Philips Arena

The Philips Arena is an indoor arena in Atlanta, Georgia. Completed in 1999 at a cost of $213.5 million, it is home to the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL, the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA and Arena Football League's Georgia Force. It is owned and operated by Atlanta Spirit, LLC, the group of investors that also owns the Hawks and Thrashers. The arena seats 20,300 for basketball and 18,750 for ice hockey. It includes 96 luxury suites and 2,100 club seats. For concerts and other entertainment events, the arena can seat 21,000.

The arena was laid out in a rather unusual manner, with the club seats and luxury boxes aligned solely along one side of the playing surface, and the general admission seating along the other three sides (a similar arrangement exists at the Detroit Lions homefield Ford Field). This was done so as to be able to bring the bulk of the seats closer to the playing surface while still making available a sufficient number of revenue-raising club seats and lodges.

The arena is sponsored by and named for Philips Electronics and therefore contains a large number of television screens made by Philips. On the exterior, angled steel columns supporting the roof facing downtown spell out "ATLANTA" and the side facing the Georgia World Congress Center spells out "CNN." The arena adjoins the CNN Center. The Dome/GWCC/Philips Arena/CNN Center rail station below the arena provides access to MARTA public transportation.

History

Philips Arena occupies the site of the Omni Coliseum, Atlanta's former large sports arena that was demolished in 1997. The Omni's "center-hung scoreboard" now hangs in the lobby of Philips Arena, where it still displays The Omni's logo along with that of Philips Arena, the Hawks, and the Thrashers (who never played in The Omni). The scoreboard still functions and displays information relevant to the game taking place in the arena.

World Championship Wrestling (WCW) hosted a number of professional wrestling events at Philips Arena before WCW went out of business in 2001. The arena was also host to the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Royal Rumble event in January 2002, and will host Backlash in April 2007, and has hosted several episodes of Monday Night RAW and WWE SmackDown!.

It hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 2003.

The venue had been named the site of the 2005 Southeastern Conference Women's Basketball Tournament. However, when the NHL announced in early 2004 that the 55th NHL All-Star Game, scheduled for February 2005, would be held in Atlanta, arena officials withdrew the Southeastern Conference Women's Basketball Tournament, which moved 140 miles northeast on Interstate 85 to the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, South Carolina. Ironically, the arena would not even play host to that All-Star Game due to the 2004-05 NHL Lockout. As a result, Atlanta became the second (San Jose being the first) city to lose an All-Star Game planned in advance because of a labor dispute. Philips Arena would later be announced as home to the 56th NHL All-Star Game in 2008.

The sold out Destiny Fullfilled...And Loving It Tour by Destiny's Child was filmed there.

The facility also played host to the 2004 US Figure Championships.

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