Rice Stadium
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Rice Stadium is a football stadium located in Houston, Texas. Completed in 1950, the stadium seats 72,000 in a lower bowl and upper decks on each sideline. The stadium is the home of the football team for Rice University and also hosted the University of Houston football team from 1951 to 1965 and the Houston Oilers from 1965 to 1967. The college football Bluebonnet Bowl was played there from 1959 to 1967 and again in 1985.
Rice Stadium was built before professional football had come to Houston, and 70,000 fans might be expected to attend a college football game there. But the Houston Oilers arrived in 1960, Rice football stopped being competitive in the Southwest Conference after 1961, and the stadium has not sold out for a college football game since the early 1960s (the average attendance for Rice football games in Rice Stadium in 2003 was 15,461). On the campus tour, guides note that Rice Stadium is large enough to seat every alumnus of the university, living and dead.
Architecturally, Rice Stadium is an excellent example of modernism, with simple lines and an unadorned, functional design.
In 1974, Rice Stadium hosted Super Bowl VIII, in which the Miami Dolphins beat the Minnesota Vikings 24-7. Only three other stadiums built specifically for a major-college team (Tulane Stadium at Tulane University, Stanford Stadium at Stanford University, and Sun Devil Stadium at Arizona State University) have hosted the Super Bowl, although the Rose Bowl, which has recently been home to the UCLA Bruins, has also hosted the Super Bowl.
Rice Stadium is also used as a concert venue, seating 80,000 spectators.