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A quick look inside the Rogers Centre …
Location: Toronto
Opened: 1989
Cost: $570 million
Seating Capacity: 69,000
Architect: Rod Robbie
The Rogers Centre, formerly known as SkyDome, will host its first mixed martial arts event on Saturday, when UFC 129 “St. Pierre vs. Shields” lands in Toronto. The event, which will air live on pay-per-view at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, will feature a pair of five-round title bouts, as welterweight king Georges St. Pierre defends against Jake Shields in the main event and featherweight champion Jose Aldo meets Mark Hominick in the co-headliner. Ten additional matchups round out the UFC 129 lineup, including a light heavyweight duel pairing former champion Lyoto Machida with hall of famer Randy Couture. Organizers expect a crowd of some 55,000, which would shatter the North American attendance mark for MMA.
When it opened in 1989, the Rogers Centre was a marvel of modern architecture -- the first major sports arena in North American with a functional and fully retractable roof. Held together by 250,000 bolts, the roof weighs 11,000 tons and can open or close in 20 minutes. Built by Rod Robbie at a staggering cost of $570 million, the facility fell into financial trouble in less than a decade. In 1998, Sportsco International LP bought SkyDome out of bankruptcy for $85 million. Six years later, Rogers Communications, parent company of the Toronto Blue Jays, acquired the arena for $25 million, roughly four percent of the original cost of construction. The Rogers Centre features LED video displays capable of displaying 4.3 trillion colors. The largest of these stretches 110 feet wide by 33 feet tall. To date, more than 2,000 events have been staged at the Rogers Centre, with more than 60 million visitors. It remains home to the Toronto Blue Jays, of Major League Baseball, and the Toronto Argonauts, of the Canadian Football League.
The Rogers Centre has twice hosted Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania VI on April 1, 1990 and Wrestlemania X8 on March 17, 2002. Hulk Hogan vs. The Ultimate Warrior headlined the first, Chris Jericho vs. Triple H the second. The 2002 show attracted the venue’s largest-ever paid crowd at 67,678. The Rogers Centre also played host to the 1991 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in which hall of fame shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. was named Most Valuable Player.
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