The Superdome is celebrating its 50th anniversary Sunday. From the Rolling Stones to Muhammad Ali, the venue has brought legends and fans from all over the world to the Crescent City. Vice President of ASM Global, the company that manages the stadium, Doug Thornton, said its impact on downtown New Orleans has been immeasurable.
“It literally put the city on the map as a sports destination,” said Thornton. “It helped create the tourism industry that we have today. It helped spur development along Poydras Street back in those days.”
Opened August 3, 1975, the Superdome’s convention and meeting rooms, turned club lounges, and enormous unobstructed space were unheard of in its time. Thornton said the founding fathers of the Superdome knew what it could mean to the city.
“They had a vision to make it a grand stadium that could host a diverse array of events, and certainly it has lived up to that billing,” said Thornton.
The Superdome houses two million square feet of space, twice the size of the Astrodome at the time of its construction. Thornton said it was an engineering marvel ahead of its time, and its massive footprint has allowed it to be reinvented over the years.
Thornton said, “Something that large and that tall and that volume of space has permitted it to stand the test of time when other stadiums that were built during that era just couldn’t survive.”
