For Sunday’s Dolphins game, Rockstar wrapped Hard Rock Stadium in GTA 6 art and put an In for VI graphic on the jumbotron every time Miami scored. Days later, VI-branded umbrellas were photographed staged on South Beach while the official Miami Beach contract reportedly remains unsigned, a takeover running slightly ahead of its own paperwork.
- During Dolphins vs Bengals on October 11, the Hard Rock Stadium walkway was wrapped in GTA 6 cover art, with an I Heart Vice City banner and a Welcome to Vice City board inside.
- Every Miami touchdown flashed In for VI on the jumbotron, the six drawn as the GTA 6 logo with November 19, 2026 alongside.
- The Dolphins already exist in Leonida as the Vice City Manatees, whose jerseys show up on NPCs in the Extended Look and on Draco Quan in trailer 2.
- VI-branded beach umbrellas were photographed staged on South Beach on October 14, with a worker saying they go up this weekend, even though the city’s agreement is reportedly still unsigned.
- Miami-Dade commissioners vote October 20 on the bigger county deal, and the murals in Wynwood, Brooklyn and Paris are all finishing at once.
An NFL Broadcast With Vice City All Over It
The Miami Dolphins hosted the Cincinnati Bengals at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday, October 11, and anyone walking in got a preview of Leonida before kickoff. The main walkway was wrapped end to end in GTA 6 art: the helicopter from the cover, Jason and Lucia, the yellow supercar, the boat with the flamingo, all running up to the Welcome to Hard Rock Stadium sign. A giant I Heart Vice City banner hung in the pink-to-purple sunset gradient with November 19, 2026 printed underneath, and the video board carried a Welcome to Vice City panel in the classic lettering, as shown in CBS Miami’s coverage.
The best piece ran during play. Every time the Dolphins scored, the jumbotron flashed In for VI, with the six drawn as the GTA 6 logo between purple palm trees and the release date on the panel beside it. Miami lost the game 24-31, but a live NFL broadcast spent an afternoon cutting to Grand Theft Auto branding on a first-down board, which is not a sentence anyone could have written about any previous game in the series.
The Team That Already Lives in Leonida
The venue choice is not random, because the Dolphins already have a double life inside the game. Vice City’s football team is the Vice City Manatees, and their jerseys are scattered through the official footage: NPCs wear them across the Extended Look, Lucia sprints out of a robbery in one, and Draco Quan has one on in trailer 2 while looking at a phone with Jason. Rockstar wrapping the Manatees’ real-world counterpart’s stadium is the marketing equivalent of an in-joke four years in the making, and the kind of crossover only this campaign gets to make.
Umbrellas on the Sand, a Contract Still Unsigned
The next wave is already physically on the beach. On October 14, reporter Joel Franco posted photos and video of GTA 6 beach umbrellas, marked with the VI logo and palm art, staged in secure boxes on the South Beach sand, with custom Vice City chairs arriving alongside and a worker saying the umbrellas go up this weekend. Branded planes have joined in too, one towing the banner from trailer 1 and another flying Welcome to Vice City over the shoreline.
The paperwork is running behind the hardware. The Miami Beach agreement with Rockstar’s agency, Amplify Marketing, was slated to start October 15 but reportedly remains unsigned, with Franco relaying a city official’s doubt that the date would hold. The downtown Miami banner authorisation did take effect on October 15 as planned, and the Welcome to Vice City sign behind the Kaseya Center beat its own contractual deadline by three weeks. So the takeover is simultaneously ahead of schedule and behind on signatures, which feels appropriately Miami.
A Zeppelin, a Rivalry Game and an October 20 Vote
The convergence this week is striking. The Vice City zeppelin has arrived in South Florida after its flight from Ohio. Hard Rock Stadium hosts its next showcase on Saturday night, when the third-ranked, unbeaten Hurricanes meet Florida State in a prime-time rivalry game, a bigger national audience than the Dolphins drew. And on October 20, Miami-Dade commissioners vote on whether to keep negotiating the much larger county deal covering the airport, PortMiami and the Metrorail, the one piece of the campaign where officials are still pushing back. Meanwhile the murals are finishing in sync: Wynwood’s is nearly painted, Brooklyn’s is done, and Paris is days away.
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