Carver-Hawkeye Arena will get modernized and more alluring to fans and stars … eventually

LAS VEGAS — If any city can understand what the University of Iowa faces with Carver-Hawkeye Arena, it’s Las Vegas.

Many a Vegas casino/resort younger than Carver’s 42-plus years either were imploded for something new or given a total makeover.

There was a time when Carver regularly had concerts, with many stars whose names have been on Las Vegas marquees. Elton John, Stevie Nicks, Garth Brooks, U2 and many more played the arena between 1983 and 2007.

At least 22 individuals or groups inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performed there.

"I've read the long list,“ Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz said here Thursday at Big Ten football media days. ”I'm sure many of you have been to some of those concerts. Boy, you had some good artists that were in that facility.“

Planned renovations to Carver could possibly open the arena’s doors to future headliners. “I think that would certainly help,” Goetz said, “and it would be something we would want to explore.”

Like the Stardust, Sands, Tropicana and many other Vegas resorts that were shiny new objects in Rat Pack days, Carver gradually turned from shiny new object to elder citizen. Instead of going the Vegas route and blowing it up, though, Iowa wants to update it.

“We are making really good progress in our fundraising efforts,” Goetz said. “I think we're taking some steps there, and the more steps we take there, it'll allow us to come back and start to advance that project a little bit. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“It's a lot of resources that you have to put into that facility to make the improvements that we need. But it's important for many reasons. We've got graduation there. The building means a lot, serves our fans really (as much as) but multiple sports, and we need that facility to be standing and service everybody for another 40 years.”

Making Carver more fan-friendly is an obvious objective.

“There are some things that are just old,” Goetz said. “Forty-three years, and you’re going to have to do some replacing, so that sort of upkeep is going to have to happen. So you’ve got that component first.

“Some other things are just how we best service our fans. Anything from restrooms to how do we figure out to navigate the congestions that are in the concourses. We need to replace the entire bowl. How do we get the students closer? All those things are really key.”

The building, Goetz said, is “one of our key revenue drivers. Right now we just don't have enough opportunity in there to drive revenue through premium seating and through the way that many fans want to enjoy games these days. So that'll be a big piece of the renovation.”

What’s always discussed when it comes to changing Carver is getting the students closer to the floor. Student attendance and interest in the men’s basketball team has been low for some time now. Efforts to get the students better seats will precede arena upgrades.

“We'd love to start (on the renovations) and have it executed for this season,” Goetz said, “but we just can't move quite that fast on that major project.

“So we wanted to figure out what we could do temporarily to get the students closer. I know our staff loves it when I do this, but I was out pacing and marking off with my feet on the baseline, and grabbed our facility staff and said ‘Hey, let's try to strategize and see what we can do here.’

“As always, they do a great job of trying to find a temporary solution, and we'll see how it plays out. But I think it'll be a positive and we're excited to see if it changes the atmosphere a little bit.”

The Iowa women’s basketball program sold out 14,998-seat Carver the last two seasons. The men’s program averaged 9,161 tickets sold per home game last season, but the number of fans at games was considerably less.

After the season, Fran McCaffery was fired as coach and replaced by Ben McCollum. Goetz said “we had a lot of deposits for men's basketball that came out right away” after McCollum’s hiring.

Getting more students in the gym certainly would help. Universities are supposed to be about the students first, so maybe they’ll finally get that treatment before Carver is eligible for an AARP card.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com