Venue News: Barclays Center Celebrates One Year; New Stony Brook Arena Under Construction

Compiled by Karen Hogan, Associate Editor, Sports Video Group

Anyone who has walked past the Barclays Center has seen its famous 70,000-pound scoreboard, visible to all from the street. Keeping score of the Barclays Center’s financial performance and the economic impact it has had on the surrounding neighborhood and the city overall, has become a sport of its own — and in many ways the 18,200-seat arena is making big strides. Ticket and concession sales are booming at the glass and weathered steel-fronted sports and entertainment complex that has seen more than 2 million customers come through its doors and is now ranked as the country’s No.1 concert venue…

…There may not be another Division 1 school that has upgraded their entire athletic program as successfully and quickly as Stony Brook. A Division 3  school in all sports up until 1994 when they officially made the transition to Division 1, Stony Brook began offering athletic scholarships in a range of sports in 1999. It took several years, but the Seawolves have made tremendous strides. Ryan Restivo of Big Apple Buckets had an opportunity to get a sneak peak of the progression of the Stony Brook arena, which will cost $21.1 million when all is said and done in 2014. The capacity of the arena will be roughly 4,200…

… A Superior Court judge today awarded $84.5 million to two business partners who she said were cheated by the Wilf family out of revenues from a Montville apartment complex for more than 21 years. Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf, principal owner of the Minnesota Vikings, and two relatives must pay Ada Reichmann of Toronto a total of $51.8 million, including $12.6 million in compensatory damages, $20.4 million in punitive damages and $18.8 million in interest. According to legal associate Peter Harvey, there is “one piece of good news” in the situation – the decision will have “no impact” on plans in Minnesota to build a new $975 million stadium for the Vikings, with the Wilfs providing about half of the financing. A recent review by the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority determined the Wilfs have the financial resources to build the stadium, regardless of the lawsuit…

…Revel Systems, a leader in iPad point-of-sale (POS) solutions for restaurant, grocery, and retail business establishments, announced its first large-scale sports install for the Alabama State University (ASU) Hornets. The new state-of-the-art football ASU stadium opened during the first game of the 2013 football season on August 31 and is equipped with Revel’s iPad POS stations at all concession locations to provide lightning fast concession service to every fan during the football season. During ASU’s first home game of the 2013 season, more than 20,000 fans stormed the new ASU stadium, located in the heart of the ASU campus. Gourmet Services, who is utilizing Revel’s iPad POS system at the stadium, rang up a record 5,721 transactions in a few hours…

…Interim Mayor Todd Gloria said Thursday he had a positive 30-minute meeting this week with the San Diego Chargers executive who is spearheading the NFL team’s efforts to build a new stadium. The Monday meeting with Mark Fabiani came a couple of weeks after the Chargers proposed to the California Coastal Commission an alternative to the city’s plan to expand the San Diego Convention Center. The city plan would have all of the expansion on the current site and give the center the largest amount of contiguous floor space on the West Coast. The Chargers’ proposal would limit the expansion at the convention center location but would add a new stadium a few blocks away that could also provide space for major gatherings…

…Doug Beichley, a veteran of 20 years in sports architecture, has joined Populous as a principal. Beichley moves to Populous from AECOM, where he was a principal and a project manager. He started with the company in 1993 when it was known as Ellerbe Becket. Beichley left the firm in 1994 to start DLR Group’s office in Kansas City before rejoining Ellerbe in 1996. Over the past two decades, Beichley developed expertise in NBA arena design, both new and renovated, and college sports facilities.