 Sun
Life Stadium
Miami,
FL
For decades football has
been a part of the Miami landscape including being the home of the Dolphins (NFL),
Hurricanes (NCAA), nine Super Bowls and countless NCAA football
championship games. In 1966 the Miami Dolphins joined the NFL as
an expansion franchise under the ownership of Joe Robbie. They
played at the Orange Bowl, a 72,000 seat stadium they shared with
the Hurricanes (NCAA). In the late 1970s and early 1980s
after playing at the Orange Bowl for several decades, Dolphins
owner, Joe Robbie, began lobbying for a new stadium for his team.
After voters continually rejected tax increases for a stadium to
be built, Robbie decided build the stadium himself. After finding
a site to build the stadium, construction began in December 1985.
Construction costs for the facility were paid for by the selling
of luxury suites, club seats, private funds and long term
agreements with season ticket holders. The stadium was completed
in under two years and originally named after Joe Robbie.
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The Miami Dolphins played their first game at
Joe Robbie Stadium on August 16, 1987. Joe Robbie Stadium was a
major upgrade from the Orange Bowl. The state of the art facility
has 75,000 orange and teal seats that enclose the field. The
numerous many circular ramps and escalators make accessibility to any seat
very
easy. Two high-definition video boards are located above the rim of the upper deck
of each end zone. In 1990, in an effort to bring MLB baseball to
Florida, Wayne Huizenga purchased 50% of Joe Robbie Stadium. In 1991, MLB awarded
Miami
a team, the Florida Marlins, who began playing in 1993. Joe Robbie
Stadium now became a multipurpose facility. When the stadium
was built for the Dolphins, Joe Robbie insisted on a rectangular
grandstand layout that was wider than needed for football,
believing that baseball would one day come to Miami. The seats in
the lower level on the north side of the stadium become
retractable, so the field can be configured for baseball. The
first Florida Marlins game played at the stadium was on April 5,
1993. In 1996, Joe Robbie Stadium was renamed Pro Player Stadium,
after the company bought the naming rights to the stadiu m.
In January 2005, owner of the Dolphins, Wayne Huizenga, announced
that Pro Player Stadium would be renamed Dolphin Stadium. Huizenga also announced that the stadium would be renovated and
enlarged. To be completed in three phases over several years, the
project is expected to cost $300 million. The project includes
remodeling of the club level and luxury suites, new scoreboards
and additional parking by 2010.
In May
2009, the stadium's naming rights were bought by Land Shark Lager,
a beer that Jimmy Buffett markets in a deal with Anheuser-Busch.
The stadium name reverted back to Dolphin Stadium, briefly, after the 2010
FedEx Orange Bowl. Prior to Super Bowl XLIV, the Dolphins and Sun
Life Financial reached an agreement to rename the stadium, Sun
Life Stadium. The five year deal is worth $7.5 million annually. It has been the host to two World Series in
1998 and 2003, and four Super Bowls in 1989, 1995, 1999 and 2010. In January 2010,
the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee unveiled plans that would
renovate the stadium, making it competitive with other cities
bidding for future Super Bowls. Under the plan, the entire lower
deck would be removed and rebuilt closer to the field, videoboards
would be placed in the stadium's corners, and a metal roof would
be placed over the seating elements to protect fans. The Host
Committee has not released cost estimates for the project or how
it would be paid for.
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