Opened in 2002, NRG Stadium became the NFL’s first facility with a retractable roof. Professional football had been a fixture in Houston since 1960 with the founding of the Houston Oilers. For more than 25 years, the team played at the Astrodome, the nation’s first multipurpose domed stadium. By the mid-1980s, however, owner Bud Adams had grown dissatisfied with the venue due to its relatively small capacity. When Adams threatened to relocate the team to Jacksonville in 1987, Houston officials responded by renovating the Astrodome, adding 10,000 seats and additional luxury suites. Despite these upgrades, Adams remained dissatisfied and, by the early 1990s, began advocating for a new domed stadium in downtown Houston. Although he offered to contribute $85 million toward construction in 1993, local officials and residents declined to fund the project. As a result, Adams relocated the franchise to Nashville after the 1996 season, where they became the Tennessee Titans.
In 1997, Bob McNair led the formation of the Houston NFL Holdings Group in an effort to bring a franchise back to the city. The group enlisted HOK Sport to design a new stadium featuring a retractable roof. In 1998, after expanding to 31 teams, the NFL announced plans to add a 32nd franchise. Los Angeles and Houston emerged as the leading candidates. Initially, the league awarded the franchise to Los Angeles in March 1999, contingent upon securing a stadium agreement. When those efforts failed, the NFL rescinded the award and, in October 1999, granted the expansion franchise to Houston.
The new team, the Houston Texans, partnered with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to develop a stadium adjacent to the Astrodome. Groundbreaking took place in early 2000. Later that year, Reliant Energy acquired naming rights, and the venue opened as Reliant Stadium. In March 2014, the stadium was renamed after NRG Energy purchased Reliant Energy.
The Texans played their first regular-season game at the stadium on September 8, 2002, against the Dallas Cowboys. NRG Stadium seats approximately 71,500 fans across three main tiers that fully enclose the field. Its retractable roof, designed to mitigate Houston’s intense late-summer heat and accommodate large-scale events such as rodeos, can open or close in about seven minutes. The roof consists of two panels that meet over the 50-yard line when closed and retract above the end zones when open.
The stadium features a wide range of modern amenities, including more than 8,200 club seats, 187 luxury suites, premium lounges, and a team store. Prior to the 2013 season, two massive high-definition video boards were installed above the end zones. Those were replaced with larger ones prior to the 2025 NFL season. Before the 2015 season, the natural grass field was replaced with synthetic FieldTurf due to ongoing issues with the stadium’s grass tray system.
NRG Stadium hosts a variety of major events each year and has twice served as the site of the Super Bowl, including Super Bowl XXXVIII and Super Bowl LI. It hosted the College Football Playoff National Championship in 2024.
