City of Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Central Florida Sports Commission President John Saboor and World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon announced that WrestleMania 24, scheduled for Sunday, March 30, 2008, would be held at the Citrus Bowl Stadium.
For the past almost quarter century, WrestleMania has been considered the Super Bowl of professional wrestling, or as McMahon prefers to call it, “sports entertainment”. Dyer and Saboor estimated that the event would bring up to 60,000 visitors to the city for the pay-per-view card of matches that is broadcast around the world, as well as the Fan Axxess, media gatherings, conferences and Hall of Fame ceremony, all of which take place in the 5 days leading up to WrestleMania.
Officials also estimated that WrestleMania 24 would pump about $40 million into Orlando’s economy. WrestleMania events draw in people from all 50 states, as well as 23 foreign countries. Their website averages 16 million hits per month, so every time a visitor surfs over there, they’ll be seeing Orlando, Florida as the site of WrestleMania 24. There will be events over the next year leading up to WrestleMania 24 that will put Orlando in the spotlight on numerous occasions.
