I do donate. Our funds have been mishandled and continue to be placed in an old arena that provides very little in home court advantage. It has an outstanding practice arena, but that is where it stops. Oats has been promised a new arena as was Avery. It needs to happen. Miss State has just updated its arena for 37.5 million. I am as big Alabama basketball fan you will find. If you don’t understand that Coleman is not a good arena, then I can’t help you.
I'm still of the opinion that Coleman isn't as bad as some think it is. But I do think it needs a lot of help to be what it maybe could be. The cost of such a dramatic remodel being at least 3/4 the cost of a new arena just makes building a new arena make more sense.
The cost today, just in building materials alone, would be more than 3x what they were a few yrs ago, throw in much higher labor costs, and only a fool would do any project, presently, that is not an absolute must. Now that doesn’t mean they can’t draw up plans, determine sites, etc, but wait until the prices, HOPEFULLY, come back down to earth before you embark on such a project. HOPEFULLY, this bubble bursts big very soon, and then we will be in a much better environment to proceed. Like xcop stated above, there are a few minor things we could do, in the meantime, to potentially help the situation. We can all complain we should have done it sooner, but there is nothing we can do about the past, so we just have no choice but to proceed in the best way for the future. That may not be what people want to hear, but it is the most prudent action in these times.
I agree. BAMA could have a 9000 seat 50 million dollar arena and if they are 2-4 in conference play you're still going to struggle to get a good crowd for an 8:00 pm Tuesday night tip against South Carolina.
Well, I hope the part about costs not coming down anytime soon doesn’t end up correct, because if so, then we all are going to have a lot bigger issues to worry about than a new BB arena.You all make good points, but here is the issue. Coleman may have been a good arena 50 years ago, but it is not now. Can it be updated to be a nice arena? Absolutely. The mock ups they did for Avery looked great. If we don’t do a new arena, Oats will be pissed. He doesn’t want to play in Birmingham for 2 years. It will hurt recruiting and make us lose the student’s noise.
Now let‘s compare Auburn’s arena to ours. Look how close the fans and especially the students are. You have the court and immediately seats. The crowd goes straight up from there, and then an upper deck to get more fans closer. Adding a lower ceiling and it really keeps it loud. Oats said it is a really tough environment when you have a student yelling awful things in your ear a foot away from you.
Here’s ours. We literally have fans facing fans. We yell at one another and not at the court.
Now look how far away our crowd is from the coaches benches. It’s roughly 10-15 from the court.
There is nothing to do except lower the court and move seats in and make an upper deck that brings the fans closer. It is truly and outdated monster that needs to explode. Just my opinion, but they need to fix it or build a new one. Costs are not coming down any time soon.
$10.99 for Dos Equis 16 oz and $9.99 for Michelob Ultra. They have White Claw for the ladies, but I never saw a price. I have no problem with someone making a profit, but the $44.00 I spend on 64 oz of Dos Equis each game makes me wish I hit the chronic rather than drink beer.
Yea, I thought, for financial reasons, I would only have to sneak mini’s into the game when I was a poor college student. How little I knew.
You all make good points, but here is the issue. Coleman may have been a good arena 50 years ago, but it is not now. Can it be updated to be a nice arena? Absolutely. The mock ups they did for Avery looked great. If we don’t do a new arena, Oats will be pissed. He doesn’t want to play in Birmingham for 2 years. It will hurt recruiting and make us lose the student’s noise.
Now let‘s compare Auburn’s arena to ours. Look how close the fans and especially the students are. You have the court and immediately seats. The crowd goes straight up from there, and then an upper deck to get more fans closer. Adding a lower ceiling and it really keeps it loud. Oats said it is a really tough environment when you have a student yelling awful things in your ear a foot away from you.
Here’s ours. We literally have fans facing fans. We yell at one another and not at the court.
Now look how far away our crowd is from the coaches benches. It’s roughly 10-15 from the court.
There is nothing to do except lower the court and move seats in and make an upper deck that brings the fans closer. It is truly and outdated monster that needs to explode. Just my opinion, but they need to fix it or build a new one. Costs are not coming down any time soon.
Yes, the biggest problem is how slowly both BD and Coleman seats rise so slowly. I think the gym will be multipurposed, but I think the vision they have is good.
l fully believe that donations made to NIL will impact all facility improvements in all sports.
Now that could be true. I don’t blame him. Jimmy’s and Joe’s matter more than anything. It sucks for us. Another reason for me to hate NIL. I have no problem with players making money, but I would rather them do it on their own. I will ask one of my folks.
You are probably right. Yet, Miss State who probably has less money than most schools has updated their crappy gym. We will have the worst arena in the SEC. Vandy is updating their arena.
vanderbilthustler.com
agree, last years team didn't exactly get everyone excited for this year.
I was very excited. We beat Housont, Gonzaga, and Miami. We just played terrible after that.
We got a pretty good record in Coleman though. l have a feeling Oats would rather have plenty of NIL money ahead of money for a new arena.
When we played Houston in Coleman last year l thought the roof was gonna blow off.
The atmosphere at Coleman can be as good as any arena in the country. I won’t be disappointed at all if we play there for many years to come. I would actually prefer that over a new arena with 5-6,000 fewer seats.
Sorry, there is no way this statement is or will ever be true. I have broken this down so many times. Can it get loud? Yes. Is it a place that other programs drool over when they are looking to design a new arena? Absolutely not!!! You can love it all you want, but it is a terrible place to watch a basketball game. I have been going since I was a child in 80s. Back when the opposing team had their bands in the arena. It is not imposing arena and it has horrible sight lines for the fans. There are no sky boxes or floor suites. It also has the fans way too far away from the court. You can also hear the buzzing of the lights as they give you cancer from their radiation.
I mean no disrespect, but show me any team that doesn’t have a good record at home in basketball. GA is about the only one I can think of.
who in the hell do you think donations are coming from? Good luck with your campaign da.
ROFL, those buzzer lights were crazy if you got to the game early enough that basically no one was on the court yet for warmups. And if for whatever reason they went out it was 5+ minutes for them to warm up again. They were swapped out for LEDs years ago weren't they?
