The Hollywood Sportatorium was an indoor arena in Pembroke Pines, Florida (originally Hollywood), located at 17171 Pines Boulevard (originally 16661 West Hollywood Boulevard). The Sportatorium was from downtown Miami and from downtown Fort Lauderdale. During its 18 years of operation, it was the only venue of its kind in heavily populated South Florida.
History
The Sportatorium was built beginning in September 1968 by Stephen Calder and Norman Johnson. Calder would also build the Calder Race Course shortly thereafter. It stood adjacent to the Miami-Hollywood Motorsports Park, which Calder and Johnson had constructed four years earlier. Among the plans for the Sportatorium were sports events, ice follies programs, auto and boat shows, and eventually a "Gold Coast State Fair". The Sportatorium was constructed as a hangar-like facility constructed out of concrete, a steel roof, an asphalt floor, and no air conditioning. Originally designed to seat 18,000 for stage events and 15,000 for arena events, it opened in December 1969 with only 6,000 seats.
"The idea was to have a facility which could have entertainment and events out of weather," said Bruce Johnson, Norman Johnson's son, who managed the arena until 1980. At first, it hosted indoor rodeos, indoor motocross events, wrestling, boxing, and some concerts. At the time, what is now the six- to eight-lane Pines Boulevard was a two-lane road in a thinly populated area of unincorporated Broward County.
The first event held in the Sportatorium was the Miami Rock Festival on December 27–29, 1969. While the seating capacity did eventually increase, by 1974, the Sportatorium still lacked permanent seating, air conditioning, an enclosed roof, and good traffic access. The land on which the arena stood was annexed to Pembroke Pines in 1980.
Home of the phantom sports franchise
The Sportatorium was often floated as the home of a professional basketball or hockey franchise. As originally built, however, it did not have permanent seating or air conditioning. Additionally, the arena was only accessible from the then two-lane Hollywood Boulevard, resulting in massive traffic jams whenever events there attracted decent-sized crowds. Consequently, for a time there was little serious interest in the Sportatorium for a sports franchise. Even so, as early as 1969, there were inquiries to the Eastern Hockey League and the National Hockey League about the possibility of landing a hockey franchise.
In 1972, the World Hockey Association awarded a franchise to South Florida called the Miami Screaming Eagles. Herb Martin, the owner, had been rebuffed in his efforts to build his own arena in Miami and considered playing at the Sportatorium instead. However, he ultimately concluded that the arena was unsuitable even as a temporary facility and sold the franchise before playing a single game.
Two years later, Calder twice put off an announcement that he would acquire an expansion franchise from the WHA. Miami builder Robert Blum also hoped to get a WHA franchise, but wanted the team to play at the Miami Beach Convention Center (which had fewer than 3,000 seats). Concerning Calder's Sportatorium, Blum said: "I don't even know why they built it. It is a Tinker Toy arena. It's dumb, it's not even good for rock concerts. If they could get good crowds, they couldn't handle them, so even if they succeeded it would be self-defeating."
Calder renovated the arena in 1975 in large part to help bring a professional basketball or hockey team to the arena. Four million dollars were spent renovating the arena and installing air conditioning, new and expanded seating upstairs, and pipes under the floor to make ice. After the renovation, the arena had a seating capacity of 15,532 seats. However, while four different teams were set to move into the Sportatorium in the first year following the renovations, none of them actually did: