Kingdome

The Kingdome (officially the King County Stadium) was a multi-purpose stadium located in the Industrial District (later SoDo) neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Owned and operated by King County, it was the home stadium of the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL) and the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB); it was also home to the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1978 to 1985 and additionally served as both the home outdoor and indoor venue for the Seattle Sounders of the North American Soccer League (NASL). The Kingdome measured 660 feet (200 m) wide from its inside walls. The idea of constructing a covered stadium for a major league football or baseball team was first proposed to Seattle officials in 1959. Voters rejected separate measures to approve public funding for such a stadium in 1960 and 1966, but the outcome was different 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 of the Sounders and Seahawks. The Mariners moved in the following year, and the SuperSonics moved in the year after that, only to move back to the Seattle Center Coliseum in 1985. The stadium hosted several major sports events, including the Soccer Bowl in August 1976, the Pro Bowl in January 1977, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in July 1979, the NBA All-Star Game in 1987, and the NCAA Final Four in 1984, 1989, and 1995. During the 1990s, 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. An issue was that neither team saw their...