[video=twitter;765651425925881856]https://twitter.com/ArmandoSalguero/status/765651425925881856[/video] Clearly this deserves everyone's best effort for jokes based on the new name - I mean, before everyone else in the league gets onto it. Any takers? The Dolphins will now, for a long time, be stuck between a rock and a hard place. (I know, I know, .... I'll get my coat.) Details per Armando: "Welcome to The Rock! That little line from the movie The Rock now applies to the stadium the Dolphins have spent the past two offseasons renovating at a cost of approximately $500 million. Indeed, the reason the line will apply is because the Dolphins have locked in their naming rights for the facility. Hard Rock Stadium.... This is huge news for the team because this deal will give the facility its name for a long, long, long time. I'm told the deal with Hard Rock International is so long, that kids entering kindergarten this fall will graduate high school and the name on the stadium when they get their diplomas will still be Hard Rock Stadium. So this deal will go past a dozen years. That's very important because the facility has been the unofficial king of names in the past. Hard Rock is the eighth name on the place since it opened in 1987. Previously it was Dolphin Stadium, Joe Robbie Stadium, Dolphins Stadium, Pro Player Park, Pro Player Stadium, Landshark Stadium, and most recently Sun Life Stadium. I'm told there will not be a huge guitar fixed atop the new canopy of this stadium as it hangs outside Hard Rock Cafes around the world. But there will be typical Hard Rock trademarks, including the guitar, around the stadium and at the entrance to the main parking lots at Gate Four. Today's deal wasn't exactly a secret. I told Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com that Hard Rock International could buy the naming rights back in May. Hard Rock International is owned by the Seminole Indian tribe of Florida. But the stadium name will make no reference to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino that is approximately 15 miles north of the stadium per terms of the deal. The NFL, which wants to protect its brand, is often uncomfortable with its teams being tied to gambling of any form. The NFL approved this deal this week. The Dolphins are declining to confirm the deal at this hour. But there should be a press conference as early as Thursday. Hard Rock Stadium will be the home of the Miami Dolphins, the Miami Hurricanes, the Orange Bowl Classic, and Super Bowl 54 in 2020, a game South Florida was awarded during the Spring. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has said he and the South Florida Super Bowl Host Committee will continue to bid for Super Bowls and eventually wants to bring an NCAA national championship football game to his facility. After its naming right deal with Sun Life expired months ago, the Dolphins kept the name on the stadium until recently. Just prior to this deal with Hard Rock, the Dolphins' stadium was one of only seven in the NFL with a naming rights deal."
I just call it dolphin stadium..... the name is changed every 4 years, i dont think there's another football stadium out there that goes through more name changes...
Honestly, the name of the stadium is such a bygone matter. It doesn't matter anymore. What matters is the atmosphere on the inside, not the name on the outside.
The name struck me as a little weird and then I thought, wait...this is one of the most sane names in the era of Bank of America Stadium and the Mercedez Benz Superdome, lol
Honestly, it could be worse. Actually, it has been. Pretty much every name that came before it, outside of Dolphin stadium, was bad.
Hard **** stadium is the obvious low hanging fruit. Clean suggested Rock Hard, Diamond Cutter and Blue Veined Hard Sock if you're a teenage boy with no kleenex available Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It's bad that stadiums keep changing names every few years but it's not as bad as the college bowl games. I keep waiting for the newest college bowl game...The Tidy Bowl
If some company wanted to pay you thousands a year to put a banner on your house, you'd gladly go home to Kaopectate casa, or Cialis house. 250 million?
I love it. Who has a better name than that? I mean we won the name category without a doubt at least in the NFL. Bank of America, Lucas Oil, Reliant, Levis, Gilette,? Pfft. How about Hard Rock! Yeah, best name in NFL.
[video=twitter;765903848531603457]https://twitter.com/ArmandoSalguero/status/765903848531603457[/video] [video=twitter;765902712873619458]https://twitter.com/flasportsbuzz/status/765902712873619458[/video]
[video=twitter;765944096208728065]https://twitter.com/ArmandoSalguero/status/765944096208728065[/video]
For me being a rocker, and Dolphins fan... this is the coolest stadium name ever! But an easy target as well.
For a sponsorship deal, I don't think we could have done any better. I always preferred to call it Joe Robbie Stadium but I figure if it cant be The Joe then The Rock will do. BTW it is a deal for 18 years! so we had better get used to it! 250 million dollars too. The stadium upgrade is half paid for already. Also in the announcement is they are going to host concerts down there and the Brazilian National soccer team for 6 or 7 games over the next few years. Could have been much worse.
I'll continue to refer to it as Dolphins stadium, but as far as a sponsored name, I agree with a lot of folks here, it's about as good as you can hope for, though these names have lost all meaning for me.
It will always be, "Joe Robbie Stadium" to me. He built it and Ross has updated it, but without Robbie it would have never been built to begin with.
The stadium looks tons better to begin with. The place now looks much more like a modern stadium in the NFL. I could care less what the name is really. I go to the stadium to watch football. That's about all I need to know.
Certainly a fitting name given the prevalence of The Hard Rock in South Florida. Great job on that deal.
Do you guys think that a Hard Rock Cafe will eventually be added at/or by the stadium? It could be an alternate option for people who don't want to tailgate.