Amway Center

View of the outside of the Amway Center

Amway Center is an multi-use arena located in Orlando, Florida that serves as the home for the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL, and the Orlando Predators of the National Arena League (NAL).

They first started to build the stadium on July 25, 2008. The arena opened on October 1, 2010 and the first event was a concert by Vicente Fernández.^[1] The Magic had their first preseason game in the arena on October 10, 2010. In the game, they defeated the New Orleans Hornets 135–81.^[2]

Amway own the naming rights for the arena. Amway also used to own naming rights for the Magic's former arena, the Amway Arena. When the new Amway Center was being built, Amway had right of first refusal fr the new arena from their last arena's contract. On August 3, 2009, Amway signed a $40-million contract to have their name on the arena.^[3]

WWE has hosted many shows and pay-per-views at the arena including the Royal Rumble in 2016, NXT TakeOver: Orlando, and 2020's SummerSlam, Payback, Clash of Champions, Hell in a Cell, and Survivor Series pay-per-views. During the COVID-19 pandemic, WWE used Amway Center as a bio-secure bubble and they called it the WWE ThunderDome.^[4] They would host episodes of Raw, SmackDown and pay-per-views in the Thunderdome.

Amway Center Media

SunRaillogo
LYNXtransportationlogo
Lymmo Logo
Amway Center in its basketball-venue arrangement after hosting its first NBA regular season game
Amway Center main entrance at the opening game of 2010–11 regular season Orlando Magic
Magic owner Rich DeVos speaking to fans before the first Magic home game in the new arena. (Notice the parquet flooring; only the Boston Celtics currently utilize the same kind of flooring.)
Amway Center's first NBA regular season game tip-off with the Magic hosting the Wizards
Amway Center during the April 4, 2017 broadcast of WWE 205 Live.