During the 1990s, the Seahawks' and Mariners' respective ownership groups began to question the suitability of the Kingdome as a venue for each team, threatening to relocate unless new, publicly funded stadiums were built.

[14][18][19] The Pilots began play as planned in 1969, but Sick's Stadium proved to be a problematic venue for fans, media, and visiting players alike.

[19] This drew sharp opposition primarily from the International District community, which feared the impact of the stadium on neighborhood businesses located east of the site.

However, the stadium's construction encountered numerous issues; in January 1973, six support beams for the roof were toppled as one or two of them buckled, bringing down the others in a domino effect.

[19][28] It hosted its first professional sporting event two weeks later on April 9, an exhibition soccer game between the Seattle Sounders and New York Cosmos of the NASL.

The Seahawks and the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders played five Monday Night games in the Kingdome in the 1980s with Seattle holding a 3–2 edge including a 37–0 blowout victory in 1986.

Opposing teams were known to practice with jet engine sounds blaring at full blast to prepare for the painfully high decibel levels typical of Seahawks games.

[55][56] In its 1982 bid for Super Bowl XIX, the Seattle City Council voted to give tax exemptions to the NFL if the league selected the Kingdome to host the game.

[68][69][70] In 1994, under then-new athletic director Rick Dickson, the Cougars flirted with the idea of hosting an additional home game at the Kingdome starting in 1997; however, the plan never came to fruition.

[79][80][81] Shortly after the Pilots' departure for Milwaukee, the city of Seattle, King County, and the state of Washington sued the American League, claiming a breach of contract.

[83][85][note 2] In the top of the first inning, Don Baylor registered the first hit at the stadium with a double that scored Remy, who had stolen second and third base after drawing a walk from Seguí.

In the bottom of the 11th, Martinez doubled to left, sending Joey Cora and Griffey home with the winning runs and vaulting the Mariners into the ALCS for the first time in franchise history.

The earthquake, estimated at a magnitude of 5.3 to 5.4, occurred during a pitching change as Indians' pitcher Orel Hershiser was walking off the mound following a home run by Edgar Martínez.

However, while they were able to make the tickets and reservations for Seguí, a payment mix-up prevented him from boarding the flight out of Kansas City International Airport on the day of the game; the incident made him irate such that he refused to visit Seattle again until 2012, when he was invited as part of the Mariners' 35th anniversary celebration.

[132] While leaving a SuperSonics game on February 16, 1983, a 21-year-old man from Olympia fell off a ramp and plunged 47 feet to his death; this was despite the installation of signs warning about the chest-level barriers the previous year.

[138] However, exemplifying the scheduling issues, it was not their final home game of the season; the SuperSonics were forced to play at the Tacoma Dome on April 11 because the Mariners hosted the Oakland Athletics at the Kingdome that day.

[146] The plan was eventually approved by the Seattle City Council 7–1 on May 30, 1990, but it was ultimately scrapped the following year on June 26 because of issues in financing it; as a compromise measure, the Coliseum was rebuilt as KeyArena during the 1994–95 season, with the SuperSonics playing home games at the Tacoma Dome instead of the closer Kingdome in the meantime.

[139] The first men's college basketball game at the Kingdome was held on January 9, 1984, when the Washington Huskies defeated the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, 63–61, in the second overtime in front of 7,466 fans.

[139] The Seattle Sounders of the North American Soccer League (NASL) were the first tenant to move into the Kingdome upon its opening, having played at Memorial Stadium for their first two seasons.

[164][165][166] Just weeks later, they hosted their first regular-season game in the Kingdome on April 26, defeating the Portland Timbers 1–0 via a Geoff Hurst penalty kick in the second overtime before 24,983 spectators.

[167] The largest crowd to attend a Sounders match, regular or postseason, occurred on August 25, 1977, when 56,256 spectators watched as they defeated the Los Angeles Aztecs 1–0 in the second game of the Pacific Conference Final to advance to their first Soccer Bowl.

[171] With the cuts not enough to keep the team afloat, the owners ultimately elected to fold it that year on September 6; their final home game was a 3–2 victory over the San Diego Sockers on August 25 with 7,331 fans in attendance.

This pressure-washing resulted in water seepage through the roof, and on July 19, 1994, four 26-pound (12 kg), waterlogged acoustic ceiling tiles fell into the seating area.

The tiles fell while the Mariners were on the field preparing for a scheduled game against the Baltimore Orioles, a half-hour before the gates were to open for fans to enter the stadium.

However, the following month, the Mariners made it to the MLB postseason for the first time and, on October 8, defeated the New York Yankees in the decisive fifth game of the 1995 ALDS on the heels of a walk-off game-winning double hit by Edgar Martínez.

The Mariners' postseason run demonstrated that there was a fan base in Seattle that wanted the team to stay in town, and as a result, the Washington State Legislature approved a separate funding package for a new stadium on October 14.

Behring went so far as to relocate team headquarters to Anaheim, California, but his plans were defeated when lawyers found out that the Seahawks could not break their lease on the Kingdome until 2005.

He found a potential buyer in Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who stipulated that a new publicly funded stadium had to be built as a condition of his purchase of the team.

[228][229] Despite the intention of the Mariners to start playing at their new home at the beginning of the 1999 season, construction delays meant that installation of its retractable roof would not occur on time, leading to another sale threat by the team's owners.

While playing with the Mariners, Lenny Randle recorded a song titled "Kingdome" with some of his teammates and family members in order to raise money to buy a speech synthesizer for a young fan with cerebral palsy.