The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA) is an independent authority established by the State of New Jersey in 1971 to oversee the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Originally consisting of Giants Stadium and the Meadowlands Racetrack in 1976, Brendan Byrne Arena (now named the IZOD Center) was added to the complex in 1981. Its first Chairman and CEO was David A. "Sonny" Werblin. Its present Chairman is Carl Goldberg and its CEO is Dennis Robinson.
Over the years, the NJSEA's purview expanded to include Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport and the Wildwoods Convention Center in Wildwood. In Atlantic City, the Authority oversaw the construction and development of the Convention Center and the renovation of the historic Boardwalk Hall, the long-time home of the Miss America Pageant.
In the 1990s the NJSEA built the New Jersey State Aquarium (now known as the Adventure Aquarium) in Camden. The NJSEA also contributed to the construction of the Meadowlands Environment Center in Lyndhurst, just across Berry's Creek from the Sports Complex.
The 16-member Board of Commissioners is appointed by the Governor to four-year terms, subject to confirmation by the New Jersey Senate and it includes three ex officio members: The Authority President, the State Treasurer and a designated representative of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. The Authority holds regularly scheduled meeting which are open to the public. The minutes of all Authority meetings are subject to approval by the Governor. Joe Plumeri, owner of the Trenton Thunder and CEO of Willis Group Holdings, was Commissioner of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority from 1997 to 2004.
The NJSEA facilities are home to the New York Giants and Jets, which also serves as major venues for concerts and family shows. Since 1976, NJSEA buildings have hosted many major events, including seven games of the 1994 World Cup, the 1996 Men's Final Four, NFL playoff games and Super Bowl championship celebrations, the 2002 and 2003 NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Finals of 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2003, the 1999 Women’s World Cup, many other international soccer matches - including Pele's farewell game, a 1995 Papal Mass by Pope John Paul II and countless major concerts.
The Meadowlands Racetrack, a leading standardbred racing and simulcasting facility, is home to harness racing’s prestigious Hambletonian Stakes and hosts a fall thoroughbred meet.
Historic Monmouth Park is the site of a summer thoroughbred meet highlighted by the Haskell Invitational won in dramatic fashion in 2009 by the filly, Rachel Alexandra.
The NJSEA also operates the Off Track Wagering (OTW) facility, Favorites at Woodbridge, and has received approval to open a second OTW in Bayonne.
The NJSEA also provides security and emergency medical services staff to MetLife Stadium, the replacement for Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands Sports Complex built privately by the Jets and Giants, as they have done in the past at Giants Stadium.
Famous quotes containing the words jersey, sports, exposition and/or authority:
“To motorists bound to or from the Jersey shore, Perth Amboy consists of five traffic lights that sometimes tie up week-end traffic for miles. While cars creep along or come to a prolonged halt, drivers lean out to discuss with each other this red menace to freedom of the road.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“Hard times accounted in large part for the fact that the exposition was a financial disappointment in its first year, but Sally Rand and her fan dancers accomplished what applied science had failed to do, and the exposition closed in 1934 with a net profit, which was donated to participating cultural institutions, excluding Sally Rand.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The great problem of American life [is] the riddle of authority: the difficulty of finding a way, within a liberal and individualistic social order, of living in harmonious and consecrated submission to something larger than oneself.... A yearning for self-transcendence and submission to authority [is] as deeply rooted as the lure of individual liberation.”
—Wilfred M. McClay, educator, author. The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, p. 4, University of North Carolina Press (1994)