the Supreme Court of Florida ruled that the lease was constitutional because the stadium provided a "public benefit", and construction continued as planned. In 1998, a 13-year deal was agreed with Raymond James Financial, headquartered in St. Petersburg, for naming rights to the stadium. The deal was extended for 10 years in 2006 and again in 2016, and the deal is currently set to expire in 2031. Opening, further developments The stadium officially opened on September 20, 1998, when the Buccaneers defeated the Bears, 27–15. The stadium hosted its first Major League Soccer match on March 20, 1999, when the Tampa Bay Mutiny lost to D.C. United 5–2. The Mutiny folded after the 2001 season after facing declining revenue due to declining attendance and the Bucs' lease at Raymond James Stadium which saw the Mutiny receiving no money from parking or concessions. They played their last home match on September 9, 2001—a 2–1 loss to the Columbus Crew. In April 2003, the Tampa Sports Authority proposed passing ownership of the stadium to Hillsborough County to avoid having to pay millions of dollars in property taxes (the Bucs' lease agreement dictated that they not have to pay property taxes). However, Bucs had a right of refusal and refused to sign off on the plan unless the local government paid more of the cost for gameday security and increased the amount of (county-purchased) insurance coverage for the stadium. The dispute continued for months until December 2003, when the county legally declared the stadium a condominium and took ownership. As part of the change, the Bucs were given ownership of portions of the structure. To win the Bucs' approval, the county agreed to refund the team's resultant property tax payments annually. After a nearly two-year legal battle, the Tampa Sports Authority came to a settlement with popular sports-seating and telescopic platform/bleacher company Hussey Seating of North Berwick, Maine. Following the stadium's opening in 1998, roughly 50,000 Hussey-manufactured seats at Raymond James Stadium began to fade from their original color – a bright, vibrant shade of red – to a shade of washed-out pink. Spotting this obvious defect, the Buccaneers organization pleaded to the TSA to sue the seating manufacturing company for the cost to replace the affected chairs in 2003. Initially, in May 2004, after testing samples of the seats, Hussey Seating did not find any cause for the fading, and thus, found