ARCO Arena

Infobox Stadium | stadium_name=ARCO Arena


location=One Sports Parkway, Sacramento, California 95834
broke_ground=1987
opened=1988
owner=The Maloof family
operator=The Maloof family
construction_cost=$40 million USD
architect=Rann Haight
tenants=Sacramento Kings (NBA) (1988-present)
Sacramento Monarchs (WNBA) (1997-present)
Sacramento Attack (AFL) (1992)
Sacramento Knights (CISL - WISL) (1993-2001)
seating_capacity=Basketball: 17,317
Indoor Soccer 10,632

ARCO Arena is an indoor arena located in Sacramento, California, United States. After playing in the make-shift facility called the Original ARCO Arena, this version was completed in 1988, at a cost of $40 million — entirely privately financed.

It is home to the NBA's Sacramento Kings and the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs. The arena seats 17,317 for basketball, and has 30 luxury suites and 412 club seats. The arena has been noted for its loud character and continual at-capacity crowds, which, combined with wood floors, once made it a tough environment for visiting teams; the Kings only sold out three home games in the 2007-2008 season and averaged 13,500 per game.

There was another sports venue with that exact same name, which was known as the original ARCO Arena (1985-1988), where the Kings played their home games for three seasons (1985 to 1988), after moving from Kansas City. It had a capacity of 10,333 seats. In 2006, voters overwhelmingly rejected ballot measures Q and R [cite news | date=2006-11-08 |publisher=Sacramento Business Journal | accessdate=2008-04-22|url=http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2006/11/06/daily20.html|author=Kelly Johnson|title=Railyard arena backers will keep trying] , leading to the NBA publicly calling for a new arena to be built at another well-known Sacramento facility, Cal Expo, the site of California's state fair. [cite news | date=2007-09-21 |publisher=Sacramento Business Journal | accessdate=2008-04-22|url=http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2007/09/24/story4.html?f=et183&b=1190606400^1524469&ana=e_vert|author=Kelly Johnson|title=Cal Expo board agrees to consider arena, mixed-use project]

ARCO Arena is located in a once isolated area on the expanding northern outskirts of the city. It was constructed at a cost of just $40 million, the lowest of any venue in the NBA. It is the smallest arena in the NBA by size and second smallest by seating capacity (17,317). Only Orlando's Amway Arena (17,248) has a smaller seating capacity for basketball, and Orlando is building a brand new $480 million dollar arena that broke ground in July 2008 to open in fall 2010, with larger seating capacity and modern luxuries.

The namesake sponsor of the arena, energy company ARCO, has had corporate sponsorship since the arena's inception as well as the original ARCO Arena. On March 19, 2007, the Maloof brothers announced a multi-year agreement extending the naming rights of ARCO Arena. [ [http://www.nba.com/kings/news/arco_arena_naming_rights_ext.html Extension to Naming Rights Agreement] ]

Notable events

* On October 14th, 2008, "Celine Dion" will bring her "Taking Chances World Tour" to the arena.
* On October 22nd, 2008 "Tina Turner" will bring her "" to the arena.
* NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament - 1994, 1998, 2002, and 2007.
* NHL exhibition and neutral site games, 1993, 1994.
* Ultimate Fighting Championship's "UFC 65" on November 18 2006.
* World Wrestling Entertainment events, including two pay-per-views ("Royal Rumble 1993" and "Judgment Day 2001").
* 1995 Billy Graham crusade which brought the fourth largest crowds in arena history.
* 2007 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Final Four. The event drew over 26,000 fans and the championship match drew 13,631 fans, the second highest attendance in NCAA history.
* Game 4 of the 2005 WNBA Finals, in which the Sacramento Monarchs defeated the Connecticut Sun 62-59 to capture their first WNBA Championship.
* John Stockton's last game in the NBA, game 5 of the first round series in the 2003 NBA Playoffs between the Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz.
* LeBron James's first game in the NBA, October 29, 2003 between the Sacramento Kings and Cleveland Cavaliers.

Trivia

*A partially built baseball stadium is located on the northern end of the arena. Financing for the stadium fell through, and eventually was abandoned. The construction of Raley Field dashed hopes of finishing the project, however there have been talks of converting this location to a soccer stadium.

*ARCO Arena set a Guinness World Record for loudest sports roar by reaching over 130 decibels on November 8, 2006 during a Kings game against the Detroit Pistons.

*There is a song called "Arco Arena" on the album "Comfort Eagle" by Sacramento band Cake. It is an instrumental.

*On January 20, 1996, there was one of the oddest occurrences to ever happen during a basketball game. A fan placed a 7 month old baby girl, who was nude, in the middle of the court during a Sacramento Kings game at halftime and proceeded to spin her around in circles. The man was arrested and his estranged wife did not press charges. According to news reporter Chris Bradshaw, it was the "most disturbing thing I have ever seen in my life." The game went on as planned, but Bradshaw dubbed it as, "The oddest thing to ever happen during a basketball game in the history of the sport."Fact|date=October 2008

* Bell Biv DeVoe's (BBD) music video for "She's Dope" was filmed at ARCO Arena in 1991.

References

External links

* [http://www.arcoarena.com/ ARCO Arena official website]

succession box
title = Home of the
Sacramento Kings
years = 1988 – present
before = ARCO Arena (First)
after = current