LEXINGTON — When Georgetown first visited Rupp Arena, it wasn’t even 10 years old and still considered a state-of-the-art venue for college basketball. The Hoyas fell to Villanova 66-64 in the 1985 NCAA championship game.
The Hoyas were back Thursday and beat Kentucky basketball 84-70 in the final exhibition before the regular season starts early next week. It was their first foray into Rupp Arena since that historic upset in the first and only Final Four held there.
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The arena they visited this time is way past being considered a marvel for others to imitate.
For all the renovations and creative ways UK has used to generate revenue streams out of playing basketball games at Rupp Arena, it may actually end up holding the Wildcats back.
Oh, it’s still up there with the many storied places to watch a college basketball game including Allen Fieldhouse at Kansas, Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke and the Dean E. Smith Center at North Carolina, which had its designers consult with the builders of Rupp before it opened for play there in 1986.
The Smith Center, like Rupp Arena, has one concourse and is limited by the structure of the building in that it can’t build luxury suites as part of a substantial renovation. That’s why in February reports leaked that the university was considering building a new arena as part of an entertainment space that would include residential and commercial properties.
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Plans were specific enough that it was reported 20% of a new 16,000-seat arena would be for premium seating, including luxury suites.
The new wave of college athletics doesn’t respect tradition. It respects tremendous cream — that means dollar bills for the uninitiated.
“There’s not an easy answer there; you’re going to be threading the needle always,” UK coach Mark Pope said. “You can’t be held hostage by sentimentality and tradition, but you have to honor it.”
These athletes have to be paid. And your favorite program isn’t going to annually attract the best players without annually having the financial resources to pay for them.
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The rapidly changing landscape in college athletics is putting an onus on maxing out funds like every four years in presidential campaigns. Except the strain on boosters’ pockets is season to season now.
UK doesn’t want to be found leaving money on the table.
The most recently posted Equity in Athletic Data Analysis from the 2023-24 reporting cycle showed that Kentucky men’s basketball generated $30.9 million in revenue. (By comparison, its football program was at $46.6 million.)
When Louisville was at its peak under former coach Rick Pitino, men’s basketball led the nation in generating revenue, as it cleared $40 million regularly. U of L doesn’t quite have the same deal that helped those numbers, but it still has the advantage of playing in a state-of-the-art facility with 71 luxury suites, 62 premium boxes and more than 2,000 sidecourt club seats.
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Now imagine if Kentucky had a facility that could do that. It won’t happen for a while as UK’s current lease with Rupp Arena runs through the 2032-33 season.
Last month, Champions Blue LLC approved a pre-design for a new basketball practice facility that would partner with UK HealthCare in creating sports medicine research areas near Kroger Field. That falls in line with Pope’s responding that the Cats have to find a way to both be on the cutting edge in generating revenue and keeping step with what built the program.
“We want to keep leading the way with innovation and kind of being a forward-thinking group — and to do it while we’re honoring tradition,” Pope said. “That’s actually the real answer. So we have to find a way to do that where we’re really, really emphasizing the beauty of this building that’s been here and celebrated some great teams for so long.”
College sports will never get back to a place where it’s not all about chasing dollars. Kentucky has to figure out the best way to keep up, with or without Rupp Arena being part of the mix.
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Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Rupp Arena no longer state-of-art facility. Kentucky might need change
