WWE announced Wednesday that Philadelphia will serve as host WrestleMania 40 on Saturday, April 6 and Sunday, April 7, 2024. The two-day event making a major anniversary for WWE will be held at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL‘s Philadelphia Eagles.
WrestleMania 40 will be the first time WWE has held their flagship event in Philadelphia since 1999, when WrestleMania XV took place at Wells Fargo Center, then named First Union Center. In the years since, WWE has moved away from arenas and into stadiums for their biggest events. So, while WrestleMania XV had a claimed attendance of 19,514, WrestleMania 40 will likely be over 80,000.
“On behalf of WWE, we are thrilled to bring WrestleMania back to the City of Brotherly Love,” WWE executive vice president of special events John Saboor said in the official press release. “We thank all of our local partners who were integral in making this long-awaited return a reality.”
WrestleMania became a two-night event beginning in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While that year saw the event held in the WWE Performance Center in Orlando with no fans in attendance, WWE stuck to the two-night approach with partial crowds in 2021 before the 2022 edition saw full-capacity at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
The first WrestleMania was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1985. The event, which featured several celebrities and was headlined by Hulk Hogan and Mr. T facing Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff, forever changed the wrestling landscape.
WrestleMania 39 will take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California on April 1 and 2, 2023.
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