CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on June 01, 2023, 11:28:12 AM
-
In my ongoing debate with @MaximumSam (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1572) 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:
(https://i.imgur.com/fFRzn6M.png)
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:
(https://i.imgur.com/L5CdMUC.png)
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.
-
I've only been in a handful of these arenas. NU, UW, IL, MSU.
I like MSU best overall.
UW's is kinda sterile.
I'd like to hit the barn up in MSP someday.
-
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.
-
artist rendering and article about new bama arena
https://www.al.com/alabamabasketball/2022/02/artist-renderings-of-new-alabama-basketball-arena.html
https://twitter.com/UA_Athletics/status/1489361863381078024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1489361863381078024%7Ctwgr%5E6a833512ab4ce9d6ea0766a4c8096f5e448a23cb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.al.com%2Falabamabasketball%2F2022%2F02%2Fartist-renderings-of-new-alabama-basketball-arena.html
-
I was downtown today and happened to take this shot, not very impressive from this angle.
(https://i.imgur.com/mZakzSq.jpg)
-
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.
-
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.
-
Just for the sake of accuracy, Texas no longer plays basketball in the Frank Erwin Center. That place was a monstrous cave that was originally configured for about 20K fans for basketball, and was remodeled down to 17K or so.
But as of 2022/3, Horns hoops now calls the brand new Moody Center home, and the configuration for basketball attendance in that arena is about 10,000.
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.
And this is precisely why.
Heck, even super-blue-blood Duke plays in 9K seat Cameron Indoor Arena.
Anyway, the new venue is pretty great, I've been to both concerts and basketball games there.
(https://i.imgur.com/truRRfE.jpg)
-
@utee94 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=15) , 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.
-
agreed, it's not about the most seats
Pinnacle Bank Arena is new and is a great venue off campus, but close to campus
-
@utee94 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=15) , 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.
-
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.
I think it sucks because it isn't a basketball arena. It's a multipurpose building designed to hold concerts and graduations and whatever other events they can sell tickets to. Also they play basketball games there. It isn't so much that there are too many seats. I agree - Columbus is a big city without bigtime competition on the sports front. They probably could get more people down there. But basketball games are supposed to be rocking and fun to go to. The Schott has the atmosphere of a morgue. They didn't build it to be fun and they don't make a ton of effort to make it fun.
It used to be even quieter. They finally moved the students to behind the benches to try and make it better, but to counter that they also started tarping off seats and reduced the number of students. The Schott was designed for almost everything except to create a great experience for basketball fans.
-
Seems like the anti-Breslin. That place rocks.
-
All SEC teams should 'Find-and-Replace' the word 'basketball' with 'spring practice' on all digital signage, printed ads and tickets, etc.
.
Sell out every game.
-
@utee94 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=15) , 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.
Yup. It's Texas. Football is king, and everything else takes a pretty distant back seat.
-
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.
Yup, lower rung, upper rung.
2 notes:
In HS, we had an old PE teacher who had season tickets on the baseline and anytime we'd go to a game, we had to find him. He wore a hat with a teddy bear attached and would waive a pair of panties for every opponent free throw attempt.
.
My HS's graduation was always held there, but for mine it was having some roof renovations, so we held it at our shared football stadium across town. Not a big deal, but kinda sucked at the time.
-
What I think Ohio State should do:
The lower section of the arena should be split into two parts:
Student Section: approximately 2/3 -3/4 of the lower section should be benches with the seats only available to students. These tickets should require a current student ID (scanned) to use.
If not enough students are buying then lower the price and/or giveaway t-shirts, whatever it takes, fill up the Student Section.
The students serve three main purposes:
- They provide the rocking atmosphere.
- They provide energy that (hopefully) helps build a home court advantage.
- Getting them to go as students will (hopefully) make lifetime fans out of them which contributes to future ratings/ticket sales, etc.
The rest of the lower section should be wider, nicer, comfy seats with armrests and these should be "exclusive", expensive seats.
-
I prefer the second balcony be the premium seats. They were in the old Chicago Stadium. In newer stadia, there is not much overhang of the balconies, which pushes people far away from the action. Bad design in my opinion. I liked it like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/xwEcJEP.jpg)
-
Tiger Stadium was genius for that. Of course trade offs if you're buried far back under the balcony.