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Fifth Third Arena
Fifth Third Arena, which opened in 1989, was built recently enough that it was costly and still feels fairly
new, but it was also built before recent advances in stadium design and the battle to build comfortable, intimate, loud arenas
across the nation.
So what UC got serves the school and the team well enough. It's a 13,176-seat two-decked college basketball
facility on campus that can also serve as a large gym. What is lacks is great design.
Outside, Fifth Third Arena is a nice-looking building, mostly brick, with some stone pillars and a statue
of former UC great Oscar Robertson. Inside, though, it is fairly plain. There are two concourses, one along each sideline
behind the seats. They are not connected except by an aisle atop the end seating sections.
The design of the arena is fairly simple. The building is a rectangle, and along two opposite sides of the
rectangle is a straight-line upper deck. The facade of the upper deck creates a smaller rectangle, on each side of which projects
a lower section of seating. Together, these sections surround the court. Between the lower and upper decks on the two sides
are luxury suites.
The arena can be deceiving because the seating sections are larger than they appear on television. The upper
deck is a significant distance from the court, meaning corner upper deck sightlines are not so good, especially because they
are not angled toward the center of the court as they are at many more modern arenas.
During the heyday of the Bob Huggins era, Fifth Third Arena, known as the Shoemaker Center at the time,
sold out every game. It would get extremely loud, with large student sections at each end of the court. The biggest flaw with
the arena, though, cut down on good seats, and cut down on noise: Because the four sections of seating around the court were
rectangular sections, they do not connect in the corners, but instead leave large open square sections there, where there
are no fans and a lot of dead space.
Fifth Third Arena is by no means a perfect arena, and it will not be too many more years before UC fans
begin clamoring to have it replaced. But it is a nice enough venue for the Bearcats, and it is recognizable and has a
unique atmosphere. But more important to UC fans right now is that the team improves. When this arena is sold out, it is a
better venue.
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