Rice Stadium renamed First Community Stadium after naming rights deal

First Community Stadium in Houston, Texas, serves as the home field for the Rice Owls football team. Originally opened in 1950 as Rice Stadium, the 70,000-seat facility was designed by Hermon Lloyd, W. B. Morgan, and Milton McGinty, and built by Brown and Root with a subsidy from the City of Houston.

First Community Credit Union Renames Stadium

In October 2026, the venue was officially renamed First Community Stadium following a 20-year naming rights agreement with locally based First Community Credit Union. Built without a running track to maximize spectator proximity to the field, the stadium features a lower seating bowl set below ground level and a concave upper deck design intended to optimize sightlines.

Strategic placement of entrances and aisles originally allowed the entire crowd to evacuate in nine minutes. Over the decades, declining attendance led to capacity reductions. In 2006, the university installed FieldTurf, added a modern scoreboard over the north concourse, and covered end-zone seats with tarps to lower capacity to 47,000.

Historical Events Hosted at the Houston Venue

The stadium hosted President John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962, when he delivered his landmark speech challenging Americans to send a man to the moon before the end of the decade. In January 1974, the venue hosted Super Bowl VIII, where the Miami Dolphins defeated the Minnesota Vikings 24–7 before a crowd of 68,142 as the first Super Bowl played in Texas.

Beyond Rice University home games, the stadium hosted the University of Houston Cougars from 1951 through 1964 and the Bluebonnet Bowl from 1959 to 1967, as well as in 1985 and 1986. The Houston Oilers of the American Football League also played their home games at the venue from 1965 to 1967 before moving to the Astrodome.

Gateway Project Downsizes Stadium Seating

Rice University announced the $120 million Gateway Project in November 2025 to connect the campus to the adjacent Rice Village shopping and restaurant district. The initiative includes downsizing the stadium to slightly over 30,000 seats by demolishing the upper level and press box on the west side to build a new concourse with premium seating, media facilities, and athletic offices, alongside partial removal of the east side upper level.

Recent facility upgrades also include the 2015 construction of the Brian Patterson Sports Performance Center behind the northern end zone, which houses a weight room, home locker room, and staff offices. The university also installed an 80,000-square-foot air-supported multipurpose facility on the west side in July 2020 for weather-protected varsity training and campus recreation.

The Gateway Project renovations and overall stadium restructuring are scheduled for completion in 2028.

Home Attendance Fluctuates Under Recent Coaches

Average home attendance figures under recent head coaches include David Bailiff in Conference USA with 19,354 in 2017 (0-5 record); Mike Bloomgren with 20,172 in 2018 (2-4), 18,845 in 2019 (1-5), 1,000 in 2020 (0-2), 18,613 in 2021 (3-3), 19,011 in 2022 (4-2), 20,542 in 2023 in the American Athletic Conference (4-3), and 18,143 in 2024 (4-2); and Scott Abell with 23,423 in 2025 (3-4) and 15,128 in 2026 (1-0).