yes it's too big

Posted on: February 20, 2025 at 10:47:16 CT

Was built in/after an era where basketball was a HUGE thing for Mizzou (think 20+ years of similar product that we've had 2 of the last 3 seasons), AND where supply (for decent seats) WAY outstripped the demand in the Hearnes Center.

Not sure if you ever watched a game there (it's wild that I'm now old enough I can say things like this) but the damn place was like an elevator shaft if you were down on the court. Extremely "vertical" walls of stands and with a ton of people in there, it could really feel like things are closing in on you.

That was great, but with a capacity of 13,300, it unfortunately meant that approx 8,000 seats were, if you can picture this, above the main concourse level at Mizzou Arena (relative to the floor). As a result of the team's popularity, as well as a faculty seniority ticketing procedure that even further limited access to lower level (ish) seats...it was a problem.

This problem was one of the very top priorities the AD had when designing Mizzou Arena - they wanted more seats "closer" to the floor (in vertical terms, but not necessarily horizontal terms). Mizzou Arena gets all 15,000 seats essentially lower than the top of "C Section" in the Hearnes Center, but the footprint is much larger.

A 10,000 seat arena I think would be about right-sized for Mizzou Hoops. But, we've got what another 20 years before we think about that?