Rogers Centre

About

Rogers Centre (originally SkyDome) is a retractable roof stadium in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated at the base of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball (MLB). As well as being improved over the decades, during the MLB offseasons of 2022–24, the stadium was renovated by upgrading the sports facilities and hospitality whilst reducing the capacity for baseball games. While it is primarily a sports venue, the stadium also hosts other large events such as conventions, trade fairs, concerts, travelling carnivals, circuses and monster truck shows. Previously, the stadium was also home to the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) played an annual game at the stadium as part of the Bills Toronto Series from 2008 to 2013. The stadium served as the site of both the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 Pan American Games (renamed the Pan-Am Dome or Pan-Am Ceremonies Venue due to sponsorship regulations). The stadium...

The idea of building a domed stadium can be traced back to the bid that Toronto lost to Montreal as the Canadian candidate city for the 1976 Summer Olympics. In the proposal, an 80,000–100,000 seat complex would be part of the planned Harbour City development on the site of Maple Leaf Stadium.

The contemporary impetus for building an enclosed sports venue in Toronto came following the Grey Cup game in November 1982, held at the outdoor Exhibition Stadium. The game, in which the hometown Toronto Argonauts (also known as the Argos) were making their first Grey Cup appearance since 1971, was played in a driving rainstorm that left most of the crowd drenched, leading the media to call it "the Rain Bowl". As many of the seats were completely exposed to the elements, thousands watched the game from the concession section. To make a bad experience even worse, the washrooms overflowed. In attendance that day was Bill Davis, the Premier of Ontario, and the poor conditions were seen by the largest television audience in Canada (over 7.862 million viewers) to that point. The following day, at a rally for the Argos at Toronto City Hall, tens of thousands of people who attended the game began to chant, "We want a dome ! We want a dome!"

Seven months later, in June 1983, Davis formally announced a three-person committee would look into the feasibility of building a domed stadium at Exhibition Place. The committee consisted of Paul Godfrey, Larry Grossman and former Ontario Hydro chairman Hugh Macaulay.

The committee examined various projects, including a large indoor stadium at Exhibition Place with an air-supported dome, similar to BC Place in Vancouver. In 1985, an international design competition was launched to design a new stadium, along with selection of a site. Some of the proposed sites included Exhibition Place, Downsview Airport, and York University. The final site was at the base of the CN Tower not far from Union Station, a major railway and transit hub. The Railway Lands were a major Canadian National Railway rail switching yard encompassing the CNR Spadina Roundhouse (the desolate downtown lands were part of a master plan for revitalizing the area, which includes CityPlace ). Ultimately, the Robbie/Allen concept won because it provided the largest roof opening of all the finalists, and it was the most technically sound.

The stadium was designed by architect Rod Robbie and structural engineer Michael Allen and was constructed by the EllisDon Construction company of London, Ontario and the Dominion Bridge Company of Lachine, Quebec. The stadium's construction lasted about 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 years, from October 1986 to May 1989. The approximate cost of construction was C$ 570 million ($1.25 billion in 2025 dollars) which was paid for by the federal government, Ontario provincial government, the City of Toronto, and a large consortium of corporations.

The stadium was funded by a public–private partnership, with the government paying the largest percentage of the cost. The initial cost of $150 million was greatly underestimated, as the final cost was C$ 570 million ($1.25 billion in 2025 dollars). Two levels of government ( Metro Toronto and provincial) each initially contributed $30 million ($65.9 million in 2025 dollars). This does not include the value of the land that the stadium sits on, which was owned by the Canada Lands Company (a Crown corporation of Canada ) and the City of Toronto and was leased for $900,000 a year through 2088. Canada's three main breweries ( Labatt's, Molson, and Carling O'Keefe ) and the Toronto Blue Jays each paid $5 million ($11 million in 2025 dollars) to help fund the stadium. An additional 26 other Canadian corporations (selected by invitation only) also contributed $5 million, for which they received one of the 161 Skyboxes with four parking spaces (for ten years, with an opportunity for renewal) and a 99-year exclusive option on stadium advertising. The initial cost of leasing a Skybox ranged from $150,000 to $225,000 ($329,278 to $493,917 in 2025 dollars) a year in 1989 – plus the cost of tickets for all events.

The then unusual financing structure created controversy. First of all, there was no public tender for supplies and equipment. Secondly, companies that paid the $5 million fee, such as Coca-Cola, TSN and CIBC, received 100 percent stadium exclusivity, including advertising rights, for the life of their contract that could be extended up to 99 years. Third, the contracts were not put up for bid, meaning there was some doubt the contracts were made at a market rate: Pepsi stated at the time that had it known the terms of the contract it would have paid far more than $5 million for the rights. Local media like NOW Magazine called the amount charged to the companies "scandalously low".

Construction of the Ontario Stadium Project was spearheaded by lead contractor EllisDon. Several factors complicated the construction: The lands housed a functioning water pumping station that needed to be relocated, the soil was contaminated from a century of industrial use, railway buildings needed to be torn down or moved, and the site was rich with archaeological finds. One of the most complex issues was moving the John Street pumping station across the street to the south of the stadium. Foundations to the stadium were being poured even as the facility (in the infield area) continued to function, as construction on its new location had yet to be completed.

Because the stadium was the first of its kind in the world, the architects and engineers kept the design simple (by using a sturdy dome shape) and used proven technologies to move the roof. It was important the design would work and be reliable as to avoid the various problems that plagued Montreal's Olympic Stadium. The 31-storey-high roof consists of four panels: one (on the north end) is fixed in place and the other three are moved by electrically driven 'train' engines, that run on high-strength railway rails. The roof, which takes 20 minutes to open, was made out of steel trusses covered by corrugated steel cladding, which in turn is covered by a single-ply PVC membrane.

Because of its location south of the major railway corridor, new pedestrian connections had to be built; the infrastructure was part of the reason for the high cost of the stadium. The SkyWalk is an approximately 500-metre (1,600 ft) enclosed walkway that leads from the base of the CN Tower and via a bridge connects to Union Station (and is part of the Path network). The John Street cable-stayed bridge was built to provide north–south passage over the rail tracks, linking Front Street with the stadium.

Construction at the site, which at one time was south of the shoreline, unearthed over 1,500 artifacts. These included a 200-year-old French cannon used as ballast for a ship, cannonballs, pottery and a telescope. The stadium was completed two months late, having been planned to open for the first regular season game of the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays season ; the team played the first two months of its home schedule at Exhibition Stadium that year.

The official name prior to and during construction was the 'Ontario Stadium Project' but was widely referred to in local media as simply 'the Dome' or 'Toronto Domed stadium'. As completion neared, the name "SkyDome" was chosen as part of a province-wide "name the stadium" contest in 1987. Sponsored by the Toronto Sun, ballots were offered for people to submit their suggested name, with lifetime seats behind home plate to all events at the stadium (including concerts) as the prize. Over 150,000 entries were received with 12,897 different names. The selection committee narrowed it down to four choices: "Towerdome", "Harbourdome", "SkyDome", and simply "the Dome". The judges' final selection was SkyDome. Premier David Peterson drew the prize-winning entry of Kellie Watson from a lottery barrel containing the over-2,000 entries that proposed "SkyDome". At the press conference announcing the name, Chuck Magwood, president of the Stadium Corporation of Ontario (Stadco), the crown corporation created to run SkyDome, commented: "The sky is a huge part of the whole roof process. The name has a sense of the infinite and that's what this is all about." Kellie Watson received lifetime seating of choice at SkyDome, which is still honoured after the stadium was renamed to Rogers Centre, under new ownership.

The stadium was intended to be ready in time for Opening Day of the 1989 Toronto Blue Jays season. However, due to construction delays caused in part by widespread construction worker strikes across Ontario, this was postponed and the Blue Jays began their season at Exhibition Stadium. The stadium officially opened on June 3, 1989, and hosted an official grand opening show: "The Opening of SkyDome: A Celebration", broadcast on CBC Television the following evening hosted by Brian Williams. With a crowd of over 50,000 in attendance, the event included appearances by Alan Thicke, Oscar Peterson (no relation to David), Andrea Martin of SCTV, impressionist André-Philippe Gagnon and rock band Glass Tiger. The roof was ceremonially "opened" by Ontario Premier David Peterson with a laser pen. The roof's opening exposed the crowd to a downpour of rain. Despite audible chants of "close the roof", Magwood insisted the roof remain fully open.

The stadium became a thorn in the side of David Peterson's Ontario Liberal government for repeated cost overruns. After the Liberals were defeated by the NDP in the 1990 Ontario election, a review by the new Bob Rae government in October 1990 revealed Stadco's debt meant the Dome would have to be booked 600 days a year to turn a profit, almost twice as many days as there are days in a calendar year. The stadium income was only $17 million in its first year of operations, while debt service was $40 million. It was determined the abrupt late inclusion by Stadco of a hotel and health club added an additional $112 million to the cost of the building.

As the province slipped into a recession, Rae appointed University of Toronto professor Bruce Kidd and Canadian Auto Workers President Bob White to the Stadco board to help deal with the stadium's growing debt, but the original $165 million debt had increased to $400 million by 1993. Stadco became a political liability, and in March 1994, the Ontario government paid off all outstanding Stadco debts from the government treasury and sold the stadium for $151 million to a private consortium that included Labatt Breweries, the Blue Jays' owner.

In November 1998, the stadium, which Labatt then owned as 49 percent of total, filed for bankruptcy protection, triggered after disastrous Skybox renewal numbers. Most of the 161 Skybox tenants had signed on for 10-year leases; a marked decrease in interest in the stadium's teams and the construction of the Air Canada Centre, which hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, resulted in few renewals for Skybox leases. That same month, the Blue Jays re-signed for an additional ten years in the facility.

In April 1999, Sportsco International LP bought the stadium out of bankruptcy protection for $80 million.

In November 2004, Rogers Communications, parent company of the Blue Jays, acquired SkyDome, excluding the attached SkyDome hotel, which had been sold to Renaissance for a reported $31 million in 1999, from Sportsco for about $25 million – roughly four percent of the cost of construction.

On February 2, 2005, Ted Rogers, President and CEO of Rogers Communications, announced a three-year corporate contract to change the name of SkyDome to Rogers Centre. The name change remains controversial and is unpopular with many fans, most of whom continue to refer to it as SkyDome in opposition to increased commercialism from the purchase of naming rights. One example is a 25,000-name petition started by TTC bus driver Randy Rajmoolie. A baseball diamond in Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods Park is officially named SkyDome after the stadium's former and popular name.