The Titans of Tennessee have not always been called as such. They are
originally from Houston, Texas and were relocated to Tennessee in 1997. They
played their first season in Memphis, Tennessee before moving to the city of
Nashville. As a matter of fact, they were known as the Tennessee Oilers for two
years before they were renamed the Titans in 1999.
The history of the Tennessee Titans cannot really be told unless you include
the history of the Houston Oilers in to the telling. The team started out as a
charter member of the AFL in 1960. The original owner was Bud Adams, a big
Houston oilman from the area. He is considered by many to be the number two most
influential man of the original eight AFL owners. The Oilers first years were
great ones and in the early 1960s were a powerhouse of the AFL. When the NFL-AFL
merger happened in the 1970s they struggled for a couple of years but bounced
back with the arrival of Bum Phillips in 1975 and other stars like Billy Johnson
and Elvin Bethea. Football legend Earl Campbell joined the team as a draft pick
in 1978 and the Oilers made their first appearance in an NFL playoff.
The 1980s first years were tough again for the team and in 1981 the team lost
23 consecutive away games, which was an all-time NFL record until the Detroit
Lions broke that record with a 24 straight road game lose in 2003. The team had
some good years from 1987-1993 and made the playoffs every year even though they
never made it to the Super Bowl.
The Astrodome needed repairs badly in the 1980s and Bud Adams thought about
moving the team to Jacksonville, Florida unless the Astrodome was modernized.
There were only about 50,000 seats in the facility at the time and this was the
smallest seating arrangement in the NFL. So the city came up with $67 million to
make the improvements to the Astrodome. These improvements included an
additional 10,000 seats and 65 luxury boxes.
A problem arose in the mid-nineties when Adams wanted a new stadium so soon
after the Astrodome was renovated. The major of Houston, Bob Lanier, turned
Adams down and so Adams began to look for other cities to move the Oilers to.
Nashville looked good and at the end of the 1995 season, the city of Houston
received the news that they would be losing their football team to Tennessee. It
was at that point that any city support for the Oilers disappeared. The city of
Houston wanted a pro football team but did not want to give Bud Adams the amount
of money that he wanted to keep the team there. Needless to say, the 1996 season
was pretty awful for the Oilers. The crowds in the Astrodome were less than
20,000 and the games were so notoriously quiet that anyone could hear individual
conversations on the field from up in the grandstand. The games were
disheartening for the Oilers but they still finished the season with an 8-8
record. Of course, they won most of their games on the road with a 6-2 record
for away games and a 2-6 record for their home games. It was at the end of this
season that the city agreed to let the Oilers leave town a year early. Adams was
let out of his lease and he then quickly moved the team to Tennessee.
In 1998, Adams was getting so much fan pressure for a team name change that
he decided to change the Oilers' name to something better suited to Nashville.
Adams retained the rights to the Oilers' name; he just would not be using it
anymore. The advisory committee that Adams formed came up with the name of
Titans in 1998 and the name was official for the new season in 1999 and has been
with the team ever since.
