April 1999 which city would be awarded the NFL expansion franchise. However, both McNair and Ovitz stated that they needed to know the NFL's intentions regarding expansion by early 1999, lest they lose public support as a result of long delays while the league developed its plans. Houston officials worried that Los Angeles would get the nod because of its media market size in early May, those fears became reality as entertainment guru Michael Ovitz announced he would lead a largely privately financed $750 million project to build a stadium in Carson, California in hopes of landing the expansion team. In March 1998, McNair learned that the NFL officially awarded Cleveland its promised expansion franchise, making it the NFL's 31st team NFL Commissioner Tagliabue said that the league would likely add a 32nd team in the next two years, with the three top candidates being Toronto ( which would have been the NFL's first franchise outside the US, and the fifth largest market in North America), Los Angeles ( North America's second largest media market, and the victim of two relocated franchises in the 1990s), and Houston (which was the fourth largest media market in North America and whose Oilers had been the most recent victim of franchise relocation). Two days later, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLS&R) officials announced they would push for a domed stadium as part of the bid to lure the NFL back to Houston. A future expansion to 32 teams seemed both logical and destined to happen, and Tagliabue praised McNair's strong initial efforts. Cleveland had lost the Browns in 1995 and had been promised by Tagliabue that the next expansion team would play there, bringing the league total to 31 teams. Now committed to the task at hand, McNair and Houston got an immediate morale boost in October 1997, when the NFL Stadium Committee reported to Commissioner Paul Tagliabue on the current attractiveness of Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Houston. Steve Patterson, who had been working with McNair in an attempt to bring the NHL to Houston, was immediately named as head of the new organization. While efforts to get an NHL team in Houston faltered, McNair made his decision to set his sights higher and founded Houston NFL Holdings. Moores, whose name was often attached to efforts to return the NFL to Houston, said that the city's football fans would be in for a long, dry spell without football and that he did not foresee another league expansion in the next 10 years. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, local entrepreneur and San Diego Padres owner John J. A lawsuit filed by the city of Houston, Harris County, and other parties was settled with Adams paying millions of dollars for leaving town. Two weeks later, Houston found itself without professional football for the first time since 1959 as Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams got the final approval to move his team to Tennessee. In June 1997, Bob McNair and Chuck Watson were bypassed by the National Hockey League in an attempt to bring a team to Houston, in part because of a lack of a suitable NHL arena. Despite some growing pains in the first nine years of their existence, the Texans became a more dominant team in the NFL's AFC South division in the 2010s, though they have yet to appear in a Super Bowl.ġ997: Bringing the NFL back to Houston The Texans are the newest franchise in the NFL. The history of the Houston Texans began in 2002, bringing the National Football League back to Houston, Texas after the city's previous franchise, the Houston Oilers, relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to eventually become the Tennessee Titans.
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