I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the new Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, and my first reaction was “wow.” The state-of-the-art design, vast space, numerous vendors — or exhibit booths — and surrounding luxury boxes easily make it one of the nicest venues in Maine, perhaps New England.
The $65 million arena is a magnificent facility. With the capacity to fit up to almost 8,000 patrons in seats comfortable enough to fall asleep in, any team would be lucky to call the Cross Insurance Center home court.
Twelve miles away, on the Orono campus, UMaine President Paul Ferguson has decided to make the Cross Insurance Center the home of the men’s and women’s basketball teams. Unfortunately, this comes as a “plan B” after years of fundraising efforts to renovate the aging Memorial Gymnasium in order to establish a home court for the Black Bears.
With $14 million dollars already committed to building a new home for the basketball teams, the renovation plan was called off months back after further cost-prohibitive complications arose.
Not all hope may be lost though, as the Cross Center could be a saving grace for the University of Maine basketball teams.
Pat Horne, the director of corporate partnerships for Cross Insurance Center’s managing company Global Spectrum, gave me the tour. According to Horne, it would be a good idea to bring Maine basketball to Bangor.
“There is a lot of excitement for the possibility,” Horne said. “There are a lot of alumni in the area. It’s a brand new facility with state-of-the-art dressing rooms, a great floor and the overall comfort of the whole arena is what people are excited about, and that is what I think the University of Maine is looking at down here.”
However, if the Black Bears’ home court were relocated to Bangor, attendance could risk being lower than it already is. The men’s basketball team had the third lowest average attendance in America East this past season, bringing in just over 1,200 fans per home game. Many college students don’t even have a car. If they can’t make it to a game on campus, it could be even more of a challenge to get them to a game in Bangor.
That said, students make up only a small portion of the regular fan base on non-promotional nights.
Also, the Cross Center would be able to sell beer, which is something you won’t see on campus.
“I’m sure there will be a coordinated effort by our marketing and promotions department to attract fans to Bangor, if it ends up being our venue for games,” said Ted Woodard, UMaine men’s basketball head coach. “It’s a beautiful facility, perfect size. It will be exciting to see events come to Bangor at the new arena.”
Despite the nearly unheard of premise of playing college basketball games away from the university’s campus, the facility itself may be too nice to overlook. Horne thinks that when players and coaches see the finished product — doors are set to open in September — playing off campus wouldn’t be an issue.
“When you look at this arena and compare to other arena’s, it stands out,” Horne said. “In addition, if I’m a player on the men’s or women’s team, to play in an arena like this versus the other arena’s in New England, you are going to get the opportunity to bring in recruits that might not play her without a first class arena. If you get several good players to build on the core you already have, you will be able to build excitement because the team starts doing well.”
Another thorn in the side, throughout the years of basketball coaches at UMaine, is the inability to routinely practice on the same court where home games are played. Maine has played the majority of their home games in the Alfond Arena. It costs an estimated $3,000 every time they have to switch the floor from ice to basketball court. No basketball team should play in an ice rink.
There are many pros and cons that Ferguson and director of athletics Steve Abbott must weigh to make this decision. I’m not sure what the best move is, but what I am sure of is that the Cross Insurance Center would be a nice facility to play basketball in.