(03-09-2018 06:00 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(03-09-2018 05:19 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Why Gonzaga only built a 6,000+ seat arena I'll never know. They should have built an 8k arena at the very least. 10k would work given how big they've become.

They have about 7,000 students, and the Spokane metro area has only about half a million people. Not many universities of that size that have their own arena (i.e., not playing in someone else's building, like a municipal or NBA arena) have more seats in their building. Dayton, Duke, Wake Forest... anyone else?

Yeah but Gonzaga was huge back when they were first emerging. They had fans everywhere, not just in Spokane. They were Spokane's NBA team. You plan for the future, just in case things aren't as rosy later on. That's why I say 8k would probably be best because 10k may indeed be way too big. 6.5K left no room to grow. Anything below 8k is small time imo.

Spokane isn't large but what else exactly is going on out there? The only other notable schools nearby are Eastern Washington, Washington State and Idaho, two of which aren't in the metro area and one of which isn't even in the state. Never mind that EWU has never had a notable basketball team. I don't know of any minor league sports out there and even the Sonics no longer play in the State of Washington.