PORTLAND – The new Oregon basketball arena will be named the Matthew Knight Arena, UO officials announced Saturday morning at the Rose Garden arena.
The announcement came at a press conference three hours before the tip-off of the Pape Jam tournament featuring both Oregon’s women’s and men’s teams.
The eldest son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny, Matthew Knight was 34 when he died in a diving accident in 2004 in El Salvador, where he was working on charitable work at a local orphanage.
Knight said Matthew was always one to “rebel” against authority, “and he had a particular way of tweaking the nose of his father,” Knight said.
“He inherited his father’s love for sports but if his father rooted for Georgetown he made sure he rooted for Connecticut. If his father rooted for Duke he made sure he rooted for North Carolina,” Knight said. “But that line stopped at the University of Oregon. He loved Oregon sports and indeed in the last five years of his life he went to more Oregon games than I did, and that’s saying a lot.”
The $227 million arena, which will seat 12,500 and is on track to be open by the 2010-11 season, has been oft-publicized for the considerable public opposition that nearly stopped the project altogether three years ago.
The University received its green light from the City of Eugene last month by receiving its conditional use permit that was not appealed.
Jim Bartko, UO executive senior associate athletic director, said estimates show the arena will make $8 million in revenue during the first season using 85 percent attendance in the arena as its estimate.
UO president Dave Frohnmayer said an “expert economist” believes the arena’s construction will bring in $300 million in economic impact for the Eugene/Springfield area in the next 24 months.
The idea of naming the arena for Matthew had been a possibility for the past two years, said Knight, whose gift of $100 million in July 2007 helped establish the Legacy Fund that is part of an endowment for Oregon athletics. Bartko said the goal of the Legacy Fund is to have 30 donors give at least $1 million, and there are currently 21 donors at that level of giving.
Knight said he looked toward the naming of Stanford University for Leland Stanford’s son, Leland Jr., as precedent.
Ticket prices were also a major part of the announcement. There are more than 5,700 seats in the lower bowl of the arena, whose season ticket prices range from $540 at for the 1,782 “backcourt loge” seats to the more exclusive 106 “courtside premier” seats that will cost $1,170 per season. All but three designated levels of seats – the most expensive and the two least expensive seats – will require a one-time construction fee that can be paid over a three-to-five year period. The most expensive construction fee is $2,500 for midcourt premier seats, while midcourt terrace seating (in the upper bowl) has a fee of $250.
Don and Elaine Newsome have been season ticket holders for Oregon football, basketball and track and field for 50 years, and were “surprised” with what they consider the prices’ affordability.
“I think they’re very reasonable,” Elaine said. “I thought it would really up the cost of our tickets and maybe we wouldn’t even be able to go but no, this sounds great.”
Bartko said several buildings around the nation were considered for designing the facility. The steep pitch of California’s Haas Pavilion, moreso than even McArthur Court, and seating for students at Maryland’s Comcast Center. With 2,000 seats for students, students will have 400 more seats than exist at McArthur Court. Seating for students will begin on floor level across from the team benches and extends leftward into one of the court’s end zones, where students will be seated all the way up to the last row in the upper deck.
Oregon Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny said the ticket prices don’t have as much as an identifiable lineage like the design aspects of the other schools, but said they have changed much because of the impact of the economy.
“A lot of this is a significant evolution from a lot of analysis from our peer group and exiting economics,” Kilkenny said. “We probably tweaked them toward the favor of the consumer.”
Kilkenny wants to open arena as a “fan”
Kilkenny has been very busy in the past two weeks, announcing the succession plan for Chip Kelly to become head football coach when Mike Bellotti decides to retire, when he will become athletic director. Kilkenny has previously said he will work with Bellotti during the transition period on an interim basis, but Saturday he said he hopes to be in a different capacity when the arena opens in 2010-11.
“I’m hoping to be a fan,” he said.
Kilkenny also said that the decision to step aside will be primarily Bellotti’s, calling the ratio “90-to-10 his.”
“He is going to be a great athletic director. I think I’m a pretty good project person, a builder, but I’m not really good at providing long-term stability and Mike will. The plan was never to make this very protracted.
“From my perspective sooner hopefully than later,” he added. “If I get a little antsy I’ll let him know.”
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