WrestleMania heads back to Florida
STAMFORD — WWE will hold its next WrestleMania, in Tampa, Fla., a change from its original plan of hosting its marquee annual gathering this year in Inglewood, Calif.
Stamford-based WWE has announced that WrestleMania 37 will now take place on April 10 and April 11 at Raymond James Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the site of Super Bowl LV on Feb. 7. The 65,000-seat venue was the originally planned location for the 2020 WrestleMania, but the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic forced WWE to move it to a close-doors setup at its training center in Orlando, Fla.
“The opportunity for Tampa Bay to host WrestleMania in April is, in true WWE fashion, the perfect comeback story and marks a clear indication that our beautiful city is poised to bounce back stronger than ever,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said in a statement. “We can’t wait to once again showcase all that team Tampa Bay has to offer.”
WWE is filming its flagship weekly TV shows, “Raw” and “SmackDown,” behind closed doors at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., which is about 20 miles southwest of Raymond James Stadium. It previously taped the programs at Amway Center in Orlando and at the training center.
Some fans apparently will be allowed to attend WrestleMania, with the company noting in its announcement that “in coordination with local partners and government officials, WWE will announce ticket availability and safety protocols for WrestleMania37 in the coming weeks.”
During the pandemic, Florida has implemented some of the most permissive regulations for in-person event attendance. An average of about 14,500 fans attended the Buccaneers’ home games this season, ranking third in the NFL, according to ESPN.
“WrestleMania will bring tens of millions of dollars to the Tampa area,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement. “We look forward to hosting more sporting and entertainment events in Florida this year.”
AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will welcome WrestleMania in 2022, while SoFi Stadium in Inglewood will host the spectacle in 2023.
“The city of Inglewood looks forward to the opportunity to host WrestleMania in 2023 and celebrates the deferral of this year’s event to Tampa Bay so they can have their rightful WrestleMania moment,” Inglewood Mayor James Butts Jr. said in a statement. “Our time will come.”
WrestleMania was last held in California in 2015, when Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium hosted. The event most recently took place in southern California in 2005, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
“On behalf of everyone at WWE, we thank Gov. DeSantis, Mayor Castor, (Arlington) Mayor (Jeff) Williams and Mayor Butts for their graciousness and flexibility in what was a collaborative effort to bring the next three WrestleManias to these iconic stadiums in their world-class cities,” WWE CEO and Chairman Vince McMahon said in a statement.
In 2019, WrestleMania was held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. It brought in about $165 million to the New Jersey-New York region from direct and indirect visitor spending.
The total marked the eighthstraight year that WrestleMania’s economic impact exceeded $100 million for its host region.