Less than three days after the death of legendary Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips, former Houston Oilers and Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams has passed away at the age of 90, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Bud, the son of oil magnate Kenneth “Boots” Adams, used his inherited net worth and influence to bring professional football to Houston in 1960. Alongside Dallas millionaire Lamar Hunt, Adams created what would become the American Football League. The Houston Oilers would go on to win the first two AFL titles in 1960 and 1961 before losing to Lamar Hunt’s Dallas Texans in 1962.
In 1968 Adams decided to move his Houston Oilers to the Astrodome, where the Houston Astros had already been playing for two years. The following year, the AFL merged with the NFL, thus creating the current National Football League and the Super Bowl.
Adams kept the Houston Oilers in the Lone Star state for over three decades, before relocating the team to Tennessee in 1997. This move created a large amount of tension against Adams from Houstonians, but would eventually result in the creation of the Houston Texans.
After moving the Oilers to Tennessee, he renamed the team the Tennessee Titans. The Titans would go on to have success in its first few years, becoming the seventh Wild Card team in NFL history to make it to the Super Bowl XXXIV, where they lost to the St. Louis Rams 23-16.
Adams would continue to own the team until his death on October 21, 2013. His cause of death has yet to be released.
