BQ_90 said:

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but then you have no parking

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Oh, I definitely get that. Reed is really the only facility with convenient parking for all.

Ag13 said:

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I'm all for architectural uniformity (which has never been A&M's strong suit) - but Baylor won a national championship in men's basketball and multiple national championships in women's basketball playing in this:



The millions it would take for a facelift of Reed Arena would be much more effectively spent on acquiring the best talent possible.

Our history of basketball mediocrity has very little, if anything, to do with the outside appearance of Reed Arena.

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Are you really suggesting players don't care what arena they play at home in? Lol. Baylor was probably paying players when other teams were not. Now everyone pays. So you do consider the arena as a player and as a Coach too.

OU's arena is a dump too, but they just invested a ton of money to build a new state-of-the-art basketball arena.

Duke still plays in a barn, more or less.
But over the years they've made it into a damn nice barn

I'd say they're ok in basketball.

North Carolina's Dean Dome is pretty "blah" as well. It's cool because it's UNC basketball, but the building, concourses, concessions, seating, etc. are just about as generic as you can get. UNC administration has been wrestling for years on whether to do a major renovation or to build a new facility.

Yea, the building is important...but there are plenty of cases where successful, blue-blood teams play in ho-hum arenas...UNC, Duke, Indiana, Michigan State, Florida, UCLA, Arizona...there is nothing special about any of those facilities.

If you expect to be taken seriously, any renderings must include a lazy river. Otherwise, whats the point?

Ag1188 said:

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Ag13 said:

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I'm all for architectural uniformity (which has never been A&M's strong suit) - but Baylor won a national championship in men's basketball and multiple national championships in women's basketball playing in this:



The millions it would take for a facelift of Reed Arena would be much more effectively spent on acquiring the best talent possible.

Our history of basketball mediocrity has very little, if anything, to do with the outside appearance of Reed Arena.

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Are you really suggesting players don't care what arena they play at home in? Lol. Baylor was probably paying players when other teams were not. Now everyone pays. So you do consider the arena as a player and as a Coach too.

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Yes. I am 100% saying that players do not care at all what an arena looks like, especially on the outside. Unless they are architecture majors I guess. All that matters is how big their check is.

Rupp Arena looks like a Costco:



The Dean Dome looks like about 1000 generic office buildings that I drive by on my way to work:



Pauley Pavilion looks like a modernist church:



Thompson-Boling Arena looks like a corrugated cardboard box from Amazon:



LSU's PMAC looks like a space ship landed next to the football stadium:



Defending national champion Florida plays at the O'Connell Center which also gives UFO vibes and actually somehow has a natatorium within it:




And I am not for a second suggesting that what goes on inside Reed Arena is somehow on par with the histories of UK, UNC, UCLA, or Florida - just that the exterior of the arenas is 100% irrelevant to the discussion. As a matter of fact, unless you've been to a basketball arena, I bet you can't picture what a single other SEC arena looks like on the outside. The reason is because it is irrelevant. As bad as we think Reed Arena might be (the grass doesn't grow because of tailgates!) it's pretty average for the SEC and college basketball at large.

I mean there's definitely a difference between an iconic old arena with tons of history and just a crappy one built in 1998. Like from an amenities standpoint Allen Fieldhouse is a POS, but it's Allen Fieldhouse.

But yes, the outside of the arena doesn't matter at all. It also doesn't matter for players. Our practice facilities and locker rooms are nice and that's what really matters. But it does matter in your ability to get butts in seats and generate revenue.

This has been talked about on here plenty, but the goal of any entertainment experience is to make people WANT to spend money. They spend it, and they're happy they spent it because the experience was worth it.

I'd probably contend that the upper deck at Reed Arena is the worst place I've ever watched a college basketball game.

Hell I thought we were being trolled by that arena in Arlington where we played SMU earlier this year because when you first walked in you were overwhelmed by the smell of freshly popped popcorn as opposed to our bags of stale popcorn that was popped in 1999.

well concessions are a completely different issue.

We could build a billion dollar arena with the nicest **** in the world.

Levy still would be running concession. Which means stale popcorn, week old sausage wraps, and warm bottles of water

Might be one advantage to having an off campus venue if we can get popcorn popped this century.

well the Hensel park is still A&M property, my guess is levy would still have the rights.

Now when this is build in 2059, levy might have figured out how to chill water

they will bring back Sharp as some computer generated AI thing and he'll sign levy to another 100 year deal

Amazing how teams with lesser facilities than Reed Arena have gone to the Elite 8
and way beyond. Reed did not keep our NC VB team from winning!

Sure a face lift, some clean up, some landscaping, some high dollar boxes and some
good concessions could help! I think Bucky will get it done on the court!

As colleges look for more revenue streams to fund athletics (more specifically, athletes), a new arena could open the door to more event opportunities.

Kyle Field is doing its part, but a revamped Reed Arena could host more midsized concerts and events. I'm not sure what the agreement is with the city, but it seems mutually beneficial.

Texas has it so good with that Moody Center.

I doubt they ever build a new arena
So, facelift the outside top to bottom and completely gut the inside
Improve seating, which would mean less seats, remove the freaking awful handrails in the upper level that blocks the view and expand the concourse area - needs to be much larger
Add a couple of open areas where the arena isn't completely closed off to the concourse
It's possible to improve it greatly imo

But the AD isn't getting much of the revenue from evens in Moody. It's the private group that built it. And I don't think we can generate that much in concerns we're too close to other places that can already host those concerns

Plus who's gonna pay for the 300+ million to build it in the first place

We've spent money on Reed. New locker rooms we've redone them at least once. They have done concourse updates.

Again who's gonna pay for shinny new arena?

didn't you read the other thread? Buc-ee's, obviously.

I know it's never going to happen, I just think it's wild that any time it comes up people suddenly act like spending money on a facility is basically lighting it on fire when we light money on fire all the time.

Doesn't Reed Arena have some sort of weird ownership to it or something? Or am I imagining that? Seems like I recall the Athletic Dept. (or 12th Man Foundation?) owns all of our sports facilities outright, but there's a shared ownership of Reed between the AD (or TMF) and the TAMU System. I could be completely dreaming that up, but something sticks in my head about Reed being an atypical sports facility - compared to our other venues - when it comes to ownership, management, and/or general decision making.

There used to be something with that, but I don't think that's the case anymore.

BQ_90 said:

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but then you have no parking

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West Campus Garage, MSC Garage and three new garages at Reed. Actually increases parking. You can always add a few floors to the Commons garage to make up the ground. We should also consider putting subterranean parking under the Simpson Drill Field

bobinator said:

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Quote:

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Texas has it so good with that Moody Center.

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Yeah and I think we can all be realistic and realize that they're in the middle of a metro area with like 2 million people, we're never going to get anything like that palace that they have.

But it always amazes me that Reed Arena is the one venue that when you bring up that it sucks, everyone acts like facilities have nothing to do with winning or that they're completely beside the point.

We've spent or are committed to spend like $50M in the last fifteen years on the baseball facility, a sport that practically nobody watches, and it's the MOST popular sport of the sports facilities we've built lately. $26M on a new softball stadium. $40M on a track and field stadium...

Yet bring up doing ANYTHING to the arena that houses one of the only sports with the potential to make money and now two national champion winning female sports, let alone the potential for other events, concerts, etc.. and people like spending money on stadiums is a waste of money.

Maybe it is, but if we're wasting money anyway this sure seems like a better way to waste it to me.

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Oh, I certainly wouldn't expect to have anything like the Moody Center. Just lamenting the comparison...

And, yes. Exactly. The baseball and softball upgrades only benefitted one sport. Reed Arena benefits three teams, plus graduation, etc. Doesn't seem crazy to want a better facility there when we've had such nice ones built all around it.

bobinator said:

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I know it's never going to happen, I just think it's wild that any time it comes up people suddenly act like spending money on a facility is basically lighting it on fire when we light money on fire all the time.

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Totally agree. Not to change the subject, but its the same issue with our God awful campus golf course. We are one of the preeminent ag colleges in the country with turf management as a specialty and we have a golf course taking up 20% of campus that is routinely a dead grass, dirt pile with little to no trees and right at the main entry points to campus. That thing should be pristine, or trash it and expand campus that way.

Glad you brought a few of those ups. Florida, LSU and Stanford all use their arenas for football reasons too, which adds to the revenue lines. Reason I want it where Koldus is. And we need a smaller, more basketball friendly arena.

Texas_Ag11 said:

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bobinator said:

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I know it's never going to happen, I just think it's wild that any time it comes up people suddenly act like spending money on a facility is basically lighting it on fire when we light money on fire all the time.

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Totally agree. Not to change the subject, but its the same issue with our God awful campus golf course. We are one of the preeminent ag colleges in the country with turf management as a specialty and we have a golf course taking up 20% of campus that is routinely a dead grass, dirt pile with little to no trees and right at the main entry points to campus. That thing should be pristine, or trash it and expand campus that way.

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If the golf teams still used the campus course, they would likely invest more money into it. But since the teams use Traditions as their home course, there's no need to make the campus course anything more than a glorified municipal track. I played the campus course about 2 months ago and it was fine. Nothing special, but fine.

What got me was how much junk was piled up around the course. Like old slabs of concrete or fallen trees. They just pushed them into a pile off to the side, but didn't take the time to haul them away. It made it look trashy.

They just hired a new superintendent in December - hopefully the new guy will clean it up and make it a little more aesthetically pleasing.

Why wouldn't you tear down Reed and put it where the golf course is located. Do we really need a golf course on campus? It takes up a ton of prime real estate. And it would expand parking on East and West campus.

(Sorry…didn't read ahead on the thread and commented too soon. My bad.)

Or keep it and build a basketball only arena elsewhere.

bobinator said:

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Reed doesn't need a facelift, it needs to be torn out of the earth and rebuilt completely.

Supposedly the university and the city are starting to kick the tires on an event center/basketball arena that would be closer to century square but at the rate those things move even if it does happen we'll all be dead before it does.

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Article back from September talking about this:

https://www.kbtx.com/2025/10/01/hensel-park-considered-potential-multi-use-event-center-location/

halfastros81 said:

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Or keep it and build a basketball only arena elsewhere.

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That seems to be the trend. New, smaller basketball / volleyball arena with the old multi-use facility remaining for non-sport events. The problem as I see it, is Reed's location is the best location for the sports only facility. And if the cities are participating I wouldn't a new convention center there.

I think a renovation will ultimately the right move which means they'll probably do nothing or something different. But, if they do a renovation avoid putting lipstick on a pig.

Unlike some of the pessimists here, I actually suspect you might see movement in short order on the arena front, similar to football after 2012

Burn it down