Staples Center

Staples Center is a multipurpose sports arena in downtown Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District. It is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex. Staples Center was financed privately at a cost of $375 million USD and is named for the Staples office-supply company, one of the center's corporate sponsors that paid for naming rights.

History

Staples Center opened on October 17 1999, and immediately won recognition, becoming a two-time winner of the PollStar-CIC Arena of the Year award. It has gained fame as the home of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA, the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA, the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL, and the Los Angeles Avengers of the AFL. It is the only arena that is home to five professional sports franchises. Hosting more than 250 events and nearly 4 million visitors a year, Staples Center has been a premier venue for high-profile sports and entertainment events as well as events of national and international distinction. Since its opening day, Staples Center has hosted the 2000 Democratic National Convention, the 2002 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the 2002 NHL All-Star game, the 2004 NBA All-Star Game, the 2004 Pac 10 Basketball Championships, the WTA Tour Championships from 2002 to 2005, the first ever Latin Grammy Awards in 2000, the annual Grammy Awards since 2000, the Pac 10 Men's Basketball Tournament since 2002, the X Games indoor competitions since 2003, the Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC 60 pay per view event, as well as numerous Concerts and HBO Championship Boxing matches. In addition to hosting the attendance record setting WrestleMania 21 in 2005, the Staples Center has also hosted WWE Unforgiven in 2002 and WWE Judgment Day in 2004 as well as other WWE events, including the upcoming WWE No Way Out in 2007.

The arena

There are a total of 12 locker and dressing rooms, including team-specific locker rooms for the Lakers, Clippers, and Kings. There are a series of meeting rooms in the arena, including the Bank of America conference area on the suite level and additional rooms in the attached, three-story office tower. There are extensive hospitality facilities, including a magnificent arena restaurant and club space on the suite level at one end of the arena, overlooking the arena floor.

Spectator amenities include a full-service ticket window, 1,200 television monitors throughout the facility, 23 refreshment stands spread among the arena's five concourses, as well as the Fox Sports SkyBox restaurant on the main plaza, the Royal Room on main concourse, the Arena Club and Grand Reserve Club above the premier seating level, and the outdoor City View Grille, offering a look at the downtown skyline. There is also a TeamLA store on the plaza level, accessible from outside the arena, and offers a complete array of apparel and merchandise for the arena's resident teams and top events. Event presentation is augmented by a $2 million specialty lighting package, a $1.5 million Bose sound system, a Mitsubishi eight-sided, center-court scoreboard and videoboard, as well as a fascia board along the upper seating level, provided by Daktronics.

Staples Center seats up to 20,000 for concerts, 18,997 for basketball, and 18,118 for hockey and arena football. Two-thirds of the arena's seating, including 2,500 club seats, are in the lower bowl, and there are 160 luxury suites, including 15 event suites, on three levels between the lower and upper bowls. The arena's attendance record is held by WWE WrestleMania 21 with a crowd of 20,193 set on April 3, 2005.

Future developments

Although Staples Center is already a Los Angeles icon, it is only a part of a much larger 4-million ft² development by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) adjoining the Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center. A downtown Los Angeles sports and entertainment destination, known as L.A. Live, broke ground on September 15, 2005. L.A. Live is designed to offer entertainment, retail and residential programming in the downtown Los Angeles area.

The multi-faceted entertainment destination will feature entertainment venues, restaurants, retail commercial and residential spaces, television and radio broadcast studios, and concert spaces. Highlights of the district will include a four star, 1,100 room convention center headquarters hotel, a 40,000 ft² outdoor plaza, an ESPN broadcast and restaurant facility, Regal Theatres, as well as Club Nokia, the Nokia Theatre Los Angeles, and Nokia Plaza.

Nokia Theatre Los Angeles will be a premier mid-sized music and theatre venue featuring state-of-the-art acoustics and seating for 7,000. The Theatre will host the Latin Grammy Awards and ESPY Awards, as well as numerous other productions from VH1, MTV, and BET. It is also available for corporate shareholder meetings, product launches, and seminars. Club Nokia will be a club for live music and cultural events. The stand-alone club, which will accommodate up to 2,400 patrons, will feature up and coming music acts, bands, and cultural shows. The club may also be used to host private parties and corporate events. Nokia Plaza will a 40,000 ft² open-air plaza that will serve as the central meeting place for Los Angeles' Sports and Entertainment District. The Plaza will serve as one of the district's key anchors, providing a broadcast venue featuring giant LED screens as well as a red carpet site for special events. The Nokia venues will be part of the "Nokia Unwired" marketing platform, which will bring live music to fans in both the Nokia venues and through "Nokia Presents Hard Rock Live" on MTV.

Trivia

Staples Center is the only arena that is home to five professional sports franchises.
Outside the arena are statues of Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson, although both Los Angeles sports legends played at The Forum (formerly known as the Great Western Forum), where the Kings, Lakers and Sparks previously played. (The Los Angeles Clippers previously played at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.)
In 2005, most of the purple seats were reupholstered to black seats.
The press box in the arena is named for Bob Miller, who has worked as the voice of the Kings for 33 years.
The press room, located on the Event Level, is named after Chick Hearn.
Staples Center was named New Major Concert Venue (2000) and Arena of the Year (2000 and 2001) by Pollstar Magazine and has been nominated each year since its 1999 opening.
Staples Center measures 950,000 ft² (88,000 m²) of total space, with a 94- by 200-foot (29 by 61 m) arena floor. It stands 150 feet (46 m) tall.
Load-in at the arena is accommodated through a floor-level dockway. There is a 15,000 ft² (1,400 m²) marshaling area for event production, as well as a dock area designed to accommodate up to six television production vehicles.
Staples Center features an eight-sided, center-court scoreboard featuring 4 12-by-15-foot (4 by 5 m) Mitsubishi DiamondVision video screens and 4 9 by 12 foot (3 by 4 m) messageboards. In addition, the arena contains 2 complete television control rooms and 34 fixed camera positions.
2,500 tons of structural steel and 73,000 yd³ (56,000 m³) of concrete were used to build Staples Center at a cost of $375 million.

External links

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History

The arena

Future developments

Trivia

See also

External links