📍 Syracuse, New York
🏈 Home of Syracuse Orange football

For over forty years, the Carrier Dome has been the iconic home of Syracuse Orange athletics; now, following a new sponsorship by JMA Wireless, the Dome has undergone loads of renovations to keep it a state-of-the-art facility for Syracuse football, basketball and lacrosse. Seating close to 43,000 since its debut in 1980, this impressive venue has remained the largest domed stadium both in the Northeast and on any college campus.

Although the Carrier Dome – rebranded as the JMA Wireless Dome in 2022 – primarily hosts football, the school’s basketball squads and lacrosse teams also compete under the same roof. For men’s basketball, only half of the playing surface is used but close to 35,000 seats remain open, making the Dome the largest on-campus basketball venue in college hoops and helping Syracuse to set countless attendance records.

In addition to Orange athletics, the Dome has also hosted hockey, with more than 30,000 fans turning out to see the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch and Utica Comets play in the Frozen Dome Classic in 2014.

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The Dome’s eye-catching Teflon roof was previously air-supported – fitting for a facility backed by an HVAC company – but is now fixed thanks to a lattice-like structure installed on the venue’s exterior in 2020. The center portion of the roof is partially diaphanous in order to brighten up the building’s interior without truly letting in any distracting natural light.

Other upgrades in the early 2020s included a new center-hung videoboard – covered both inside and out with screens that even fans at field level can see – and the installation of blue chairbacks all throughout the seating bowl, replacing the harsh metal bleachers that once blanketed the venue. Murals dotting the stadium’s concourse also highlight the history of Syracuse University and all of its athletic programs, while the narrow passageways and stairwells that add to the Dome’s uniqueness were left untouched.

The Dome’s best feature, however, is its loudness. The venue’s tight footprint, large capacity and crazy fans make it one of the toughest places to play in the ACC. While the Dome is colloquially known as “The Loud House” thanks to its reverberative roof, it has also been called “The Longhouse”, a nod to the local Haudenosaunee people whose name literally translates to people of the longhouse. The flag of the Iroquois Confederacy, a collective of Native Americans and First Nations people who historically inhabited the Great Lakes region, hangs alongside the American flag in the rafters of the JMA Dome.

The Syracuse football program actually dates all the way back to the fall of 1889. From 1907 to 1980, the Orange played at Archbold Stadium, an all-concrete venue that was considered a marvel when it was built but eventually fell into disrepair. During that time, however, Syracuse won their only playoff title to date, being named the de facto National Champions in 1959 after going undefeated. Following their move to the Dome, the Orange would win five conference titles in the Big East but have yet to appear in a College Football Playoff in the modern era. Regardless, the team has competed in nearly 30 postseason bowl games and has enjoyed moderate success since joining the ACC in 2013.