San Antonio, the seventh-largest city in the United States and the second-largest city in Texas, with a population of 1.33 million people, is perhaps the largest city in the US not to have a NFL team.
San Antonio loves football. As far back as 1975 they shortly had the World Football League’s San Antonio Wings. In 1991 the city hosted the WLAF’s San Antonio Riders. In 1992 it was the UFL’s San Antonio Force. In 1995 it was the CFL’s San Antonio Texans, who even made the playoffs.
Since then, San Antonio built -with public money- a $186 million dollar, 65,000 seating capacity Alamadome to try and lure the NFL to town.
Unable to land a NFL team of its own, San Antonio and the Alamodome still hosted six NFL preseason games. Two each were played in 1993 and 1994, one in 1995, and one in 2001.
In 2005, the NFL announced that San Antonio would host three New Orleans Saints regular season “home” games due to the damage caused to the Louisiana Superdome by Hurricane Katrina. They ended up playing the Buffalo Bills in week 4, the Atlanta Falcons in week 6, and the Detroit Lions in week 16 at the Alamodome.
Although there have been many NFL preseason and exhibition games held in the Alamodome over the years, these were the first NFL regular season games played in San Antonio.
In 2008 NFL commissioner Roger Goodell visited San Antonio and talked about the hope of bringing a football team to the Alamo.
“There’s no question the growth is extraordinary here,” Goodell said. “You see it as soon as you come into the city … The vision the leaders have here to grow this community has been very positive. I think that will provide new opportunities.”
There were even rumors that the Minnesota Vikings could be interested in relocating to San Antonio if they don’t get a new stadium deal worked out.
Still, nothing materialized, and San Antonio although bigger than Dallas, home of the NFL’s Cowboys, bigger than Austin, home of the University of Texas’ Longhorns and far bigger than College Station, home of Texas A&M University’s Aggies, ended up having to settle rooting for these outside teams all these years.
Now, finally, the University of Texas at San Antonio has filled a void in the hearts of San Antonians, by launching a football program with the founding of their Roadrunners.
UTSA Roadrunners football is an American football program coached by former Miami Hurricanes head coach, Larry Coker and heavily supported by Texas billionaire Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, who formerly owned the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings and the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.
Although many still view San Antonio and the Alamodome as a prime market for expansion of the newly revived Arena Football League, and though many big-shots are still not giving up on bringing the NFL to town, I believe San Antonians may have found their team in the UTSA Roadrunners.
Even if people were originally hoping for a professional football team, the NFL’s ongoing, never-ending political bureaucracy has soured the idea. Now, everyone I talk to is excited about the new college team, with many wanting to go watch them play at the Alamodome and everybody else vowing to catch their games on TV.
The Roadrunners have a good coach, a good logo and a Dome that’s grown on San Antonians. I doubt few San Antonians would vote on a multi-million dollar bond issue that would be needed to upgrade the Alamodome to meet NFL standards, much less to build a new facility.
The NFL may have waited too long, and could now be in for a long, hard ride to win over the hearts of San Antonian’s who have fallen in love with Roadrunners.
Go Roadrunners!
Written By: Tom Retterbush
Though I normally write current events stories and don’t consider myself a sports writer, I did write the article, Who is the Greatest Quarterback of All-Time in NFL History?, back on January 16, 2011.