Iconic NFL stadium and Combine venue demolished in dramatic $1bn redevelopment that paved way for behemoth

Lucas Oil Stadium has been home to the Indianapolis Colts for close to two decades.

But when the NFL franchise first moved from Baltimore back in 1984, that iconic building didn’t exist.

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Instead, the Colts played 24 seasons inside the Hoosier Dome, across the street from the future site of ‘The House That Peyton Built.’

Opened in the same year the franchise settled, the now-demolished dome in downtown Indianapolis boasts a rather interesting history of its own.

What is the history behind the Hoosier Dome?

Completed at a cost of $77.5 million, the Hoosier Dome was built specifically for — and was ready to host — an NFL expansion team.

The venue was styled in a similar fashion to the Metrodome in Minneapolis, home of the Minnesota Vikings, and featured a fiberglass roof that was held up by air pressure inside the building.

It initially seated 56,127 for football, the smallest in the NFL, and the Colts struggled to meet demand when they first came to town.

Upon their arrival in Indianapolis, over 143,000 requests for season tickets were received in just two weeks.

The Colts did not change their name despite Indy’s lack of history of horse racing and breeding, and the Hoosier Dome was consistently sold out.

Fans showed up despite poor fortunes on the field across their first decade under the dome.

During the 1984 season, the first in Indianapolis, the team went 4-12 and accounted for the lowest offensive yardage in the league. The 1985 and 1986 teams combined for only eight wins.

Things didn’t get much better in the early 90s, when the Colts went 1-15 in 1991 and were just one point away from the first all-losing season in the history of a 16-game schedule.

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But they did turn their fortunes around midway through the decade, and made playoff appearances in 1995 and 1996.

The Colts won their first postseason game in Indianapolis in 1995, and advanced to the AFC Championship Game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, where they were just one Hail Mary reception away from a trip to Super Bowl XXX.

Owner Jim Irsay then took the team from strength to strength in the years that followed.

A certain Peyton Manning — one of the greatest quarterbacks in history — was selected with the No. 1 pick of the 1998 draft, and helped carry the Colts into the Super Bowl conversation.

The team famously lifted the Lombardi Trophy at the conclusion of the 2006 season, by beating the Chicago Bears — a team now with dreams of building a new home of their own — 29-17.

En-route to Super Bowl XLI, the Hoosier Dome (then named the RCA Dome for sponsorship reasons) hosted its one and only AFC Championship Game.

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In that clash, the Colts came from a 21-3 deficit to beat the New England Patriots 38-34.

That was undoubtedly the most famous game to ever unfold inside the historic dome. The Colts left a year later for Lucas Oil Stadium.

Hoosier Dome was longtime host of NFL Combine

The franchise has a storied history inside the Hoosier Dome, which quickly became the go-to venue for other major events in the Midwest.

WWE‘s WrestleMania VIII in 1992 pulled in the building’s largest crowd ever, while multiple Final Fours and even an NBA All-Star Game were hosted in Indianapolis.

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Perhaps most notably, though, the dome was also the annual site of the NFL Scouting Combine from 1987-2008.

The week-long showcase occurs every February in Indianapolis, and sees college football prospects put through their paces in physical and mental tests, which unfold in front of NFL coaches, general managers, and scouts.

The Combine was first televised in 1984 and has since gone on to become a major part of the offseason. But in the years before that, media and cameras were historically prohibited inside the dome as players worked out.

These days, of course, it unfolds at Lucas Oil Stadium.

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Why was the Hoosier Dome demolished?

Once the Colts had moved into their shiny new $720m home, the Hoosier Dome was deflated and demolished to make way for a $275m expansion of the Indiana Convention Center.

The roof of the dome was deflated in no more than 35 minutes on September 24, 2008, and the building itself was imploded on December 20.

An underground walkway now directly connects Lucas Oil Stadium to the convention center, in much the same way that the center had once been connected to the Hoosier Dome.

The city of Indianapolis moved on from its iconic dome with a project that cost just shy of $1bn, and delivered one of the NFL’s most iconic buildings.

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History that unfolded inside the Hoosier Dome, though, will not be forgotten.

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