"Welcome to Vice City" now sits on the Miami Heat arena roof

On 22 September crews in Miami used a helicopter to lower giant pink-and-white letters onto the roof of the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat. The sign reads "Welcome to Vice City". A Miami-Dade County spokesperson told Local 10 it is part of the county's marketing deal tied to Grand Theft Auto VI.

The county owns the arena, so the deal went through County Hall. WLRN reported on 18 September that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava signed the agreement with Rockstar herself, using her power to approve contracts under $1 million without a commission vote. The Miami Herald puts the fee at about $975,000. The money is earmarked for the long-promised community land behind the arena, such as a park.

Not everyone on the commission likes it. Commissioner Bermudez objected that this is a game where police officers get killed. Commissioner Hardemon answered that it is a video game and will likely be a marketing phenomenon.

GTA BOOM measures the finished display at roughly 4,700 square feet, and CBS Miami notes it is readable from planes landing at Miami International. Rockstar has not commented, and the county has not said how long the sign stays up.

The game itself is unaffected: GTA 6 still launches on 19 November on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. What is new is that a real city now carries the fictional name on one of its landmarks, eight weeks before players get to Vice City.