Miami Orange Bowl
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| Miami Orange Bowl | |
|---|---|
| Location | 1501 NW 3rd St Miami, Florida 33125 |
| Broke ground | 1936 |
| Opened | December 10, 1937 |
| Closed | TBD, 2008 (expected) |
| Demolished | TBD, 2008 (expected) |
| Owner | City of Miami |
| Operator | City of Miami |
| Surface | Natural grass (1937-69), PolyTurf (1970-75), Prescription Athletic Turf (1976-present) |
| Construction cost | $340,000 USD |
| Former names | Burdine Stadium (1937-1959) |
| Tenants | |
| Miami Hurricanes (NCAA) (1937-2007) FIU Golden Panthers (NCAA) (2007) Miami Seahawks (AAFC) (1946) Miami Dolphins (NFL) (1966-1986) Orange Bowl Classic (1938-1995, 1999) Playoff Bowl (1961-1970) Miami Toros (NASL) (1972-1976) Miami Freedom (ASL/APSL) (1988-1992) |
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| Capacity | |
| 74,476 | |
The Miami Orange Bowl is a stadium in the City of Miami, Florida, west of Downtown in Little Havana. It is considered a landmark. It was the home stadium for the University of Miami Hurricanes football team and the temporary home of the Florida International University Golden Panthers for the 2007 football season while the FIU Stadium underwent expansion. It also hosted the Miami Dolphins until the opening of then Joe Robbie Stadium (now known as Dolphin Stadium) in what is now nearby Miami Gardens for the 1987. The stadium was renamed in 1959 for the Orange Bowl Classic college football game, which was played at the Orange Bowl following every season from 1937 to 1995, although it has been played at Dolphin Stadium since 1996, save for the January 1999 contest. The Minor League Baseball Miami Marlins occasionally played games in the Orange Bowl from 1956 to 1960.
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The stadium was built by the City of Miami Public Works Department. Construction began in 1936 and was completed in December 1937. The stadium opened for Miami Hurricanes football on December 10, 1937. From 1926 to 1937 the University of Miami played in a stadium near Tamiami Park and also at Moore Park until the Orange Bowl was built.
The Orange Bowl was originally named Burdine Stadium after Roddy Burdine, one of Miami's pioneers. The original stadium consisted of the two sideline lower decks. Seating was added in the endzones in the 1940s, and by the end of the 1950s the stadium was double-decked on the sidelines. The AFL expansion Miami Dolphins played their first regular season game ever in the stadium on September 2, 1966. The west endzone upper deck section was then added in the 1960s, bringing the stadium to its peak capacity of 80,010. In 1977 the permanent seats in the east endzone were removed, and further upgrades have brought the stadium to its current capacity and design. The city skyline can be seen to the east through the open end, over the modern scoreboard and palm trees. The surface has been natural grass, except for a time in the 1970s. PolyTurf, an artificial turf similar to AstroTurf, was installed for the 1970 football season. It was removed and replaced with a type of natural grass known as Prescription Athletic Turf for the 1976 football season after Super Bowl X.
Under the leadership of Hall of Fame Football Coach Don Shula, the Miami Dolphins enjoyed a winning record in the Orange Bowl against rival teams in the AFC Eastern Division. Under Coach Shula, the Dolphins were an aggregate 57-9-1 (60-10-1 including playoff contests) against the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts (15-3), the Boston/NewEngland Patriots (15-1), the Buffalo Bills (16-1) and the New York Jets (13-4-1).[3] The playoff results are: AFC Championship games: (1971, Miami 21, Baltimore 0); (1982, Miami 14, NY Jets 0) and (1985, New England 31, Miami 14) and AFC First Round game (1982 strike shortened season, Miami 28, New England 13).
Notable winning streaks during the Shula-era in the Orange Bowl include a 13-0 streak against the Buffalo Bills and a 15-0 streak against the New England Patriots, Also of note, the Miami Dolphins enjoyed a record 31-game home winning streak from 1971 to 1975. This 31-game streak includes four playoff wins. The Dolphins have not enjoyed the same level of success in Dolphin Stadium.
The Orange Bowl is also the site of the NCAA's longest college football winning streak. Between 1985 and 1994, the University of Miami Hurricanes won 58 straight home games at the Bowl. The stadium's home field advantage used to include a steel structure that fans would set to rumbling by stomping their feet. Recent concrete reinforcement has silenced the rumble. Still present is the advantage of the West End Zone, which has a relatively narrow radius that amplifies fan noise. The West End Zone was a factor in the Wide Right (Florida State) curse, in which the Florida State University Seminoles lost a series of close games due to missed field goals. This section was so raucous that some football announcers even confused it with the student section. In fact, the fans in this section were the working and lower middle class citizens of Miami and included amongst their number the Miami Maniac.
In addition to football, the stadium also hosted concerts and other public events. The stadium has a regular capacity of 74,476 orange seats, and can seat up to 82,000 for concerts and other events where additional seating can be placed on the playing field.
President John F. Kennedy once visited the stadium .
The City of Miami recently embarked on a plan to extensively renovate the stadium. However, those plans fell by the wayside as Miami focused on keeping the Florida Marlins in town, forcing the Hurricanes to threaten a move to Dolphin Stadium in suburban Miami Gardens if a plan to renovate the stadium were not in place within 45 days. Some feared that Miami would permit the college to leave, only to tear down the Orange Bowl and replace it with the new stadium for the Marlins.
That fear became reality as Paul Dee, Athletic Director for the University of Miami, announced that the Hurricanes would be moving to Dolphin Stadium for the 2008 season. Dee and university president Donna Shalala made the announcement during a press conference at the Hecht Athletic Center on August 21, 2007. The University has tentatively agreed to a 25-year contract to play at Dolphin Stadium. According to Miami City Manager Pete Hernandez, this now puts the Orange Bowl back in the forefront as a possible site for a new Marlins stadium. The hope is that talks resume soon on that possibility.[1]
Many Hurricane fans vocally support a reversal of the decision to move stadium locations and prefer maintaining the Orange Bowl as the Hurricanes' home field, out of concern of Dolphin Stadium's extra distance from campus, the severing of an icon of the Hurricanes' historical successes on the field, and potentially more expensive parking costs. Many fans have even stated to various broadcast, print and internet-based media outlets that they will no longer attend the games of Hurricanes football, once the team leaves the Orange Bowl.[2] Some speculate that the Orange Bowl might have cursed the Miami Hurricanes and would cite the Miami Dolphins as a precedent. Indeed a common explanation for the Miami Dolphins' poor performance during the 2007 season is that "they've never been the same since they left the Orange Bowl."[3]
- Marlboro Soccer Cup
- AC Milan Soccer Game
- 1996 Summer Olympics soccer games
- 1987 NWA Great American Bash supercard.
- 1995 Canadian Football League exhibition game with the Birmingham Barracudas versus the Baltimore Stallions, the Stallions won 37-0 to judge if Miami could have supported an CFL team. The attendance was disappointing. The team would have been called the Miami Manatees.
- 1948-1973: college football all-star game, the North-South Shrine Game
- 1975 NFL Pro Bowl
The Orange Bowl is one of two stadiums to host five NFL,
- Super Bowls (II- Green Bay Packers beat the Oakland Raiders 33-14
- III- NY Jets defeated Don Shula's Baltimore Colts 16-7
- V- Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys
- USA Bowl for the "national champions" of semi-pro football
- Enchanted Dreamz Car & Bike show
- Funk Master flex Car show
- Prince. Notably, Prince chose the stadium as the venue for the grand finale of his Purple Rain Tour in April 1985. [4] In honor of the occasion, the stadium was rechristened the "Purple Bowl."
- The Orange Bowl was a central location in the 1977 film Black Sunday. A significant portion of the filming was done during Super Bowl X on January 18, 1976. A significant portion of the movie Any Given Sunday was filmed here as well.
In addition, the site was used for the Haiti national football (soccer) team for their "home" matches due to violent flare-ups in Haiti resulting from political instability.
In 2005, Hurricane Wilma caused structural damage to the stadium which rekindled discussion of tearing down the aging facility. The damage has since been repaired.
It is rumored that the Florida Marlins could relocate to the site of the Orange Bowl in a new baseball-only stadium to be built there, after a government subsidy for a new stadium elsewhere was rejected by the Florida State Legislature.
The historic stadium is scheduled for demolition since as the University of Miami has announced that they will move out of the stadium after the 2007 season and begin play at Dolphin Stadium in 2008 in a 25-year deal. [4] On November 10, 2007, the University of Miami Hurricanes lost their final game at the famed Orange Bowl when the University of Virginia defeated Miami 48-0 in the Hurricanes worst shutout loss in school history. [5] The Florida International University Golden Panthers won their last game at the Orange Bowl against the University of North Texas Mean Green on December 1st, 2007 with a score of 38-19, snapping a 23-game losing streak; it was the final college football game scheduled for the stadium. The future of the landmark remains uncertain.
- ^ Miami Leaving Orange Bowl; Will Play in Dolphin Stadium, ESPN.com, accessed 21 August 2007 [1]
- ^ Miami Herald's Eye on the U Blog; Time To Start Saying Goodbye, accessed 30 October 2007 [2]
- ^ "Checklist for Failure is all Too Familiar" David Hyde Commentary South Florida Sun-Sential October 3, 2007
- ^ Future of Orange Bowl in doubt, BBC Sport, 21 August 2007.
- ^ http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/ncaa/scoreboards/2007/11/10/36108_viewcast_recap.html
- Orange Bowl Official Web Site
- Orange Bowl Redevelopment Web site
- University of Miami Hurricanes Orange Bowl Page
- Aerial Views of Miami Orange Bowl
- Orange Bowl Seating Chart
- Future of the Stadium after the Hurricanes leave
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| Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (I, VII) • Miami Orange Bowl (II, III, V, X, XIII) • Tulane Stadium (IV, VI, IX) • Rice Stadium (VIII) Rose Bowl (XI, XIV, XVII, XXI, XXVII) • Louisiana Superdome (XII, XV, XX, XXIV, XXXI, XXXVI) • Pontiac Silverdome (XVI) • Tampa Stadium (XVIII, XXV) Stanford Stadium (XIX) • Qualcomm Stadium (XXII, XXXII, XXXVII) • Dolphin Stadium (XXIII, XXIX, XXXIII, XLI, XLIV) • Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (XXVI) Georgia Dome (XXVIII, XXXIV) • Sun Devil Stadium (XXX) • Raymond James Stadium (XXXV, XLIII) • Reliant Stadium (XXXVIII) ALLTEL Stadium (XXXIX) • Ford Field (XL) • University of Phoenix Stadium (XLII) • Dallas Cowboys New Stadium (XLV) |
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Warhawk Stadium (1972-73) • Schoellkopf Field (1974) • Franklin Field (1975-76) • Mile High Stadium (1977-78) |
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