NCAA Basketball Inside Large Scale Venues

Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas hosting UNC and Texas

on Saturday December 19, 2009. Reuters / Mike Stone

When making a list of “large scale” athletic venues one would be remiss in leaving the brand new “Jerry Dome” a.k.a. Cowboys Stadium off said list. The $1.2 billion dollar stadium erected as an ode to its owner Jerry Jones played a neutral site host to this past weekend’s regular season college basketball match up featuring second-ranked Texas and tenth-ranked North Carolina.

Cowboys Stadium was hosting college basketball for the first time that day however; they were not reinventing the wheel. The first such game was held in 1968 as UCLA traveled to play Houston at the “Eighth Wonder of the World” the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The staging of these games have become more and more frequent during the past decade as the design and construction fad of large retractable roof domed football stadiums continues to expand.

As I watched the ESPN telecast the broadcast team featuring Dan Shulman on play-by-play and the one and only Dick Vitale as the analyst spent a quick moment discussing the concept of staging college basketball games in large scale venues or more precisely domed football stadiums. Dickie V’s stance was simple, he likes college basketball played on-campus where as he said, “it belongs.”

At the risk of tipping my hand on the matter it is important to note that this writer spent his four years as a college undergrad covering men’s and women’s basketball in the largest on-campus arena in the NCAA, that being the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University. The Dome presents an atmosphere and experience that I can say is truly awesome to be a part of, I can remember nights where sitting on press row my chair was literally shaking from the vibrations brought on by the crowd of 33,000 strong. Now I would argue that the experience watching a game at the Carrier Dome is remarkably different to those being staged at Cowboys Stadium. The layout is completely different.

Inside the Carrier Dome the basketball layout uses only half of the stadium placing the court essentially between a football end zone and the 20 yard line and from sideline to sideline, with the court being placed at ground level on a series of plastic mats that protect the FieldTurf below. Meanwhile, games contested at the likes of Cowboys Stadium, Ford Field, or Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the 2010 Men’s Final Four) use a layout with center court being placed directly on the football 50 yard line and the court expanding east and west with its end lines around the 35 or 40 yard lines. Additionally, to accommodate the vast expanse and those that bought the stratosphere seats up in the BYOO (Bring Your Own Oxygen) sections the court is built up on a raised platform that mimics a stage at a rock concert. Think theater in the round with 90,000 to 100,000 of your fellow fans.

The issue to me is one of scale. The staging of college basketball games in domed football stadiums started being used as the grandest of stages for only the biggest event on the calendar, the Final Four. Then the NCAA in an effort to test markets and facilities abilities as potential Final Four hosts expanded it to the regional round or the Elite Eight. Now owners of these massive monoliths are contracting with colleges and universities within there state or top teams from around the country to move regular season events to their stadiums. Plain and simple regular season non-conference and conference college basketball games belong on-campus. Half of the fun of the non-conference schedule played by some schools is to see your university match up against the best teams in the nation. Plus, if you’re the average college student who cannot afford to follow your team around the country during the NCAA Tournament, this may be your only chance to see a North Carolina, Duke, UConn, Syracuse, etc. in the flesh.

As for games contested in domed football stadiums, avoid tarnishing the grandest of stages, leave the grandest stage fallow until you reach the pinnacle of the college basketball calendar, The Final Four.