Another reason we’re ready for the NBA: We’ve got the facilities to prove it. Our new NBA team will play at the YUM! Center in downtown Louisville — a pro sports arena that seats up to 22,090 basketball fanatics and has its own in-house practice floor.
“The people that designed the Yum Center did so with the anticipation that it would one day be home to an NBA team. It has all the features to automatically make it one of the top arenas in the league, including a separate practice floor that is necessary when other events are taking place in the main arena.” — Dan Issel
Why does it matter that the YUM! Center holds 22,090 fans? Because the United Center in Chicago is the largest NBA arena in the country, and it seats 20,917. That’s right — our arena exceeds the capacity of the home of the Chicago Bulls or the STAPLES Center (20,000 seats) in LA or Madison Square Garden (20,789) in New York.
Located on the Ohio River waterfront in downtown Louisville, YUM! is decked out with five locker rooms, seven levels, nine escalators, 75 luxury suites, 8,750 square feet of sports bars on the main concourse, an in-house practice floor — the list goes on. Right now, the teams that play most at the “Chicken Bowl” (as some of the locals call it) are UofL’s men’s and women’s basketball squads, but when an NBA team moves here, they could start playing at YUM! tomorrow.