The Dallas Stars are in a heated battle with the Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the playoffs this year, tied 2-2 and headed to Dallas for a pivotal Game 5. Regardless of how deep the team goes this season, general manager Jim Nill has set the team up to have many more battles in the playoffs in the years to come. But what isn’t as clear is where, exactly, those battles might be occurring past 2031.
For a building that is 24 years old, the American Airlines Center is surprisingly well kept in the modern age of sports facility development. In partnership with the City of Dallas, who owns the building, the Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks have done a pretty decent job of reinvesting into the arena over the years to upgrade the videoboards, lighting, seats, and concessions as well as doing bigger repairs to things like the roof that leaked after big storms came through (and Dallas gets its fair share of those every year).
But no matter how well you maintain a building, at a certain point major improvements are needed. The fan experience changes over time and new innovations are introduced to provide fans with more choices, amenities, convenience, and comfort.
What we now know, courtesy of a sit-down by Stars owner Tom Gaglardi with a select few of the Dallas media (myself, Lia Assimakopolus from the Dallas Morning News, Robert Tiffin of Stars Thoughts, Sam Nestler of DLLS, and Mike Heika for the team’s website), is that the Dallas Mavericks have indicated quite clearly that they do not intend to remain in the American Airlines Center past their current lease, which ends in 2031.
“Patrick and I had a conversation several months ago where he expressed to me that he wants to build a new arena, and would I go with him?” Gaglardi said. “‘Would the Stars come and play? We’ll build this and do all this wonderful stuff.’
“Patrick’s now done enough research and looking at these things, and he’s landed on that in order to optimize a building for basketball, that makes it difficult to play hockey in that arena. But that’s what he’s explained to me. I think before he thought the two sports would play together. He says the current model now, if you look at places like [the Intuit Dome], [Chase Center] in San Francisco, these buildings are not capable of hockey, and that’s kind of where it’s going. His attitude, I think, has changed in terms of what he wants to do.”
Here’s where I’m going to put on the hat of someone that has helped do market and financial feasibility studies regarding renovated or newly constructed sports facilities for over a decade and drop some knowledge. [Disclaimer: these are all general conclusions based on my experience. Situations are absolutely unique and there is absolutely no one-size-fits-all approach.]
There are plenty of pros and cons to the dual-tenant buildings. Pros: shared burden of operating expenses and capital investment, negotiating power in contracted services (like concessionaires or merchandising partners), shared burden of operating losses like during COVID pandemics. Cons: revenue sharing, lack of negotiating power for some sponsorship opportunities related to the physical building itself, lack of scheduling priority, less revenue potential from touring shows like concerts due to building availability, seating not optimally designed for your sport.
That last con is one of the main reasons we see each sport more and more going into its own building, particularly in larger markets that can support more than one arena. The proximity and steepness of seating to an ice sheet for optimal views is not the same as that needed for optimal sightlines to a basketball court. That’s simple geometry (it has to do with tread depths and riser heights and angles and a whole lot of very complicated math that architects figure out. Lucky for me, I’m just the ideas girl.)
With the Stars’ lease on the American Airlines Center also up in 2031, there are a few options on the table. Gaglardi was clear that they are very, very early into the process on what happens in the future for the hockey team in terms of an arena (though the one point of clarity is that you won’t see the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars sharing the same building past that time). Generally, the options fall into two buckets: they could look to renovate the current arena or build a brand new one somewhere in the Metroplex.
Either option is going to cost a good chunk of change (probably in the hundreds of millions or higher, with newer major league arenas costing upwards of $1 billion these days).
It may seem, intuitively, that a renovation would be less costly. But I am here to tell you that that is not always the case. In fact, I’ve seen estimates on projects where both options are being contemplated and the renovation actually costs more than building a brand new one.
And no, that’s not just some talking point some owner crying poor to get public contributions to the project is making up for funsies.
Over time, infrastructure deteriorates and requires mitigation or replacement. Think along the lines of the most unsexy of things: concrete, plumbing, electrical wiring, etc. All things that have zero impact on the fan experience or team’s function within the building and, therefore, are just straight up sunk costs that you can never have a chance to make money on to pay that cost off. That’s before you put any kind of investment into adding seating experiences, upgrading the food and beverage options, reconfiguring your space to better suit your team’s needs, widening your concourses, or any kind of expansion beyond the current building’s footprint to potentially add more space for all of those improvements.
So, what does the American Airlines Center actually need in terms of updates? Outside of the infrastructure stuff (which I am most definitely not an expert in, you need structural engineers and assessments for that), there’s a few things that would make the fan and team experience more closely match those of modern arenas like UBS Arena (New York Islanders) or Climate Pledge Arena (Seattle Kraken).
FAN AMENITIES
Generally, I think the overall fan experience is pretty good for arenas of this age. They’ve already tried to integrate things like grab-and-go markets and cashless payments and other technology designed to make it easier and faster for fans to get a beer or food and get back to their seats. There are always things they could do to update the food and beverage experience. The biggest, for me, is the variety of offerings. Get more local options in there. Let people eat a Velvet Taco and drink a Dos Equis or grab some Texas BBQ and watch a hockey game.
The concourses are just too narrow for modern standards. Admittedly I don’t often have to navigate them during a game since I’m sitting at the top of the arena in the press box, but on the rare time I’ve had my parents in town watching a game and I’ve wanted to go say hello, the mix of people traversing the concourse and lines from restrooms and concessions makes it pretty difficult to get around. Add in a popular giveaway like a Wyatt Johnston bobblehead? Forget about it. So, some square footage to make that experience better is needed, whether that be by shrinking the seating closer in within the bowl or blowing the walls out and taking over some sidewalk and plaza areas, this would be one of the top priorities on the list for the future.
There are some types of seating that could add some comfort or VIP experience into the building that doesn’t exist now, but I’d say they really need more of a reinvestment into the existing areas to get them up to par with modern amenities. Some reconfiguring could be done, too, so that all those suites that are sold with all events today may not sit as empty in a hockey rink going forward. Give some fans the chance to see the team go on and off the ice every game with a tunnel club. Maybe throw in a bunker suite or six to get fans closer to the on-ice action.
TEAM AMENITIES
This is where I think a good majority of the investment in the building is needed. Right now, the Stars are limited in what they can do because you have to have two NBA locker rooms and spaces specific to the Mavericks today. With the Mavericks vacating, the entirety of that event level could stand to be reconfigured.
The Stars have done their level best with the current home locker room to make it more modern. But, it’s still one of the smaller rooms in the NHL. Especially when rosters expand in the playoffs, the home team gets a little bit crowded in there.
The visiting locker room is, frankly, not up to par either. Now, there’s the whole adage of not making your competitors feel comfortable in your building. But the size of the locker room needs to be expanded so that goalies can actually sit in there without taking up two stalls with their equipment and not be separated from the rest of the team, tucked back into a nook that’s really more appropriate for black aces during the playoffs.
Additionally, these locker room spaces could be more separated than they are today. Right now, they are right next to each other with a simple (and not terribly effective) black curtain between them. With a new event level configuration, maybe those can be placed on the opposite side closer to the buses so that both teams have more space for all their sewer ball and pre-game stretches and other shenanigans.
They should also consider creation of a formalized family lounge. Today, the family lounge is in auxiliary locker rooms. While those locker rooms have had some new flooring and a fresh coat of paint, I think that having more of a cozy, comfortable green room type space would really elevate the game day experience for the partners, parents, and children of the players — especially if it offers things like a discrete space for breastfeeding and a child-friendly play area. It may seem like a small thing, but these kinds of touches go a long way in the recruitment process for free agents.
While Dallas is known as one of the best organizations in the league with the way they treat their players and their families, that’s no reason to sit on ones laurels, either. Any updates to their arena should reflect that.