Suttles: Alabamas plan to leave Coleman Coliseum, build new basketball arena is the bold move it

Mal Moore once told me that he knew Alabama football had fallen behind when he hosted some out-of-state guests, dignitaries from another university who were underwhelmed when they toured the football facilities. Particularly Bryant-Denny Stadium. The former athletic director thought he was showing off and instead was mortified. The lesson he took from that experience, one served with a side of embarrassment, was that standing still was falling behind.

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Alabama basketball has fallen behind. Not in the product it puts on the floor. But under the roof where that floor resides.

Coleman Coliseum has needed to be replaced for a while, and now Alabama is doing just that with the board of trustees recently approving a $183 million plan for a new arena. It’s been a long time coming, and it took patient leadership to ensure that it got it right at this moment in history.

After athletic director Greg Byrne and others traveled the country and compared the Crimson Tide’s basketball venue to others, it was concluded that Coleman Coliseum was in the bottom third of the SEC in basketball arenas. Given its resources, Alabama should never be in the bottom third of anything in the SEC. That doesn’t mean there are unlimited resources for every project that’s desired, but if the majority of other schools in the conference have something and Alabama doesn’t, there’s a problem.

It was a different route than Moore traveled in determining Crimson Tide football facilities were lagging, but Byrne arrived at the same conclusion, wisely eschewing plans to simply renovate Coleman and building from scratch instead.

That decision came with a much heftier price tag. And for fans, it’s always easy to spend other people’s money. Contrary to popular belief, Alabama does not have unlimited resources. It does quite well in its revenue and its benefactors are more than generous, but there isn’t a Scrooge McDuck pool full of gold to dive into whenever it wants something. The leadership must be good stewards of money generated, both within the athletic department and from donations.

It would have been much easier fiscally for Byrne to move forward with a renovation of Coleman. The truth is, the old building houses so much of the athletic department’s infrastructure that it was never going to go away. And it won’t now. Given that, it might have made some sense to dump more millions into the current facility and keep moving forward as planned. But the time was right at this moment in history to make a bold move to ensure the future of Alabama basketball.

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This place in time makes the $183 million risk worth it. Third-year coach Nate Oats has done a remarkable job in rebuilding the Crimson Tide men’s basketball program, highlighted by regular-season and tournament championships a season ago. It was the first regular-season SEC title for Alabama since 2002 and the first SEC tournament championship since 1991. He guided the Crimson Tide to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2004. It’s only right that the program that he helped jump-start has its future secure with the building of a first-class facility. Meanwhile, the women’s basketball team under Kristy Curry is coming off of its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1999.

The athletic department has been faced with the debate to apply a makeover or build something new before. Most recently, Sewell-Thomas Stadium went through a major overhaul that completely transformed the facility and added amenities and premium seating to the old baseball venue. There was talk of choosing a new locale and building a new facility. They chose to go with a renovation, and if you’ve been to a game there, you’ll know that it was a well-done makeover.

But the university made a similar decision that did not address the core of the problem of Coleman Coliseum throughout the 2000s. It poured $22 million into a Coleman facelift in 2005, but that money was concentrated on the exterior of the building and in widening the concourse, etc. The university also renovated historic Foster Auditorium at a cost of $16 million for women’s basketball and volleyball to compete. Adjusted for inflation, that’s approximately $52 million invested in facilities upgrades for basketball since 2005, and that’s not including the practice facilities that opened in 2016 inside Coleman Coliseum and a new $2 million video board for Coleman installed in 2009.

That’s a lot of money thrown at the problem without addressing the main one. Those same problems are the ones that Byrne is now addressing because a renovation, even one well done, would not have checked every wish list. Nicely put, Coleman Coliseum as it exists is a dark, cavernous venue that, through design flaws, has issues in getting fans close to the court. And even an expensive renovation wouldn’t have completely resolved that issue.

The best home-court advantages are created with fans. The closer the fans are to the competition, the louder and more intimidating they can be in game. And the fans closest to the court in Coleman Coliseum sometimes don’t show up for games. Tide Pride, which is a ticketing arm of the athletic department, incentivizes fans to purchase tickets for all sports to procure Tide Pride points. Your amount of Tide Pride points is what allows you to purchase better football tickets, postseason games, etc.

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And that is why the new arena, upon which someone’s name could sit for the right price, is so important for the future of Alabama basketball. It’s easier than ever to sit at home and watch a basketball game. Especially those mid-week games with 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. tip times. Even ESPN announcers aren’t attending some of these games, instead calling them from home. Just as with football, that’s a problem for an athletic department. To entice fans to come to games, you have to promise them more than just a seat. You have to give them good opponents and you have to deliver on atmosphere. With Coleman, you were never sure what you were going to get in that regard. With the new arena, with fans and most importantly students close to the court, the chance of an excellent atmosphere rises.

That’s why Byrne and the board of trustees are to be commended. It would have been easier to go with the original plan and simply renovate. And I’m sure that renovation would have been nice. But it wouldn’t have been what the new arena will be. The new arena gives families an incentive to get off their couch and go to a game.

There will be some drawbacks to it. Lowering capacity to just over 10,000 means the laws of supply and demand will be at work. Tickets will be harder to come by and therefore likely more expensive. That’s part of the deal. The feeling of exclusivity can be a good thing, though.

Oats has built Alabama into a must-watch program. That feeling will only increase in a new arena, though one of the biggest questions remaining is when.

The arena won’t open next year or the year after or the year after. The reality of a new construction of this magnitude means there are lots of steps to go through. Studies and tests of the proposed site will need to be conducted. There will be a bidding process. There will be delays, and the target date and cost will likely move. That should come as no surprise to anyone who’s built or renovated a home. The old adage remains true: Expect it to take longer and cost more than the estimates. The money will need to be raised, as well. There are steps to this, and Alabama and Byrne are in the early stages.

Those things will be accomplished in time. The focus now should be on recognizing that the leadership at Alabama didn’t take the easier way out for a new basketball facility. Too often for sports outside of football, it did. Not this time.

Winning takes bold leadership. Alabama has had that in football for the past 15 years. Alabama basketball got that this time from the athletic director to the president to the chancellor to the board of trustees. Alabama is getting its new basketball facility right.

(Photo: Michael Chang / Getty Images)

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