Air Canada Centre

Toronto Raptors

About Stadium

A multi-purpose stadium located in downtown Toronto, Ontario which primarily serves as home to the National Basketball League’s Toronto Raptors and the national Hockey League’s Toronto Maple Leafs.

The group that owns both the NHL’s Maple Leafs and the NBA’s Raptors, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. also owns and operates the arena.

The Air Canada Centre was the 5th most busy sports arena in the world in 2008, and the busiest in all of Canada.

The stadium is 665,000 square feet, and by the stadium are 13,000 parking spaces for event parking. The stadium was the first to make some innovative renovations that many other stadiums around the league have since taken note of, like ground floor access to luxury suites, a sectioned scoreboard, and preferred sponsor signage all around the floor of the arena, as well as a number of restaurant options.

• Capacity: 19,800

• Opened: February 19, 1999

• Location: 40 Bay Street Toronto,

Ontario, Canada

History

• Ground was broken on the project in March of 1997, and started by the original ownership, which was a group headed by Canadian entrepreneur Jon Bitove. Before the complex was finished, it was bought by the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment group, as an alternative option to them building their own new stadium for the Tornoto Maple Leafs.

• The plans for construction originally amounted to $217 million, but was eventually increased to $265 million by the MLSE group after purchasing the project.

• Twice, the Toronto Raptors organization was fined because of their inability to start the construction of the new arena on time. Donations were made to their charity foundations after missing two such deadlines.

• In 2003, $5 million in renovations were made by MLSE to the Air Canada Centre. Among them were new LED video screen system.

• Again in 2015, more renovations were made to the facility, this time at a price tag of $10 million. These upgrades included a new scoreboard which was much larger (4x) than the previous one.

Past and Current Teams

Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL) (1999–present)
Toronto Raptors (NBA) (1999–present)
Toronto Rock (NLL) (2001–present)
Toronto Phantoms (AFL) (2001–2002)
Toronto Marlies (AHL) (2005–present) (occasional home games)
Raptors 905 (D-League) (2015–present) (occasional home games)