WWE “SummerSlam” 2015 Will No Longer Be Held at the IZOD Center

WWE “SummerSlam” 2015 will no longer be held at the IZOD Center. According to John Brennan of NorthJersey.com, the 34-year old IZOD Center is being shut down, and none of the events scheduled to take place past January will occur within the arena’s walls.

WWE had been advertising that “SummerSlam” would be coming “home” to the New York/New Jersey area, and the plans were to hold the annual August PPV at the IZOD Center. While nothing has been announced as of Jan. 14 as to where the event will be moved to, Brennan provides the following quote on the matter.

“An administration official said all events scheduled past March 31 would not take place at Izod Center – including the popular WWE Summer Slam wrestling event slated for Aug. 23. The affected promoters are scheduled to be contacted almost immediately.”

WrestlingRumors.net will keep you posted as to where “SummerSlam” will be heading now that it seems like the IZOD Center may be saying “goodbye” come Feb. 1.

You can read the majority of the report regarding the IZOD Center’s closing below.

“The Izod Center, the indoor arena that has been a key component of the Meadowlands Sports Complex for 34 years, could be shut down as soon as the end of this month, according to the Christie administration.

The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority board, which holds its monthly meeting on Thursday, will be asked to approve a plan that would have Prudential Center in Newark potentially take on events now scheduled at the 18,000-seat arena for February and March.

The facility, since 2007 known as the Izod Center, lost its sports tenants – the Devils of the NHL, Seton Hall basketball, and the Nets NBA franchise – between 2007 and 2010. Only a handful of concerts have been held at the arena in the past two years, although three dozen schools held graduation ceremonies there last spring and the arena still attracts family-oriented holiday shows.

An administration official said all events scheduled past March 31 would not take place at Izod Center – including the popular WWE Summer Slam wrestling event slated for Aug. 23. The affected promoters are scheduled to be contacted almost immediately.

Wayne Hasenbalg, the president of the sports authority, said the decision, though difficult, was a matter of economics and the ongoing transformation of the Meadowlands Sports Complex.

“Just about everyone in New Jersey and the region has great memories of big-name concerts, basketball or hockey games or other family entertainment at the arena,” said Hasenbalg, who grew up in Oakland.

“Times have changed, however, and this should be viewed as a new opportunity for the entire Meadowlands entertainment complex, as interested parties – including the owners of American Dream Meadowlands – look at ways to rejuvenate and reintegrate the arena for optimal use, value and long-term success,” Hasenbalg added.

Among the factors at play in the decision, Hasenbalg said, were loss of revenues due to competition from other venues, the abandonment of the arena by anchor sports franchises and the “prospect of severe disruption as construction of the neighboring American Dream project picks up over the next 18 months.”

Hasenbalg said there are no immediate plans to demolish the building, and he did not rule out potential alternative uses for the facility in the future.

The eight-year-old Prudential Center, the Barclays Center in Brooklyn – which opened in 2012 – and Madison Square Garden, which has undergone a $1 billion refurbishment, all have been formidable competitors for concerts and family shows.

Some aging arenas face a wrecking ball once their sports tenants leave, and the Devils and Seton Hall basketball left the Meadowlands in 2007 while the Nets left the site in 2010.

But there have been exceptions. The 43-year-old Nassau Coliseum, which will lose the NHL’s Islanders to Barclays Center this fall, is scheduled to survive in a downsized form as part of a $229 million renovation of the facility.

And the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., was purchased in 2012 by Madison Square Garden for $23.5 million, with an acoustically-focused $50 million renovation to make the venue a competitor to the larger Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The Izod Center was projected to lose $8.5 million in 2015, an administration official said, following consultation with state Treasury officials on the building’s finances.

A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN notice, is expected to be filed this week to give sports authority employees a 60-day notice of possible loss of jobs. The sports authority’s full-time payroll has diminished by more than 70 percent since 2009, when the money-making – and publicly-owned – Giants Stadium was closed and replaced by MetLife Stadium, which is owned by the Giants and the Jets.

About 70 full-time administrative staff and 80 full-time tradesmen are currently on the payroll, and the agency will still need to maintain the building and provide fire and emergency services for the complex, a Christie official said. But a “considerable downsizing” of the agency is expected, the official added.

The decision comes on the heels of a vote by the state Legislature recently to pass a bill that would effectively merge the sports authority and the Meadowlands Commission.

Essex County elected officials such as county Executive Joseph DiVincenzo had called for the closure of Izod Center while the $385-million Prudential Center was being built in Newark almost a decade ago, although that public push has cooled in recent years. Prudential Center executives have been able to attract the bulk of the major concert performers in recent years, even landing the closing show in The Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary tour in 2012.

Still, sports authority officials said just over two years ago – as the Barclays Center was opening – that the arena still produced a net gain for the agency, in part because the lack of sports tenants meant that prospective acts would not be shut out of desired dates. They also said the Izod Center allowed acts to book more concerts in the market than the slots available at Prudential and other complexes.

John Scher, who promoted the Bruce Springsteen concerts that were the first events at Byrne Arena in 1981, said last month that he hoped to see Izod Center remain open because “there are more arena-sized shows than can play in one northern New Jersey arena.”

With the shuttering of the arena, the sports authority finds itself without much to do. The Giants and Jets built and operate $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium, real estate mogul Jeff Gural runs the Meadowlands Racetrack and its $100 million – also privately-funded – new grandstand, and Triple Five will operate American Dream Meadowlands upon its opening no sooner than fall 2016.

The Izod Center opened in 1981, five years after the debuts of the Meadowlands Racetrack and Giants Stadium. The New Jersey Nets immediately moved from their temporary Rutgers Athletic Center home to what was then known as Brendan T. Byrne Arena. The Devils, who relocated from Denver, followed the Nets to the Meadowlands a year later.”