SaberCats Stadium is a

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

stadium A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, Texas, United States, as part of Houston Sports Park and is the home of the

Houston SaberCats The Houston SaberCats are an American professional rugby union team based in Houston, Texas, that competes in Major League Rugby (MLR). The team was founded in 2017. The SaberCats organization was born from one of the founding amateur rugby clubs ...

Major League Rugby Major League Rugby (MLR) is a professional rugby union competition in the United States. The league comprises 11 teams. While operating outside of the governance and oversight of the national governing body, the league is officially sanctioned ...

. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 24, 2018. Naming rights for the stadium were initially purchased by British information technology company AVEVA, and it was opened as AVEVA Stadium on April 13, 2019. Following the 2022 season, its name officially changed to "SaberCats Stadium". It is the first stadium in the league built specifically for use by Major League Rugby, and the second rugby-specific stadium primarily for professional competition in the United States.

History

Planning and funding

In March 2017, local rugby organization and predecessor to the Houston SaberCats, the Houston Strikers publicly announced their plans to build a stadium at the Houston Sports Park located roughly three miles from

NRG Park NRG Park, formerly Reliant Park and Astrodomain, is a complex in Houston, named after the energy company NRG Energy. It is located on Kirby Drive at the South Loop West Freeway ( I-610). This complex of buildings encompasses of land and consist ...

and eight miles from Downtown Houston along the South Freeway. The group also released several other key details such as early renderings, an estimated cost of $10 million, and a 5,000 person initial capacity. Leading up to the inaugural season of the team, the City of Houston agreed to partially fund a permanent stadium with a contribution of $3.2 million in February 2018. The ownership group expects to invest an additional $12.0 million of their own funds to construct the 3-field, multi-use facility. Details of the deal, outlined in Houston City Ordinance 2018–0085, also confirmed the construction on city-owned property in south Houston at Houston Sports Park, with the city maintaining ownership and leasing stadium grounds back to the team for a 43-year term.

Design and construction

On July 8, the Houston SaberCats released new preliminary architectural drawings and a groundbreaking announcement for July 24, 2018 via Instagram and then via press release several days later. On July 17, the SaberCats announced naming rights were awarded to AVEVA. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on July 24, 2018, with the

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Sylvester Turner Sylvester Turner (September 27, 1954 – March 5, 2025) was an American attorney and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from January 2025 until his death in March 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democra ...

, representing the city.

Opening and current use

Construction was still ongoing as the venue opened as "AVEVA Stadium" on April 13, 2019 with a game against the

Seattle Seawolves The Seattle Seawolves are an American professional rugby union team based in the Seattle metropolitan area that competes in Major League Rugby (MLR). The team was founded in 2017. The Seawolves won two MLR championships in 2018 and 2019, and los ...

. After its inauguration, previous games were played before the grand opening, which was postponed and took place on May 29, 2019. The Houston team played against the

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. Beginning in 2022, Houston Dynamo 2, the reserve side of MLS club Houston Dynamo, began playing home matches at the stadium. As naming rights with AVEVA ended, it became known as "SaberCats Stadium" beginning with the 2022 season.

Other events

SaberCats Stadium has hosted non-MLR events. In 2022 it hosted both the

Division 1-A Rugby Division 1-A Rugby (formerly known as the College Premier Division) is the highest level of men's college rugby within the United States and is administered by USA Rugby. Division 1-A rugby is modeled after NCAA athletic competitions, with the 4 ...

final and the

United States national rugby union team The United States men's national rugby union team, nicknamed the Eagles, represents the United States in men's international rugby union competitions. USA Rugby is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States, a ...

in a match against the

French Barbarians The Barbarian Rugby Club, more commonly known as the French Barbarians, is a rugby union team formed in 1979 and based in France. It was founded as an amateur invitational team modeled on the Barbarian F.C. From the start of the 2017–18 sea ...

. Also, beginning in 2023 it is the home of the UFA team Houston Havoc, a professional

Ultimate Frisbee Ultimate frisbee (officially simply called ultimate) is a non-contact team sport played with a disc flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by Joel Silver, Buzzy Hellring, and Jonny Hines in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate rese ...

team.

Facilities

SaberCats Stadium's overall facilities include a 1,200-car parking lot and two secondary fields for multipurpose use. While seating capacity exceeds 3,000, the stadium features up to 4,000 maximum capacity by utilizing standing-room-only areas. The venue is primarily the home of the Houston SaberCats professional Rugby team but can accommodate other sports and non-sports events due to the large size of the fields. The stadium's east and west side stands are

grandstand A grandstand is a normally permanent structure for seating spectators, typically at sports stadiums and including both auto racing and horse racing. The grandstand is in essence like a single section of a stadium, but differs from a stadium i ...

s with individual seats. The south side stands feature a mix of

bleacher Bleachers (North American English), or stands, are raised, tiered rows of benches found at sports-fields and at other spectator events. Stairways provide access to the horizontal rows of seats, often with every other step enabling access to a ...

and individual seats, while the north side stands are uncovered bleacher seating. Also located on the south end of the stadium, below the video board, is a full-service bar known as the "Cat's Den" and two

berm A berm is a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of Soil compaction, compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope. It can serve as a terrace road, track, path, a fortification line, a b ...

s. Both the bar area and berms allow for general standing.

References

External links

Houston SaberCats website
{{Houston SaberCats Houston SaberCats Houston SaberCats stadiums Major League Rugby stadiums MLS Next Pro stadiums Rugby union stadiums in Houston Rugby union stadiums in Texas Rugby union stadiums in the United States 2019 establishments in Texas Sports venues completed in 2019 Soccer venues in Texas