Houston Rockets - Home Arenas

Home Arenas

During the four years the Rockets were in San Diego, they played their games in the San Diego Sports Arena, which had a seating capacity of 14,400. In their first season after moving to Houston, the Rockets did not have their own arena in Houston, and they played their first two years at various venues in Houston, including the Astrodome, AstroHall, Sam Houston Coliseum and Hofheinz Pavilion, the latter eventually being adopted as their home arena until 1975. They also had to play "home" games in other cities such as San Antonio, Waco, Albuquerque, and even San Diego in efforts to extend the fan-base. During their first season, the Rockets averaged less than 5,000 fans per game (roughly half full), and in one game in Waco, there were only 759 fans in attendance.

Their first permanent arena in Houston was the 10,000 seat Hofheinz Pavilion on the campus of the University of Houston, which they moved into starting in their second season. They played in the arena for four years, before occupying The Summit in 1975. The arena, which could hold 16,611 spectators, was their home for the next 28 years. It was renamed the Compaq Center from 1998–2003. For the 2003–04 season, the Rockets moved into their new arena, the Toyota Center, with a seating capacity of 18,500. In the past fifteen years, the Rockets' attendance was at the lowest in 2002, when their attendance per game was only 11,737, second worst in the league. However, the Rockets averaged 17,379 spectators in 2008, their best average attendance to date, which was the season of the famous 22-game winning streak.