Mizuho PayPay Dome Fukuoka

Fukuoka Dome is the home stadium of Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and, together with Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk Hotel, is part of the Hawks Town entertainment complex. After the sale of the stadium's primary tenant, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, from supermarket chain Daiei to multinational technology investment company SoftBank on January 28, 2005, Yahoo! Japan, one of SoftBank's subsidiaries, acquired the stadium's naming rights, and thus renamed it or abbreviated as . At the same time, SoftBank agreed to lease the rights to the Fukuoka Dome for 4.8 billion yen per year for 20 years. In 2006, the stadium received an upgrade to its mono-color main scoreboard "Hawks Vision." Sharing the same nickname as its predecessor and measured at 10 m (32.76 ft) high and 53 m (173.86 ft) wide, it was one of the largest high-definition electronic scoreboards at the time, equivalent to a 2,123-inch wide-screen display. In 2010, with further addition of two 5.7 m (120.65 ft) × 33 m (108.27 ft) displays, the stadium boasted the largest total viewing area of HD display in all baseball stadia (total area 905.2sqm or 9,743.49sqft). On April 12, 2007, the Fukuoka Dome and Hawks Town complex was sold to an affiliate of the GIC. In 2009, the older, short-pile AstroTurf field was replaced with the more modern grass-like FieldTurf brand surface to reduce injuries; the Hawks players had seen far more injuries than any other team in Japan prior to the field being replaced. On March 24, 2012, SoftBank purchased the stadium from the GIC affiliate for 87 billion yen. The stadium became fully owned by the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks Marketing Corporation on July 1, 2015. In January 2013, it was renamed to . Yafuoku is the abbreviation for Yahoo! Auctions in Japan. On October 30, 2019, it was announced that the stadium was going to be renamed again to , in reference to the payment system PayPay owned by SoftBank (50%) and Yahoo Japan (25%), on February 29, 2020. On April 25, 2024, it was announced that the stadium would be getting additional sponsorship rights from Mizuho Financial Group, creating Mizuho PayPay Dome Fukuoka as a symbol of unity between Mizuho and SoftBank Group, which have close ties to each other. The Fukuoka Dome has hosted one game in each Major League Baseball Japan All-Star Series since its creation, including the final game of the 2006 series, where Japan was swept for the first time in the history of the event. In the TV series Extreme Engineering, Danny Forster makes a reference to the Fukuoka Dome, saying it was said to have a "floating" field. (An indoor baseball stadium in Japan which actually has a floating field is Sapporo Dome, which also hosts football games for Consadole Sapporo, a J. League club. However, this stadium does not have such a field.) The roof of the Fukuoka Dome was designed to be opened similar to that of the now demolished Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, where the roof would open from the side. This design causes the roof to be rarely opened, due to costs of electricity to the mechanics to open the roof. The Building itself is recognized for its 12,000 ton steel retractable roof with a 3 millimeter titanium plating. ==Notable events==