American Airlines Center | |
---|---|
The Hangar, AAC | |
Location | 2500 Victory Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75201 |
Broke ground | September 1999 |
Opened | July 17, 2001 |
Owner | Center Operating Company, L.P.[1] |
Construction cost | $ 420 million |
Architect | David M. Schwarz/Architectural Services, Inc. |
Tenants | Dallas Stars (NHL) (2001-present) Dallas Mavericks (National Basketball Association) (2001-present) Dallas Desperados (Arena Football League) (2002, 2004-2008) |
Capacity | Ice hockey: 18,532 Basketball: 20,000–21,041 Concerts: 18,584 (standing room only) |
The American Airlines Center (sometimes referred to as the AAC (pronounced "A-A-C," "double A−C,"), is a multi-purpose arena located in the Victory Park neighborhood near downtown Dallas, Texas. It is home to the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League, the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association, and the Dallas Desperados of the Arena Football League. The arena is also used for concerts and other live entertainment.
History & Construction[]
By 1998, the Dallas Mavericks, then owned by H. Ross Perot, Jr., and the Dallas Stars were indicating their desire for a new facility to replace the dated Reunion Arena. Dallas taxpayers approved a new hotel tax and rental car tax to pay for a new facility to cover a portion of the funding, with the two benefiting teams, the Mavericks and the Stars, picking up the remaining costs, including cost overruns. The new arena was to be built just north of Woodall Rodgers Freeway near Interstate 35E on the site of an old power plant.
On March 18, 1999, American Airlines announced that it would be acquiring the naming rights for the arena for $195 million. American Airlines is headquartered in Fort Worth and is based at DFW Airport.
On July 27, 2001, the facility opened with the largest ribbon cutting ceremony ever, according to the Guinness Book of Records. The first event occurred the next day with an Eagles concert. On the next night, the arena hosted the last show of Michael Flatley's Feet of Flames tour. The first sporting event took place on August 19, 2001 with the Dallas Sidekicks of the World Indoor Soccer League taking on the San Diego Sockers.
External links[]
Preceded by Reunion Arena |
Home of the Dallas Stars 2001 – present |
Succeeded by current |
Preceded by Xcel Energy Center |
Host of the NHL All-Star Game 2007 |
Succeeded by Philips Arena |
Current arenas in the National Hockey League | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Eastern Conference |
| ||||||
Western Conference |
|
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at American Airlines Center. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA). |