WWE News: Another Florida city is looking to bid for WrestleMania to return to the state
What's the story?
The Tampa Bay Times reported on Friday that the city is looking to host a future WrestleMania. They are looking to host a WrestleMania in either 2023, 2024 or 2025.
In case you didn't know...
Florida has been host to a total of three WrestleMania's in history. Orlando has been the host of two (WrestleMania 24 and WrestleMania 33) and Miami was the host for WrestleMania 28.
The heart of the matter...
WWE Superstar Titus O'Neill was in Tampa Bay on Thursday evening as the Tampa Bay Sports Commission prepared to submit an official bid on May 4th.
In addition to potentially hosting WrestleMania 39, 40 or 41, they submitted a bid to host either the 2022 or 2023 Royal Rumble event.
The executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, Rob Higgins, is leading the charge to submit the bid today and made the following comment from the event the night before:
"I think it's something we've been taking a hard look at for quite some time," Higgins said Thursday evening at the Sneaker Soiree, an annual celebration of bay area sports held by his group. Naturally, we think with the rich tradition of professional wrestling in our community, with so many (WWE stars) who live here, with how much passion there is for professional wrestling, that it makes a lot of sense to try to host the premier event in WrestleMania."
They would look to host WrestleMania at Raymond James Stadium where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play in the NFL and the South Florida Bulls play college football. The capacity of the stadium for football is 65,890.
What's next?
It will be at least three years before we know for sure if Tampa Bay will host a WrestleMania as they typically announced sometime in the month prior to the current year's WrestleMania. The next WrestleMania will be held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Author's take...
It's definitely not a bad idea for WrestleMania to be in the state of Florida where it is almost guaranteed to be warm in the month of April. I think it is definitely a risk having it in New Jersey outdoors in April, but hopefully, the weather cooperates next year.