Everything You Need To Know About WWE’s New Venue At Tropicana Field

For the last few months, WWE took up residency at the Thunderdome in Florida. While the world was suffering from a pandemic, WWE did its very best to contain its programming from a single arena.

However, reports stated WWE might be moving into a new residency. This year WrestleMania 37 was scheduled to air from the Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium on March 28. However, reports from Inside the Ropes stated otherwise.

According to them, WWE was moving WrestleMania to Raymond James Stadium in Florida, the original home to last year’s WrestleMania. They also reported how “WWE has ‘locked down’ most buildings in Tampa for potential events across WrestleMania Weekend.”

But in reality, WWE went to Florida but to a different address. As reported by Variety, WWE moved to the Tropicana Field in St Petersburg, Florida. The stadium has been home to the baseball team Tampa Bay Rays since its conception in 1998.

“The Tampa Bay Rays are excited to welcome WWE to Tropicana Field for this residency and shine a spotlight on the Tampa Bay area for WWE fans around the world,” noted Matt Silverman, Tampa Bay Rays’ president.

“The ballpark will be transformed to host the spectacle of WWE ThunderDome, allowing fans to enjoy this wildly popular experience virtually.”

WWE ThunderDome is thriving

To keep up with the change and the new normal, WWE introduced the state-of-the-art ThunderDome. With advanced videography and pyro, WWE has made sure the fans do not miss out on anything.

However, the challenge was as big as the adversity as WWE’s senior vice president of event and technical operations, Duncan Leslie explained the real challenge was to transform the baseball stadium to “ThunderDome in a baseball stadium.”

“We have a very large footprint when we tour, up to about 30 trucks, but this is much more complex because of the amount of video product where we display all the virtual fans, and the lighting and the projections and lasers and pyro. So it’s a bigger footprint, and it takes more technical horsepower.”

WWE had its first show at Tropicana Field in December last month and also hosted TLC from there. With lasers, display boards and pyro, the home of Tampa Bay Rays is unrecognizable.