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Message: [QUOTE="CL82, post: 4199805, member: 44"] This has been talked about frequently on the men’s board. Here’s the synopsis. When the Hartford Civic Center (former name of the XL Center) was built UConn played it’s on campus games at the Fieldhouse, which had a capacity of 3600. The Civic Center was brand-new and had five times the capacity. It was, at the time, “big time“. Once Gampel pavilion was built, games at the XL Center made less sense. Gampel was limited to around 8500 people, largely so that it couldn’t compete with Hartford for concert venues. Within a few years it was enlarged to seat over 10,000. At that point only the playing biggest games in Hartford made financial sense. Keep in mind that playing basketball at Gampel is “free“ except for operating costs. Playing in Hartford is considerably more expensive because the university pays a well above market rate for the arena and does not get paid concession or parking revenue. It isn’t profitable for all but sellout or near sellout games. And now what’s really interesting about all of this is that the state of Connecticut subsidizes the university, which pays athletic department, which then rents out the XL Center, which is owned by the state of Connecticut. The XL Center is run by the CDRA (Capital District Development Agency). It has significant losses every year. Basically, the current arrangement hides a portion of those losses within the athletic department budget. One poster on the men’s board says that playing games in Hartford is a quid pro quo for UConn receiving state funds. That feels like mythology to me, but he claims to have first-hand knowledge of it. [/QUOTE]

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