Tampa Stadium (The Big Sombrero) — Tampa, Florida

Tampa Stadium was the open-air football stadium on North Dale Mabry Highway that served as the city's main outdoor sports and concert venue from 1967 until 1998. Clio describes it as also known as Houlihan's Stadium and The Big Sombrero, and records that from 1976 to 1997 all Tampa Bay Buccaneers home football games were played there. The address it gives, 4201 North Dale Mabry Highway, is the address of Raymond James Stadium today.

The stadium's life ran in three phases: a college stadium built for the University of Tampa in 1967, an NFL stadium after the 1974 expansion for the Buccaneers, and a short final stretch under the Houlihan's name before it was demolished in 1999. In between it hosted two Super Bowls, a USFL championship, professional soccer and some of the largest rock concerts held in Tampa in the 1970s.

Construction began on October 18, 1966 and was completed in just over a year, according to Clio, and the first game at the Tampa stadium was the University of Tennessee against the University of Tampa on November 4, 1967. Accounts of the original size differ: the USFL history site says it was built in 1967 as a 45,000 seat facility for the University of Tampa, Clio gives 40,000, and St. Pete Catalyst gives 46,000, with open north and south end zones that could take temporary bleachers. St. Pete Catalyst adds that the Tampa Sports Authority had been created for the purpose and hoped the stadium would draw NFL exhibition games and eventually a franchise.

The franchise came in 1974. The USFL site states that a major expansion in 1974 increased seating capacity by 27,000 after the NFL awarded an expansion team to Tampa, making it one of the largest stadiums in the league when the Buccaneers debuted in 1976. St. Pete Catalyst puts the price at $13 million, which closed the end zones, raised capacity to 72,000 and added luxury suites.

The new end zone seating gave the Tampa stadium its shape and its nickname. St. Pete Catalyst says the unusual hybrid high-top appearance produced the name The Big Sombrero, and TIME wrote in 2012 that the stadium was nicknamed for its resemblance to the Mexican hat. The USFL site credits ESPN personality Chris Berman with coining the name.

The Buccaneers were the main tenant from their first season in 1976 through 1997. Clio lists the other occupants of the Tampa stadium as the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Tampa Bay Mutiny in professional soccer, the Tampa Bay Bandits of the United States Football League, the University of Tampa and the University of South Florida. The University of Tampa Spartans opened the building in 1967, and the University of South Florida also used it as a home field.

The year 1984 was the stadium's busiest for championships. The USFL site notes that in 1984 Tampa Stadium had the distinction of hosting two different professional football championship games, Super Bowl XVIII in January followed by the 1984 USFL Championship Game in July. The Bandits, who arrived in 1983 when the stadium was considered state of the art, left the scene after the 1985 season. The NFL returned with Super Bowl XXV in January 1991, which WPTV describes as the final Super Bowl played at Tampa Stadium.

The stadium booked the touring acts considered too popular for Curtis Hixon Hall, the downtown Tampa hall, and for other indoor venues in the region. St. Pete Catalyst, which compiled a list from ticket stubs, newspaper archives and concert databases because neither the city nor the Tampa Sports Authority kept concert files, dates the first big-name concert to James Brown on June 15, 1969, before about 8,000 people. The same year Vice President Spiro Agnew spoke in the stadium, and in 1979 Billy Graham held a week-long crusade there.

The best-known show came on May 5, 1973. St. Pete Catalyst reports that Led Zeppelin, touring behind Houses of the Holy, attracted 57,000, breaking the Beatles' record for attendance at a single concert, three years after the band had played to 7,000 at Curtis Hixon Hall. The Tampa Bay Times marked the anniversary in May 2023, describing a sold-out crowd at Tampa Stadium on May 5, 1973. Later bookings at the Tampa venue included Pink Floyd in 1973, 1977, 1987 and 1994, the Rolling Stones in 1989 and 1994, Paul McCartney in 1990 and a U2 show on November 10, 1997 under the Houlihan's Stadium name.

Tampa Stadium was replaced because the Buccaneers' owner wanted a new stadium and Hillsborough County voters agreed to pay for one. St. Pete Catalyst reports that Malcolm Glazer bought the team in 1995 for $192 million and renamed the venue Houlihan's Stadium. On the day of the 1996 vote, the Las Vegas Sun, carrying wire reports, wrote that Hillsborough County voters were deciding a half-cent sales tax that would build the $168 million stadium Glazer said he needed to keep the team in town, with a move to Osceola County or Cleveland discussed if it failed, and that passage would lock the Buccaneers into a 30-year lease.

The measure passed. Hillsborough County states that the 1996 CIT ballot referendum passed with 53% of the vote, and that its ballot language listed a community stadium among jails, fire stations, schools, libraries and parks. The county adds that the CIT also made possible the construction of Raymond James Stadium, a facility owned by Hillsborough County. The new stadium opened beside the old one in 1998, and the USFL site reports that in 1999 the Big Sombrero was brought down and converted into a parking lot for the new stadium.

The footprint of the Big Sombrero is now part of the parking for Raymond James Stadium, which TIME and the USFL site both describe as the use the land was given after demolition. St. Pete Catalyst states that Raymond James Stadium was built slightly south of the old stadium on the site of the former Al Lopez Field, so the 1998 stadium and the 1967 stadium briefly stood side by side along North Dale Mabry Highway.

The financing that replaced Tampa Stadium is still being paid. Hillsborough County reports that the Tampa Sports Authority, which manages the stadium for the county, receives about $9 million annually for stadium debt service from the Community Investment Tax, a tax that has provided about $2.77 billion for 784 capital projects across Hillsborough County since 1996. County voters renewed the tax on November 5, 2024 for the period from December 2026 through 2041.