The Lincoln Haymarket Arena (from a sports angle)
1) Mens & Womens basketball: Obviously they have a nice brand new home to play in. Tom Osborne and Harvey Pearlman had a joint news conference to talk about the new arena. Probably one of the biggest pieces of news is the donation process. Before if you donated to football, you got priority seating for basketball games. No longer. The bigger the donation to the basketball team, the better seat you get. This is already good news for the atmosphere at the new arena. This will put not only fans, but basketball fans who want to be there front and center. The Bob always had the nickname “The Lincoln Library” so already they are going to move the most passionate and vocal fans closer. It looks like the student sections will remain behind the baskets. This disappoints me a little, but its understandable with Nebraska being just a tenant and needing to make as much money as possible. There will be 4700 seats in the lower bowl and 8000 in the upper bowl. For Nebraska baksetball, I like the lower number of seats than Devaney. This will make for a bit more of an intimate setting but just as much noise can be generated as the Bob. And if/when Nebraska starts to gain in popularity it will only increase demand on tickets for people who really want to be there.
2) NU practice facility: Nebraska finally comes out of the stone age as they are building a practice facility next to Devaney. Nebraska is the ONLY Big 12 school who does not have a basketball practice facility either built or being built. It shows the commitment of this university to basketball, and I’m happy about that.
3) Track, gymnastics, swimming: They will still use the Bob as normal. Nothing will change.
4) Wrestling: Dr. Tom said in his news conference that wrestling will probably move over to Devaney, or at least hold more events over there.
5) Volleyball: Here’s where NU is in a real pickle. If you’ve ever been to a game in the Coliseum, you obviously know what an amazing experience it is to watch a volleyball match there. But the truth remains, there is an outstanding demand for volleyball tickets. If Nebraska keeps on their dominant winning ways, there is no reason to think that they couldn’t double their average attendance from four thousand to eight thousand pretty easily. You could fit that inside Devaney easily, but lose the intimacy of the Coliseum. John Cook has said he wants to stay. Tom Osborne has said that they will most likely stay. But don’t be surprised that when the basketball teams move out, you see one or two more matches moved over to the Bob during the year. (Interesting side note which I just read: Coach Cook says that now the Haymarket Arena has been approved, his dream one day would be to have a volleyball only facility “it’s time to start having some of those conversations")
6) The Bob Devaney Sports Center: What about the arena itself? Tom said in his press conference that had the Arena not passed, a price tag of about 50 million was going to be put on renovating the BDSC but now it will only be 20 million. The $20 million includes new seats, expanded concourses, updated restrooms, remodeled entrances and possibly a new exterior. As of right now, there isn’t a timetable for the renovations to begin but with the basketball teams moving to the Haymarket in for the 2013/2014 seasons, I would suspect that some minor changes will take place (seats, restrooms, etc.) and then after they move out is when you will see the major improvements (concourses, entrances, exterior) take place.
7) Other sporting events: I think this Arena has probably saved the state basketball tournaments from moving to Omaha. I’m guessing the NSAA knew that the Bob was starting to become less and less attractive a venue with the Qwest Center looming 50 miles down the road. The Haymarket Arena becomes a great primary venue for state basketball and the Bob can serve as an adequate 2nd venue. Now depending on Pershing’s fate, that becomes a third venue and the NSAA only has to rely on one high school host site. Volleyball probably moves out of Pershing to either Devaney or the new arena. As for the wrestling tournament, I think you can pretty much write that one off as never coming back. The Haymarket Arena isn’t as big as the Qwest and that was one of the major reasons for the move, space. I don’t really see the Haymarket Arena becoming a venue that hosts Division I NCAA events (1st & 2nd round tournament games, NCAA wrestling championships, NCAA volleyball Final 4). With the Qwest just down the road, it just doesn’t quite stack up to take away the big events. But, they could host a volleyball regional. The NCAA has started to grant those in advance and the Haymarket would be a great venue in a great volleyball town. But what about Division II? I could really see some of those basketball, volleyball, and wrestling tournaments finding a good home in the Haymarket. The NCAA loves Nebraska and I bet would love to find a venue to host some of their events in Lincoln as well.
The Comments
Mr. T says Thanks for that round up. May 16, 2010 at 6:46pm
Thanks for that round up.