Izod Center Stadium in New Jersey to Close
The Izod Center in New Jersey’s Meadowlands Sports Complex, once the home to the New Jersey Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets), the New Jersey Devils and Seton Hall University’s basketball team (both now playing at Newark’s Prudential Center), will close down by the end of the month, according to media reports. The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority’s decision to close the 34-year-old arena was sudden; the Authority said the arena had racked up $8.5 million in losses and was heavily subsidized by the State.
The arena opened in 1981, built for the New Jersey Nets as Brendan Byrne Arena. It was renamed Continental Airlines Arena in 1996 and became known as the Izod Center in 2007 when PVH won a bid to rename it, beating two other apparel brands, Rocawear and Southpole. The Prudential Center took a lot of its business after it opened that same year and the arena was no longer hosting major sporting events.