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In my ongoing debate with @MaximumSam about Ohio State's BB Coaching situation one recurring theme has been Max's displeasure with the Ohio State Basketball Arena.  His feeling (correct me if I'm misrepresenting this) is that the University's design of the arena demonstrated a lack of commitment on the part of the University Athletic Department to CBB.  

I think it is an interesting point and I don't necessarily disagree but lets talk about CBB arenas more generally as well.  So I made a table, the top-25 CBB arena's in terms of size:

Then here are the 16 B1G (and soon-to-be B1G) arenas.  This time I've added City Population and the percentage of the City Population that the arena can hold:


Ohio State's arena is the biggest in the league but Columbus is also the second largest City a B1G University is located within.  If you switch to ranking by percentage of city population that the arena can hold, Ohio State's Arena is the third smallest behind only the two arenas in Los Angeles (pop nearly 4M).  

A couple notes:

• I realize that "City Population" here is an imperfect measure.  What I'm really looking for is something more like the number of people that can reasonably drive there for a weekday evening game.  That is generally bigger than the City populations listed here (might be smaller in the case of LA) but it also isn't as big as the Metro-Area population so the figure used here is somewhat of a compromise.  
• I added this % of city pop column because, as I see it, CBB is just different than CFB.  CFB games are almost all on Saturdays and they are "events".  The hour drive from Omaha to Lincoln or from Detroit to Ann Arbor isn't a major deterrent to attendance because there are almost always eight or less games a year and they are almost all on Saturdays in the fall.  CBB is fundamentally different.  Nebraska/Michigan fans living in Omaha/Detroit have no problem making that drive on a nice fall Saturday but it is different when you are talking about a Tuesday evening BB game in a snowstorm in January.  

I know what I would have liked to see Ohio State do but I'll hold that for later in this thread.  I'd like to get the board's thoughts on CBB arena's in general.  What do you like/dislike about your teams' arena and the other arenas you are familiar with?  I also want to know more of what Max thinks on Ohio State's arena.  

alabama's coleman colliseum is just outside that 25 at 15,383 capacity. we fans and the basketball programs have been clamoring for a new arena for years if not decades. it opened in 1968.

in 2018, they finally approved a project for a new arena with a 10k seat capacity, which, imo is about perfect for bama. in a year like this one, where we had probably our best season ever, it could have filled any of those arenas on the list. but on a normal year, even on what i hope to become a 'normal year' (consistently comfortable in ncaa's), i think filling up 10k is about right.

the bigger issue, though, is coleman is just so far out of date. covid threw a halt to those plans, but they're still on last i heard.

tuscaloosa and bham aren't very big, but they are sports crazy and will show up to support any and all things bama. look at the tv ratings for bham. routinely near top for random sports things they have no business being in.

I was downtown today and happened to take this shot, not very impressive from this angle.

from a general arena perspective, and this is driven by my experiences with coleman, i'd rather have a smaller arena that fills up consistently than a larger one that 50-75% regularly. outside of a handful of teams, unc, duke, uk, indiana, etc. mostly blue bloods, not many can routinely sustain 20k+. 10-15 seems about right for most of the next tier down.

I generally agree with this but I think that my own school is an exception not because of anything about Ohio State but because Columbus is a large city. Columbus is MUCH more populous than a place like Tuscaloosa or Athens, GA, Lincoln, NE, Ann Arbor, MI, etc.

Columbus is in something of a sweet spot nearly perfect for collegiate athletics. It is MUCH bigger than most college towns and yet not quite big enough to present a lot of competition from professional leagues. There are NFL franchises roughly two hours away in each direction (N Cleveland,  S Cincy, E Pittsburgh, W Indianapolis) but none in town. There are MLB franchises in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh but none in town. There are NBA franchises in Cleveland and Indianapolis but none in town. The only local  professional competition is from the Hockey and Soccer franchises but those have miniscule fanbases compared to the NFL/MLB/NBA. 

@utee94 , thank you for that correction. The website I grabbed that from was apparently out of date.

I'm surprised that Austin couldn't fill a larger arena. Austin and Columbus are similar in population and have a similar situation wrt pro teams (nearby but not in town) so I would have figured that they could put ~20k buttons in seats for a decent CBB team which Texas usually has.

@utee94 , thank you for that correction. The website I grabbed that from was apparently out of date.

I'm surprised that Austin couldn't fill a larger arena. Austin and Columbus are similar in population and have a similar situation wrt pro teams (nearby but not in town) so I would have figured that they could put ~20k buttons in seats for a decent CBB team which Texas usually has.

I think each school is lacking a bit of basketball vibe, historically. Even if they were good.

The O dome in Florida is a nice size.

Seems like the anti-Breslin. That place rocks.