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First Horizon Coliseum

Multi-purpose arena in Greensboro, NC From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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First Horizon Coliseum (formerly Greensboro Coliseum) is an arena in Greensboro, North Carolina. Opened in 1959 as the first building of the Greensboro Complex, the 22,000-seat arena is the home arena of the UNC Greensboro Spartans basketball team, and will serve as home arena of the Greensboro Gargoyles of the ECHL.

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It has a history in hosting college basketball games, having been a recurring host of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball tournaments, and early-round games in the NCAA tournament. As it was the largest arena in the state for a period, the Coliseum previously hosted a number of neutral site games involving North Carolina's teams; Wake Forest regularly played marquee and ACC games at the Coliseum from 1959 to 1989.

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History

The arena was first proposed in 1944 by Greensboro mayor W.H. Sullivan to honor the soldiers who fought in World War I and World War II.[3] The building was approved and venue construction commenced in 1958 and was finalized by September 1959 and opened one month later. Initially named the "Greensboro Memorial Coliseum"[4] (a title it retained until 1980), the arena welcomed its first event on October 29, 1959. At its inception, the Coliseum had a seating capacity of 7,100, making it one of the largest arenas on the East Coast.[5] In 1993 the arena was expanded to reach a capacity of 22,000, where the arena stands today.

In October 2024, the arena announced a ten-year naming rights agreement with First Horizon Bank, under which it was renamed First Horizon Coliseum.[6]

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Events

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Over the years, the Coliseum has been the site of numerous sporting events, particularly basketball. Additionally, it has hosted concerts for over four decades. During the 1960s and 1970s, the venue attracted rock and R&B artists, with The Monkees being the first major act to perform there. Elvis Presley held a concert on April 14, 1972, and footage from this event was featured in his last film, titled Elvis on Tour. Presley returned to the Coliseum for another concert on April 21, 1977, shortly before his passing on August 16. On April 24, 2010, Christian band Casting Crowns recorded their live album, Until the Whole World Hears... Live, at the Coliseum. The rock band Phish set the attendance record for a concert at the venue on March 1, 2003, with 23,642 fans present.[7]

The Coliseum also hosted 102 JAMZ SuperJam from 1997 to 2014, featuring well-known artists from the hip hop scene, including LL Cool J, Soulja Boy, Ludacris, Ja Rule, Piles, Nas, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, Travis Porter, and the Ying Yang Twins.

Additionally, the Coliseum was the venue for American Idol auditions for season 5 on October 3, 2005. From July 8 to 10, 2012, it served as the Greensboro audition site for the second season of The X Factor.

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Expansions

1972

After the Greensboro Coliseum started to get fame, in 1968, the people of Greensboro voted to increase the capacity of the Coliseum from 9,000 to 15,500[11] to meet the demands. It was eventually approved and the construction started in 1970. The brand-new arena was completed in 1972. When it was finished it had many more events at the venue.

1978

In 1978, they expanded the Coliseum and expanded the Special Events Center to connect to the Coliseum. It was called the "Exhibition Center" at the time with three new exhibition centers and eight meeting rooms. It was renamed to the Special Events Center after a new arena was made.[12]

1993

In 1991, the Coliseum's manager (Jim Evans) proposed an additional expansion of the complex. The construction started two years later in 1993. This expansion would raise the seating capacity of the Coliseum an additional 8,000 (adding a third tier) to 23,000; however, this capacity would later be lowered to around 20,000 after renovations in the late 2010s.[13]

Sports

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Basketball

The Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association played a majority of their home games at the Greensboro Coliseum during their tenure in North Carolina from 1969 to 1974,[14] before moving to St. Louis and becoming the Spirits of St. Louis. The Greensboro City Gaters played their first and only season as a charter franchise of the Global Basketball Association minor league in 1991–1992 in the Greensboro Coliseum.[15]

From 1959 to 1989, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons basketball team played a portion of its home schedule at the Coliseum, usually games against popular opponents that could not be accommodated in the smaller Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum. In practice, Wake Forest played most of its ACC games during this period at the Coliseum. From the 1960s to the 1980s, North Carolina, Duke and North Carolina State frequently played neutral-site games at the Coliseum, as it was the state's largest arena at the time. The Tar Heels still occasionally play a neutral-site game here, as late as 2012. Between its service as Wake Forest's de facto primary home court and its many neutral-site and postseason games, the Coliseum has hosted many of the most important basketball games in North Carolina's history.[16]

Since 2010, the UNC Greensboro Spartans men's basketball team has played at the Coliseum, having moved there from the smaller Fleming Gymnasium on the campus of UNCG.[17][18] For Spartans games, most of the upper level is curtained off; this leaves a capacity of about 7,500.

The Coliseum has played host to many college basketball tournaments. The Coliseum has hosted games during 14 NCAA Division I men's tournaments (with its most recent being first and second round games in 2023); it hosted the 1974 Final Four (where the NC State Wolfpack won the national championship in its first appearance in the game),[19] as well as Lehigh's upset of Duke in 2012. It also hosted the NCAA Division I women's tournament in 2007 and 2008. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) has held its men's basketball tournament at the Coliseum 26 times since 1967, the most of any venue.[20] This is in part because the arena was within seven hours' drive of the conference's original footprint, and is within an hour of most of the fanbases of the conference's heartland in North Carolina. The most recent event was in 2023, and will return in 2027. Barring one year, it also hosted the ACC women's basketball tournament from 2000 to 2025.

The Greensboro Coliseum hosted the Big Four Tournament from 1971 to 1981, and the MEAC men's basketball tournament ten times. It was also the host of the Southern Conference men's basketball tournament from 1996 to 1999.

Ice hockey

The hockey history of Greensboro began in 1959, when the Greensboro Generals of the Eastern Hockey League arrived and competed until the league folded in 1973. The team moved to the Southern Hockey League for four seasons until it too ceased operations in January 1977.

Greensboro hockey's modern era began with the establishment of the Greensboro Monarchs of the East Coast Hockey League, who played from 1989–90 to 1994–95. When the American Hockey League expanded southward in 1995, it invited Greensboro to join; the new team took the Monarchs nickname, but attempted to draw a more regional fan base by labeling themselves the Carolina Monarchs.

When the Hartford Whalers announced their move to Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1997 as the Carolina Hurricanes, they leased the Coliseum for two years while waiting for the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena (now Lenovo Center) in Raleigh to be completed.[21] Subjected to ticket price increases and unwilling to support a team that was destined for Raleigh, Greensboro hockey fans rarely filled the arena for Hurricane games. Meanwhile, Triangle fans were unwilling to make the hour-long drive across Interstate 40 to Greensboro. As a result, the Hurricanes played in front of some of the smallest NHL crowds since the 1950s. During the 1998–99 season, the team curtained off most of the upper deck for home games in an effort to artificially create scarcity in the ticket market, force would-be attendees to purchase higher-priced tickets, and hide what national media mocked as "green acres" of empty seats.[22]

Once the Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena was completed and the Hurricanes moved out, the plan was that the Monarchs, who spent those two years in New Haven, Connecticut, as the Beast of New Haven, would move back into the venue as a Hurricanes affiliate. Monarchs owner Bill Black tried to bring the Monarchs back to Greensboro, but the Hurricanes refused to claim the Monarchs as their affiliate. After the deal fell through, Bill Black tried to sell shares to the public in a final attempt to bring the Monarchs back to Greensboro.[citation needed]

Rather than leave the Coliseum without a hockey team for the first time in more than 10 years, a new hockey team was founded, the Greensboro Generals, returning the city to the East Coast Hockey League. The Generals competed in the arena until 2004, when they were terminated by the ECHL due to poor performance and lackluster support from the community.[23] Increased operating expenses from the ECHL Players Union and overhead costs as a result of recent Coliseum renovations significantly affected the Generals' ability to promote within the community. It was revealed that after the team folded, nearly all of the money used to support the team over and above ticket revenues, could have been covered by Coliseum advertising revenue that was purchased as a direct result of the hockey team's presence.

After the Generals folded, the complex saw a significant revenue drop in local advertising and to this day, the Coliseum operations must be supplemented with nearly $2 million a year from the city government.[24]

On October 18, 2024, the ECHL announced that an expansion franchise had been awarded to Greensboro and that the new team would begin play at the Coliseum in the 2025-2026 season.[25] The League would later announce on January 14, 2025 that the team would be named the Greensboro Gargoyles.[26]

Arena football

The Coliseum first saw an arena football team when the Greensboro Prowlers of the af2 league played in the Coliseum from 1999 until 2004. The team folded due to a poor record and lack of fan support. The Greensboro Revolution of the National Indoor Football League played here in 2006 and 2007. The team ceased operations on January 23, 2008.

In 2018, the Coliseum began to host the Carolina Cobras, an expansion team of the National Arena League. The Cobras went on to win the league championship, going 10–5 in the regular season and winning their two playoff games, both hosted at the Coliseum. They defeated the Columbus Lions with a final score of 66–8. The team is still in operation today and has played for the championship in 4 of the last 5 seasons.[27]

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Tenants

Some of the past and present tenants at the First Horizon Coliseum.

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See also

References

External links

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