Last month, it was revealed that a large group of players were making it well known that the administration of UNC seemed to be moving on in the their plans for the next basketball arena without getting
input from a seemingly important group of people—players who played in Smith Center for the last 40 years and would be faced with the prospect of having a major part of their history left behind.
After the Zoom meeting that didn’t go the way administrators thought it would, an idea of just how far along the Carolina North options was came into focus on Monday night. A group called Smith Center South released a video recorded by none other than former coach Roy Williams.
A check of the timeline from the group notes it’s first post being January 4th—they indicate they are the ones who were behind the letter that was signed, and were beginning to “ramp up” the fight. Using Roy Williams to evoke the words of the departed Smith and essentially have him say his wish was to keep the building there is certainly ramping the fight up.
The message from Williams was the first shot, and that was followed on Tuesday with a message from Tyler Hansbrough.
After this was posted, other basketball players have taken to the site with a similar message. They’ve also challenged fans to resist all efforts to move basketball away from South Campus and to a site on the Carolina North Complex. While UNC owns the land of the former Horace Williams Airport, it is decidedly off the main campus, specifically about two miles from the corner of Franklin and Columbia. In terms of driving distance that’s about half a mile further than the same point is to the Smith Center, and it’s also a significant distance away from any students that choose to live on campus.
The debate about the future of where UNC Basketball plays appears to be getting heated. Multiple conversations with fans mirror those split opinions, from those who see the benefit of starting from scratch and going off-campus to the ones who want to preserve the one bit of tradition left in college basketball when so much else about the sport has seemingly changed overnight.
The issue isn’t even that simple, though. Inside Carolina has done extensive reporting on both the work and costs of renovating the Smith Center and building the new arena at Carolina North. There’s one thing that unites the options: a high cost. That factor may be what ultimately decides the issue.
Unlike the early 1980’s when basketball ruled campus and UNC could just focus on making a building that held a lot of people, the costs of providing a new arena that would bring the Tar Heels up to the level of other major programs is substantially higher. If one were to use the inflation calculator, the $36 million dollars that was raised privately to build the Smith Center equates to $99.29 million dollars in 2025. That’s not even 20% of what the cost would be for either option today. What has mostly been unknown about either option—from administrators who haven’t even formally announced a plan or the group looking to renovate the Smith Center—is what the plan is for acquiring this money.
The idea that this would cost upwards of $500 million is pretty reasonable. An arena oft-cited as one that folks want Carolina to aspire to is the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, currently in its fifteenth season at a cost $238 million. Baylor’s new basketball arena cost $212 million, but it only has 7,000 seats. The home arena for NC State is undergoing a $300 million dollar renovation over the course of two years, paid for partly by tax revenue gathered in the Raleigh and Wake County area and partly by the billionaire owner of the Carolina Hurricanes. Their arena opened in 1999—13 years after the Smith Center—at an original cost of $158 million in 1999. Just in the two costs alone—the home of NC State and the Triangle’s main hub for concerts, shows, and NCAA Tournament bids will have cost over $450 million to build and renovate.
The spirit under which the Dean Smith Center was built may not be replicable in this day and age, as trying to privately raise $500 million dollars is a tall task, and there really isn’t a Skipper Bowles leading the charge for Carolina like there was back in the 80’s.
All the petitions in the world may not be able to replace the cold, hard fact that if the University has to get help from the state for financing, they are going to look at the two options and determine it just makes too much sense to build off campus than renovate a structure they can’t see any return from. There’s also a big matter of what it might mean to the program to have to deal with the process of renovation. Any sort of renovation will require the team to step away from the arena for at least a year at best and likely longer, meaning in this age of freshmen one-and-dones and transfer portals, you’d be asking people playing for Carolina for one season to do so basically on the road for an entire year. Building from scratch allows players to continue to use the Smith Center until the new facility is ready to go.
Most of this is conjecture for fans until actual money gets tossed around, and the plans on how to achieve the competing visions are released. It’s possible that because of the poor communication from the administration up until now that this is their best shot and getting any sort of say before things go past the rubicon. Either way, it’s the ultimate battle of heart versus head, and it’ll be a fascinating fight to watch in the months ahead.
