The arena was built in the mid-1990s solely with private financing by Abe Pollin, and is situated on top of land leased from the District of Columbia. It opened on December 2, 1997, as the MCI Center. Nearly a decade later, in January 2006, Verizon Communications purchased MCI and the arena's name was changed accordingly to Verizon Center. The following year, in 2007, the "first true indoor high-definition LED scoreboard" was installed in the arena. On June 10, 2010, following Pollin's death in November 2009, the Pollin family sold the arena, along with the Washington Wizards and the Washington-Baltimore area Ticketmaster franchise, to Ted Leonsis, who already owned the arena's other tenant, the Washington Capitals. Leonsis subsequently formed a new management company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment. In the professional fighting world the arena was home to Mike Tyson's final fight on June 11, 2005 and on October 1, 2011, was held at the arena. The arena has hosted NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament rounds several times, with first and second round events in 1998, 2002, 2008 and 2011 and hosted the regional finals in 2006, 2013 and 2019. Most notably the 2005–06 George Mason Patriots men's basketball team advanced to the Final Four in the arena. The arena hosted the 2009 "Frozen Four," the final round of the 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Tournament. The arena has hosted two all star games: the 2001 NBA All-Star Game and the 2007 WNBA All-Star Game. A report emerged in May 2015 that Verizon would not renew its naming rights to the Verizon Center when its agreement with Monumental was to end in 2018. In the same week, it was announced that Etihad Airways signed a deal to become the official airline of the arena, sparking speculation that Etihad might be the leading contender to assume naming rights in 2017. However, on August 9, 2017, it was announced the bank Capital One had purchased the rights, renaming the venue Capital One Arena. The arena hosted the 2016 Kellogg's Tour of Gymnastics Champions. In 2017, the Washington Valor began play at the arena for their inaugural season in the Arena Football League. The Mystics moved after the 2018 WNBA season to a new, smaller arena in the Congress Heights area of southeast Washington. The venue also hosted both the 1998 Stanley Cup Finals and the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals, the latter of which saw the Capitals win the first Stanley Cup championship in team history, and the first major sports championship to Washington, D.C. since the 1992 Washington Redskins. On October 2, 2019, the Capital One Arena hosted AEW Dynamite, the first televised professional wrestling event by All Elite Wrestling. It was broadcast on TNT in the United States of America and on ITV4 in the United Kingdom. On October 4, 2019, Monumental Sports & Entertainment owner of the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards and Washington Mystics professional sports teams and BritishbookmakerWilliam Hill announced plans to offer sports betting at the Capital One Arena pending approval of sports betting by the District of Columbia Mayor and City Council.
Criticism
Gentrification
When the arena opened, there was concern that it would lead to the displacement of Chinese businesses and culture in the area that is the city's Chinatown. The surrounding area has indeed been dramatically gentrified, and most of the Chinese residents and businesses who lived and operated in the neighborhood when the arena first opened have been displaced because of the spike in real estate prices. Recent estimates hold that the number of Chinese in the neighborhood is down to around 400 to 500. The Chinese-owned restaurants and businesses in the Chinatown area are largely gone and there has not been a full-service Chinese grocery in the neighborhood since 2005.
Ice quality issues
In December 2007, then-Capitals captain Chris Clark gained a bit of press by stating that he believed the arena had the worst ice in the NHL. "There's a lot of ruts in the ice. It's soft. It's wet half the time. I could see a lot of injuries coming from the ice there. It could cost their jobs... Even guys on other teams say the same thing. When we're facing off, they say, 'How do you guys play on this?'" Capitals owner Ted Leonsis addressed this criticism directly. The ice quality issue has been persistent both since the opening of the facility and with the Capitals franchise in general. Since Leonsis' acquisition of the facility, the quality of the ice has gotten better and number of complaints has noticeably decreased. During playoff games, the arena installs a system to help remove hot air and humidity to maintain the ice conditions during warmer times of the year.
