Miami Beach voted 4-3 for GTA 6 ads on beach umbrellas, and that is not the county airport deal

The Miami Beach City Commission voted 4-3 on September 10, 2026 to let its City Manager negotiate a GTA 6 advertising deal. What was approved is narrower than the headlines suggest: branding on a private contractor’s beach chairs and umbrellas, for about ten weeks, under an agreement that has not been signed yet.

The reason this is being reported as “Miami approves Vice City takeover” is that three different governments are each handling a different GTA 6 proposal at the same time, and most coverage has flattened them into one story. They are not one story. One passed, one is a separate ordinance with a separate sponsor, and the biggest one has been publicly opposed by the county’s own sheriff.

Three governments, three proposals

Body	What is on the table	Status as of September 15
City of Miami Beach	Vice City and “VI” branding on beachfront concession chairs and umbrellas	Passed 4-3 on September 10. Authorises negotiation, not a signed deal
City of Miami	Downtown temporary banners, Ordinance 19783	CBS Miami and the Herald report a commission vote to allow paid permits for oversized banners on private property. We have still not seen an “adopted” stamp on the city’s legislative file
Miami-Dade County	Airport, seaport, Metromover and parks wrapped as Vice City	Not approved. The sheriff, a commissioner, and now the county chiefs of police have called on it to stop

Miami Beach and Miami are different cities. Miami-Dade is the county that contains both. A vote in one does not bind the others, which is why “Miami approved it” is doing a lot of work in headlines this week.

What Miami Beach actually approved

The resolution authorises the City Manager to negotiate an agreement with Amplify Marketing Inc. It does not itself execute a contract. The advertising would run from October 15 through December 31, 2026, bracketing the November 19 release.

The placement is the part worth noting. Commissioner Laura Dominguez described it as discrete advertising on chairs and umbrellas operated by Boucher Brothers, the private concession company that runs the beachfront furniture, rather than on city property such as lifeguard stands or the public landmarks people photograph. That is a materially smaller thing than a city rebranding itself.

The vote split on whether the city’s name should be attached to the game at all. Commissioner David Suarez, against:

I certainly don’t want to see our brand associated with this video game, I don’t think it’s worth any amount of money.

Commissioner Monica Matteo-Salinas, for:

I understand and respect the concerns, okay, but I am a law abiding citizen, I don’t waterboard, I don’t even own a gun, I never have, but I do like playing this game.

Commissioner Tanya Katzoff Bhatt called the payment critical to the budget. Mayor Steven Meiner’s objection was procedural rather than moral: he noted that agreements and requests for proposal are normally put in front of the commission before sign-off, and this one was not.

Nobody has published the price

Reported figures run from about $3 million to “the city wants more than $4 million”, and they are not in the resolution. Until the negotiated agreement is executed and published, the number is not a fact, it is a range that different outlets have attributed to different bodies. We will put a figure here when there is a document behind it.

Ordinance 19783 belongs to the City of Miami, not Miami Beach, and is sponsored by District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo. It temporarily relaxes the city’s billboard and signage rules for the same October 15 to December 31 window.

A downtown “Event Area” roughly bounded by NE 5th Street, the Miami River, Biscayne Bay and NE 2nd Avenue, for the same October 15 to December 31 window, at most 56 consecutive days.
Take-Two has to approve the artwork.
Displays still need sign-off from downtown homeowner associations, which is the vote the Miami Herald described on September 12.
The fee is the part coverage has not kept still. Early reports, citing Commissioner Pardo’s office, had six banners at $202,000 each. GTA Boom, reading the legislative file after it was posted, put a $208,000 application fee on banners larger than 5,000 square feet, with smaller ones on the existing schedule. Proceeds were earmarked for the park under the new I-395 Signature Bridge. We are quoting those reports, not the PDF.

The Kaseya Center rooftop sign is a different track again, not a clause of this ordinance. Photos of lettering being prepared at the Heat’s arena, and Francisco Alvarado’s reporting of a private deal with Basketball Properties, are covered separately: the Vice City sign at Kaseya Center.

Several outlets stated on September 10 that Ordinance 19783 itself passed, and several of those same outlets also described it as the Miami Beach beach-chair deal, which it is not.

Local coverage has since described a City of Miami vote. CBS Miami reported commissioners voted to let Rockstar pay for permits so private owners can put up larger-than-usual banners, with no city parks, city hall or other city assets used as a promotional tool. Commissioner Christine King, speaking to CBS, said the permit revenue is meant for the Reverend Edward T. Graham Heritage Trail in Overtown. The Miami Herald, updated September 14, described commissioners voting to grant permits to homeowner associations, which then decide whether banners go on their towers, and said the proposed banners would not carry the words Vice City or depictions of guns.

We are quoting those local reports, not an adopted stamp. The city’s legislative file for Ordinance 19783 is still the document that would settle whether this is first reading, a final vote, or a narrower HOA-permit motion. Until that file is marked adopted, “Miami passed the banner ordinance” is still stronger than what we can show.

The county proposal is the one that ran into public opposition

This is the proposal we covered on August 31: a 19-page deck that Miami-Dade sent to Rockstar on June 29, offering up Miami International Airport, PortMiami, the Metromover, Metrorail and two county parks for Vice City branding.

On September 3 it ran into the wall. County Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez and Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz issued a joint statement through the county’s own press office calling on Miami-Dade to reject the use of public resources, facilities and the county brand to promote the game, singling out the reported plan to temporarily rebrand the airport as “Vice City Airport”.

Bermudez:

We should be promoting the Miami-Dade we have worked so hard to build, not a fictional version defined by crime and violence.

Cordero-Stutz:

I believe we need to seriously consider the message we send when our own government promotes a fictional identity centered around many of those same crimes.

CBS Miami, covering the same week, added a second police objection. The Miami-Dade County Association of Chiefs of Police, in a statement from Pinecrest police chief Jason Cohen, said it cannot support using the county’s identity to promote a game that depicts violence, including violence against women and law enforcement. That is the chiefs’ association, not the sheriff’s office. It is a second uniformed body saying no to the county pitch, and it does not bind Miami Beach or the City of Miami.

So the county pitch that generated the biggest headlines two weeks ago is the one piece of this that has moved backwards. Nothing about the Miami Beach vote, or the downtown permit reports, changes that.

What this tells you about the campaign

Rockstar has never publicly promoted a GTA game in partnership with the real city it is modelled on. Los Santos got no Los Angeles airport takeover for GTA V. If the beach umbrellas go up on October 15, that is a first for the company, even at this scale.

The shape of it is also becoming clear. The pieces that are advancing are the ones on private property or paid signage: concession furniture, commercial banners, a stadium roof. The pieces stalling are the ones asking a government to put the Vice City name on public infrastructure that people cannot opt out of, such as an airport or a police-adjacent brand. That is a sensible line, and both cities appear to have found it independently.

Vice City’s real-world model, and which parts of it Rockstar has actually named, is on our Vice-Dale County entry. What was shown of the city itself is in the Extended Look breakdown.

Miami Beach voted 4-3 for GTA 6 ads on beach umbrellas, and that is not the county airport deal

Three governments, three proposals

What Miami Beach actually approved

Nobody has published the price

The downtown banner ordinance is a different item

The county proposal is the one that ran into public opposition

What this tells you about the campaign

Sources

Only the news that is actually confirmed