With the Texans' stadium negotiations in the news recently, CEO Cal McNair decided to address the issue this week in a letter to season-ticket holders.
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00:00Cal McNair penned a letter yesterday, Seth. He sat down at his desk with his feather and
00:05his quill and he dipped it in the ink. I like to think it was incursive and it got transcribed
00:12onto a computer somewhere. Cal wrote a letter to the city of Houston yesterday. We welcome
00:17you back in here on a Friday on Pain and Pendergast.
00:20Do you think he dictated it old school style while his secretary wrote it on a typewriter?
00:26No, what's more likely he did that or he spoke it into a Gemini or some kind of AI
00:33and they cleaned it up a little bit and wrote it or didn't even speak it. He said just,
00:37Hey, Hey, a Gemini, uh, write a letter to the season ticket holders and the fans of
00:43Houston about how excited I am about Nick Casario and D'Amico the upcoming season.
00:49And that we got a stadium thing we're working on right now, you know? Yeah. And it's all
00:53going to be all right. It's all going to be writing a public statement. I'm not saying
00:57it as shade or anything. If you're a public, if you're a public figure and you write a
01:00letter, you got to, you get a little assistance from the PR folks. Even if it's in your own
01:05words, you tweak it a little bit and everything before you put it out. Even if you're really
01:09good at writing letters to people, unless you're, unless you're somebody like Mark Cuban
01:13or something that's just totally shooting from the hip all the time. I think the vast
01:21majority fall into that category for sure. Um, so the letter goes like, I'm not going
01:25to read the entire thing. The first part of it, Cal expresses his excitement for the upcoming
01:30season, how proud he is of what the team's done so far with D'Amico and Nick at the helm,
01:35but there's more to do.
01:36There's new Heights. He used a lot of the same catchphrases that Nick and D'Amico both
01:40use, you know, special, he mentioned special work ethic and relentless mindset. He mentions
01:44getting to new Heights. These are all things D'Amico has said. He then talks about how
01:49much the team means to him and his family, the passion that they have for it. You know,
01:53his dad bringing football back to Houston 25 years ago is a big, big deal to them. Giving
01:58back to Houston is a core value of theirs. And then it gets to what I think is the crux
02:03of the letter and the impetus for it. If I had to guess off the field, he says, Cal McNair
02:09says there had been several articles written in recent weeks about the future of NRG stadium.
02:14Although we're seven years away from the expiration of our lease, I want you to know they were
02:18working collaborative, collaboratively and diligently with our partners, Houston Livestock
02:22Show and Rodeo, Harris County and HCSCC, which I'm guessing is the Harris County. I don't
02:31know what the Harris County something or other to identify the best path forward with those
02:36partners. We've conducted a number of studies and continue to learn more about what we need
02:40to be successful in the future under the leadership of our new team president, Mike Tolman, who
02:45has an extensive history of developing and renovating stadiums. I think that's an important
02:49detail here. I think that's a big, big impetus for why Mike Tolman is the president. Not
02:55only is very capable and accomplished country. This is his, this is his area of expertise
03:02or one of many areas of expertise he has. He's been involved in the construction and
03:06management of a lot of big noteworthy stadiums concluding. We support a renovation of NRG
03:14stadium and are committed to exploring all potential solutions to ensure long-term success.
03:19We want to ensure we have a world-class facility that provides a competitive advantage for
03:23our team and a great experience for our fans while standing tall as a community asset.
03:29Ultimately, with our valued partners, our goal is to find a solution that works for
03:33all stakeholders involved, where everyone feels like a winner. And then he thanks everybody
03:37for their support and go Texans. So I think what Cal would like to be the big takeaway
03:42there is that everybody's working together right now. We all know that this stadium
03:46is not ideal for the year 2025, or I guess more importantly, the year 2032 when the lease
03:52is up. And as of right now, the stated priority is renovating NRG stadium. I guess the elephant
04:00in the room, Seth, and the question that needs to be asked is to provide the competitive
04:04advantage and more importantly, the experience for their fans that stacks up in this day
04:09and age. Is NRG stadium a, an appropriate starting point for a stadium like that?
04:15Yeah, just remember from our conversation with Toman and other things that I've read
04:20and listened to about this, a huge part of it is okay. Getting people into the stadium
04:25smoothly and efficiently that a renovation could, it's, it might involve a lot more than,
04:31you know, just, just a nice paint job and a few things. There's some pretty big structural
04:36things you'd have to do, but then they all can stand and watch while they're having a,
04:42almost a sports bar type experience. So I, um, I think that, I think at the very least,
04:49if we're going to get really, let's get really cynical about this. My most cynical theory
04:54about this would be, okay, what if they are just making a display of a good faith effort
05:01to try to renovate the, kind of the same way somebody might, you know, if you feel like
05:05you're going to divorce your wife, you start a couple of years in advance, really putting
05:09your best foot forward. You know, at some point she's going to bring up that you forgot
05:14to pick up the kids seven consecutive times from a little league. You were drunk, right?
05:20So you want to be sure that you start doing that. And then you also, you know, go above
05:25and beyond a few times. Oh, oh, she doesn't mention the time that I, I bought her flowers
05:30on Valentine's day and took her out to a fancy restaurant, I suppose. She just wants to talk
05:34about negative stuff. Right? Yeah. So at the very, at the very, very least, if you're
05:38the most cynical, I think this would be, all right, you're making a display of a good faith
05:42effort. I do think that, I think they genuinely, if the circumstances are correct and if they
05:49get the deal they want, it would make sense that they want to renovate for multiple reasons.
05:53Um, there are a lot of advantages to going out to a suburb, it being able to build from
05:58scratch from the ground up, not to mention the tax breaks you might get. And that's all
06:03the, that's the negotiation part that could end up taking a few years is what kind of
06:08extra little perks do they get and what, how does the negotiation with the rodeo go? Yeah.
06:12That will end the rodeo. Yeah. Right. And that's a big thing. That's, that's something
06:15that people need to remember the tech. Okay. Thank you. Harris County sports and convention
06:22corporation is H C S C C. Thank you. Texter. Um, yeah, this is a unique situation. None
06:28of the 31 other teams in the NFL, many of whom have gone through this exact process
06:33over the last several years, have a partner with it, with them, like the Houston livestock
06:38show and rodeo that shares the venue with them. That let's face it was a big reason
06:43why you were able to secure this stadium in the first place to bring football back to
06:48Houston back in, in the early two thousands. And they know that I, the McNair's know that
06:53I think just from a logical standpoint, I don't think you need to be an engineer. I
06:56don't think you need to be sitting in these rooms with all these people and know what
07:00the studies they've conducted entail to look at the situation and go renovating NRG stadium
07:06to make it look like a reasonable facsimile of what a state-of-the-art facility looks
07:11like today. What a state-of-the-art facility looks like today is way different than what
07:15state-of-the-art looked like when this stadium was built, obviously, because at the time
07:19it was built, it was viewed as a high level stadium, but you don't have to be an engineer
07:24or be in those rooms to know that logistically the type of renovation of NRG stadium that
07:30we're talking about here is going to be really hard to conduct without disrupting a football
07:35season or a rodeo season or both. Yeah, that stadium is not in that stadium. Unlike other
07:40football stadiums, that stadium is not in primary use for just August through January.
07:46It's in primary use August through January. And then you have this thing that sits there
07:50from late February into early April that is one of the staples of the Houston cultural
08:00set of decades. Yeah, it's hard to operate a massive construction project while you're
08:04also having one of the largest rodeos in the world going on. Not to mention A-list celebrities
08:12coming in and out. It's dicey. I mean, just even think about, even if you can envision
08:18doing the renovation in the stadium itself and how they might have to maneuver around
08:22and section off areas or anything, just all of the staging outside the stadium for the
08:26construction companies and everything else like that, where the, you'd love to be able
08:31to have all the contractors set up exactly where people are also eating their gigantic
08:37turkey legs. You want little kids walking around and people eating food with gigantic
08:44pieces of machinery and dirt flying everywhere. Right. That's what you want. They got construction
08:50workers coming to the job site, carrying their jackhammers on the conveyor thing there where
08:58everybody rides across. What the hell is that called? The gondola deal there. It's like
09:04the ski lift, but across the... Oh, I thought you were talking about a construction thing.
09:09I know what you're talking about. The amusement park thing. Like a sky ride. Like a sky ride.
09:14Whatever they call it. Yeah. You got a guy carrying his jackhammer on the sky ride. Oh,
09:17sitting on the sky ride. I thought you were talking... I was talking about a construction
09:22thing, Sean. I was mixing it with the sky ride. I thought the sky ride was a construction
09:26thing also. Yeah. I didn't know what you were talking about. That's what they could do is
09:30they could turn some of the cranes into carnival events. Yeah. Oh, that's an easy one. You
09:34know? Yeah. We get lifted up on the crane, high on your end a little bit, and then set
09:41you back down and pick up a girder. They could have it where they let kids actually handle
09:45a jackhammer. Like, that'll be three tickets. Yes. That'll be three tickets, and you get
09:50to jackhammer out one big pallet of concrete. They could raffle off dynamite technician
09:57certificates or something. What could go wrong? What could go wrong? So, I think... I do...
10:02There's a part of me here, and I think a lot of our listeners might appreciate this. If
10:05you've ever thought about renovating an old house, because I found myself in this situation,
10:09you talk to architects about it. I'll say multiple, because, look, the architect doesn't
10:14want to help you work on your renovation project. They want to build something new from scratch
10:19so they can make their mark in history. Well, you know, it'd probably actually be cheaper
10:23just to tear that building down and build a new one. I'm like, listen, listen, dude.
10:28I know what you're up to here, all right? And then two years later, in a near divorce
10:33later, you're like, oh gosh, I really should have just torn this thing down. The architect
10:38wasn't lying to me at all. This has been a nightmare. That's a tricky thing with renovations.
10:43It's harder to project costs with renovations than it is to build something from the ground
10:47up. Yeah, a lot of overruns, for sure. A lot of people weighing in. Jim Adler, the Texas
10:52Hammer text line. I have a feeling figuring out what to do with the dome is going to be
10:56a big part of any NRG renovation deal. I 100% agree with that. 100%. The future of the Astrodome
11:04is also embedded somewhere in this initiative, I would say. If NRG Stadium and where they
11:10are now remains the site that both of the, you know, the, both the rodeo and the Texans
11:13continue to play at moving forward. Are you like me in my day, the most plausible explanation
11:22for why people are holding so tight to not wanting to tear the Astrodome down is that
11:27there are mob bodies buried somewhere in the foundation. That's just, I just assume that
11:33Jimmy Hoffa is down there or something. There's something, there's some secret that buried
11:38in that concrete that people don't want somebody to find. It's a better explanation than the
11:42actual one, which is I think people are sentimental about it. I think people are just, people
11:47down here in this part of the country, in which I'm not saying it's a flaw or anything
11:51like that, I think it's part of what makes this part of the country great. It's a friendly
11:55part of the country that likes to look back on things and they see that dome and they
12:02remember all the good times they had in there and they feel as though if you tear that dome
12:05down that sometime, that somehow it erases part of your brain. I think there, I think
12:10there's some remnants of judge, judge Hoff Heinzen is good times. Activities buried down
12:15there more likely. That's a, this is on brand for our show. I think you're more of a cynic
12:19of the two of us with stuff like this.