NEWARK — Any new stadium or arena project includes plenty of ambition, but Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment CEO Tad Brown says the forthcoming Philadelphia arena is being envisioned as “the greatest arena in the world.”
With no allowance for qualification or hyperbole, Brown said HBSE and arena partner Comcast intend to push well past recently opened and technologically advanced venues such as the Intuit Dome and Chase Center, each located in California.
“We’re going to create an experience, an environment, a home-court and home-ice advantage that’s going to be unlike any other in sports,” Brown tells Front Office Sports. He was part of a soccer summit held Thursday at Prudential Center and organized by GK Digital Ventures and HBSE. “Now, everybody says that, but it’s our turn. This is something that’s incredibly important. It’s a legacy project to our ownership team, and we aren’t going to leave any stone unturned to find the best and most advanced technology and experience that we can provide—in every facet.”
Brown’s comments arrive as HBSE, the parent company of the NBA’s 76ers and NHL’s Devils, and Comcast are now in the midst of an arena design phase after striking a surprise deal in January to collaborate on a new venue in the South Philadelphia sports complex. That pact ended years of battling over two competing arena proposals.
“We’ve been all over the world looking at the best arenas and the best stadiums you can imagine. We’re going to take the best ideas and create our own,” Brown says.
The forthcoming venue, targeted for a 2031 opening with a possibility to accelerate that by a year, will also house a forthcoming WNBA expansion team, in addition to the 76ers and the Comcast Spectacor–owned Flyers of the NHL. If that earlier arena opening is achieved, the women’s basketball franchise will be in a new venue right from its start.
“This is a perfect opportunity to push everything together. It’s a perfect time to open the new arena, and it’s a perfect time for the WNBA to come to Philly in the way they’re cycling in their expansion teams,” Brown says.
Downtown Matters
HBSE and Comcast, meanwhile, have purchased a series of downtown Philadelphia properties around where HBSE previously intended to build a new venue for the 76ers. Specific redevelopment plans for the Market East parcels have not been detailed publicly, as the two companies are still working with a variety of political and community stakeholders. Brown, however, said the forthcoming efforts in that area will be on a similarly expansive scale.
“We want to make sure we’re doing the right things to make the biggest impact, and they’re going to affect the most people who need it,” Brown says. “It’s very important to both us and to Comcast that we’re making the biggest impact we can in both [downtown and the sports complex].”
