The building once known as the Tampa Sportatorium in 2020

The Tampa Sportatorium was a professional wrestling studio used by Championship Wrestling from Florida.

Located at 106 N Albany Ave near downtown Tampa, Florida, the 7,500-square-foot stucco building was used for television tapings at 11am on Thursdays, which would air on the following Sundays.[1] Tampa native Hulk Hogan attended shows at the Sportatorium as a teenager and recalled that the studio could not fit more than 50 people in it and that it was not air conditioned despite Florida's often warm, subtropical, and humid climate.[2] To make the room seem bigger to the television audience, the walls were painted black.[3] Dory Funk Jr. praised the content to come out of the building, stating: "The Sportatorium was small, but the television it produced was so good."[3]

The upstairs of the building was used as an office by company executives Eddie and Mike Graham and Jim Barnett.[4] Championship Wrestling from Florida closed in 1987 and the Graham family sold the building a few years later.[1] A textile factory occupied the building for many years, until a foreclosure saw it go on auction in 2016. [3][5] In 2020, it was purchased by a Miami-based development group.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c "The Sportatorium, site of TV's wrestling from Tampa, will be leased for business". Tampa Bay Times.
  2. ^ Hogan, Hulk (2002). Hollywood Hulk Hogan. WWE Books.
  3. ^ a b c "The Sportatorium, an icon of Tampa wrestling, to be auctioned". Tampa Bay Times.
  4. ^ Backlund, Bob (2015). Backlund. Sports Publishing.
  5. ^ "TAMPA SPORTATORIUM, HOME OF CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING FROM FLORIDA, GOING ON SALE | PWInsider.com". www.pwinsider.com.
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