ACC Tournament stays in Greensboro

[guy4charlotte]

The ACC has apparently settled on Greensboro for the main home of its mens and womens basketball tournaments:

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/14601744.htm

The ACC Tournament will be played there in 2006, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Other cities hosting the tournament in the future are Tampa (2007) and Atlanta (2009, 2012). Charlotte only gets the tournament one year--2008. From reading this article, it sounds like arena size was at least one factor, although I know the ACC has its HQ in Greensboro as well as its Hall of Fame, so maybe its like our argument for wanting to keep the All-Star Challenge race here instead of rotating to different race tracks...anyway congrats to our friends in Greensboro, still I wonder if it would have made a difference if we had a 25,000 seat arena??

[dubone]

"I know the ACC has its HQ in Greensboro as well as its Hall of Fame"

^ there is your answer.

But yes, the Charlotte arena is probably too small to consistently get the ACC tourney. But then again, if we had a huge arena with no tenant, we'd bend over backwards to get it. I think we've known for a long time, though, that we wouldn't get the ACC tourney that much. The big deal will be to get some NCAA regionals.

[swampfox43]

Boy this sounds all too familiar.....

In 10 years, Charlotte will be imploding the Bobcats arena, and a new 25,000 seater will be built...

Wait a minute! Didn't the older coliseum (on Tyvola) seat 25,000?

[dubone]

Yes, all too familiar.

And to repeat: Nope, no implosions in 10 years. That implosion will happen in 2030. The Bobcats agreed to stay in the existing arena for 25 years, period. No matter what trend showed up in arenas nationally. If they don't stay, they must pay off all the debt for the arena.

The city ditched the obsolete Tyvola coliseum after 16 years because arenas built for total seating, regardless of quality or corporate box capacity, had become obsolete. Also, the city did not protect itself the first time around when getting the Hornets. The only way to win a protected contract was to start from scratch and build a new arena. Yet, once it was done, the city is protected both from operating losses, but also from threats that the team might leave, or changes in the arena business.

It is fine for occassional events like the ACC, and fine for Greensboro, who get a handful of events per year to have a mega arena with low quality of experience and sight lines. But in a city that demands an arena tenant, bringing in hundreds of events per year, Charlotte opted for the more profitable, higher quality, albeit smaller arena, where events could be staged very often.

[yeah...]

hey, maybe we should build a new one. and we'll all call this one the newest new new charlotte arena.

[AuLukey]

I'm tired of people poking at the city for building the arena, but I think the blaim should be put on the people who planned the original coliseum in the middle of nowhere. Look at the area development differences in the two. The Coliseum had well over a decade before the new arena was built and little to no development sprung up within miles of it during that entire period. In just the single year since the arena was announced, the entire landscape of center city has started to change. And a lot of that development (ie Courtside) can be directly coorelated with the construction of the arena. Whether or not the arena had public support initially, it has helped the city's future significantly and all the spinoff development has made many Charlotte UPer's happy.

[monsoon]

The city ditched the obsolete Tyvola coliseum after 16 years because arenas built for total seating, regardless of quality or corporate box capacity, had become obsolete. Also, the city did not protect itself the first time around when getting the Hornets.

The Charlotte Coliseum was not obsolete.

The Charlotte Coliseum (tyvola) was not built for the NBA as it was voted for and approved long before there was any talk of there being the NBA in Charlotte. It was a public arena for concerts, sporting events, plays, and anything else that would appeal to the general public. It was built as the largest arena in the Carolinas because Charlotte was losing out to many events that were skipping the city and going to Greensboro.

Where it became unsatisfactory, to some, was that it was not designed to make NBA owners enough money to pay the exhorbatant salaries their players make these days. I personally, along with the majority of voters in Charlotte who were asked, do not think the city should be building arenas for this purpose. However despite the vote against it, NBA crazed politicians voted to scrap the perfectly fine Charlotte Coliseum and spend $300M to build an arena for the Bobcats.

Having done this, the city is now losing out in many ways including events that are now going to choose Greensboro because the Greensboro Coliseum is again the largest arena in the Carolinas. I and others predicted this would happen, and now it seems that it has. I hope they enjoy the Bobcats games and I bet Greensboro can't believe their good fortune at Charlotte's folly.

[turbocraig]

What other events have we lost to GSO besides some of the ACC tourneys? With the overwhelming dates GSO has been granted, it seems that GSO is a favorite venue for a variety of reasons. Since opening last November, the Bobcats arena has routinely hosted blockbuster shows that probably would've skipped the old Coliseum altogether. Granted, I don't think the old Coliseum was completely obsolete either, but truth be told.. if no one was going to book it, and we had no NBA team (which was contingent on a new arena), what good was it?

[AuLukey]

What other events have we lost to GSO besides some of the ACC tourneys? With the overwhelming dates GSO has been granted, it seems that GSO is a favorite venue for a variety of reasons. Since opening last November, the Bobcats arena has routinely hosted blockbuster shows that probably would've skipped the old Coliseum altogether. Granted, I don't think the old Coliseum was completely obsolete either, but truth be told.. if no one was going to book it, and we had no NBA team (which was contingent on a new arena), what good was it?

I wish they'd just turn it into a giant swimming pool instead of tearing it down. Rather, I wish they could somehow incorporate it into the complex that is planned to go there. Use it as an entertainment center or convert it for other uses. Seems a shame to demolish a perfectly good arena of that size. Maybe split it down the center and convert it into an Opera and Symphony Hall.

[turbocraig]

I understand trying to find alternative uses for the facility, but bottom line is that whatever performance/event that the old Coliseum could be used for, well they want those shows and all the economic action downtown, not out on Tyvola. It'd be cost prohibitive to maintain a facility of that size for the few, if any, events that'd be drawn there.