Collegiate Club Championships

On April 10th the University of Michigan fencing club will join other schools for the 2010 US Collegiate Club Championships – a tournament for those schools with fencing clubs not included as varsity NCAA sports.  Michigan took 2nd place at the 2009 event.

The Silverdome sold for next to nothing

Sports arenas are the newest sector of real estate going for cheap!

The Pontiac Silverdome, one of the largest NFL stadiums in it’s day, sold for only $ 583,000 at auction. An entire sports arena, for between the cost of two and three average homes in America – that’s getting some big-time real estate on the cheap. Mortgage loan modification might never enter the picture with that good a deal. The winning bid was delivered by a real estate firm based in Toronto, Canada, but the name hasn’t been released yet. They had the best bid, but the sale hasn’t been entirely finalized. According to an article from the Detroit Free Press, it was costing the city of Pontiac about three times that much just to maintain the place per year, and the Detroit area isn’t exactly the land of milk and honey lately.

The former loud and proud home of Detroit Sports

A local college professor and high school sports star, C. Don Davidson, was the lynch pin. He had grown up in the area, and when he returned in 1965, he was surprised to see how the might had fallen, espescially in Pontiac. He came up with an idea for a new home for the Detroit Lions. He was hired in 1966 by the University of Detroit, as a professor of Architecture. (The Jacksonville International Airport had been some of his earlier work, as he held a Masters in Urban Planning and Architecture.) The sports stadium was part of an urban renewal project for the city of Pontiac. He got the ball rolling for the Lions moving to Pontiac by talking to William Clay Ford about a new stadium. After Pontiac was approved for a stadium in 1970, the architect design firm O’Dell, Hewlett and Luckenbach hired Davidson as Chief Project Designer. The project, which cost just under $ 56 million to complete, was finished by 1975. Previously, they shard Tiger Stadium with the Detroit Tigers, as football teams sharing grounds with baseball teams was common in that era, but by fall of 75, they had Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium as a new home.

Why is it called the “Silverdome?”

The top of the stadium was made of fiberglass coated with Teflon, which is white to the naked eye, but silver with reflection from the sun. The roof was supported entirely by air pressure inside the stadium.

From the ’70s until recently

In 1978, the Detroit Pistons moved in, and shared the building with the Lions until 1988. It has seating for over 90,000 in total, 80,000 for football, and until 1997 was the largest NFL stadium, and is still the third largest stadium in America (Cowboy Stadium is the largest NFL Stadium, followed by Fed Ex Field.) All things must end, and in 2002 the Lions moved to their current home at Ford Field. Aside from the parking lot being used as a drive in cinema for a few years and a few other events, it sat empty.

The Present

The Silverdome has been host to many events, including WrestleMania III, the sporting event with the largest attendance ever (the record still stands). It’s also a legendary concert venue – you name the huge band, chances are they’ve already been there twice. The city of Pontiac put it up for auction in October of 2009. With the stadium the new owners got for next to nothing, they are said to be planning to use it to host Major League Soccer events. Granted, they paid more than a payday loans, but they got an incredible deal.