- San Antonio plays home games at AT&T Center but came back to the Alamodome as part of the team’s 50th-anniversary celebration.
San Antonio (AP) – The San Antonio Spurs announced an attendance of 68,323 fans for their return to the Alamodome, which is a record number for an NBA regular-season game.
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Spurs, while celebrating their 50th anniversary season, returned to their former playing grounds to face the Golden State Warriors last Friday night.
San Antonio Hall of Famer David Robinson was the one who announced the official attendance at the close of the third quarter. Robinson said, “Spurs fans have again set the standard for the league”
Fans of the team began to chant”Go Spurs Go!” after the announcement.
The given numbers shattered the previous record of 62,046 people who gathered to watch Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls play the Atlanta Hawks at the Georgia Dome on March 27, 1998.
“Yeah, that’s pretty different,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said about the record crowd. “It’s a situation where you know… are they selling alcohol? I think that people will be pretty fired up. It is just an exciting moment for everybody. It is nostalgic for everybody. To have that many people in one building, to be able to play in front of them, is pretty damn exciting, actually. We hope it is a good game.”
Although San Antonio now plays its home games at the AT & T Center, coming back to the Alamodome was a way to mark the Spurs’ 50th-anniversary celebration.
While the team (13-29) is having one of the worst seasons in its history, playing at the Alamodome gave fans an opportunity to relive a former era for the team.
“Having my son here with me, sharing a past and present memory, will be cherished by both of us for years,” said a Spurs fan, Eric Hernandez, who previously attended games at the Alamodome.
The San Antonio Spurs franchise started off at the HemisFair Arena in 1973, but the Alamodome is where they took their first steps toward becoming one of the most respected franchises in the NBA.
They played in the Alamodome from 1993 to 2002 before moving to the AT&T Center.
It was in the Alamodome that San Antonio won its first NBA championship in 1999 and held its championship celebration in the downtown facility.
The Alamodome was also where the 1996 NBA All-Star Game was hosted, it was where Michael Jordan was booed for winning MVP over former Spurs resident Shaquille O’Neal.
“It’s crazy,” said Taro Kotani, a Spurs fan visiting from Japan. “The amount of people here. I’ve never been inside the Dome, so just imagining what it was like here during the ’96 All-Star Game and ’99 Finals is so nostalgic. I wasn’t there but this brings back lots of memories”.
Kotani had planned his annual trip to San Antonio around Friday’s game because he wanted to be there when history was made.
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