Center Stage

A year since its grand opening, the Save Mart Center is still Fresno State's main attraction

By SYLAS WRIGHT

After a year of existence, the handsome home of Bulldogs basketball is still buzzing with events of all sorts, while gaining national attention in the process.

“It’s really a crown jewel of basketball venues,” said Steve Weakland, assistant athletic director at Fresno State. “And I would expect that to be something we’ll use for a couple decades to attract quality student athletes to come to Fresno State.”

The Save Mart Center has attracted much more than just student-athletes, since the first ticketed event on Nov. 7, 2003. In addition to the men’s and women’s basketball games, there have been more than 160 events.

So bustling was the Save Mart Center in its first year, “Pollstar Magazine” ranked it the 10th busiest events center in the world—the only collegiate building to make the Top 10. The magazine’s semi-annual ranking is based on ticket sales for non-competitive events.

“It has provided a premier entertainment venue for Central California,” said Deborah Adishian-Astone, executive director of auxiliary services for Fresno State and Save Mart Center coordinator. “It has gained national attention because of its success with attendance and ticket sales.”

There’s no telling how high the attractive arena would rank in a beauty contest.

The building’s good looks helped lure third-year basketball coaches Ray Lopes and Stacey Johnson-Klein to Fresno State.

“It’s a beautiful arena,” Lopes said. “I wanted to be at Fresno State because of its rich basketball tradition, but just like the recruits, [The Save Mart Center] had an influence on me. It’s one of the best, if not the best, collegiate arenas on the West Coast.”

With seating for more than 16,000, the $103-million arena is the largest collegiate venue on the West Coast, Adishian-Astone said.

But for Lopes, there is something more important than sheer size and catchy appeal.

“The atmosphere is the most important thing,” Lopes said. “That’s what we want. We know we rank in size, beauty and modernness. We want to rank in atmosphere.”

The Bulldogs’ old home, Selland Arena, was known for having a good basketball atmosphere, even though it was located in downtown Fresno.

“The Selland Arena definitely had aged,” Weakland said. “Being downtown was sort of not optimal, but in a lot of ways, it was as good a basketball venue and basketball environment as there was.

“But it’s hard to beat something that’s bigger, more majestic and brand new, like the Save Mart Center.”

For years, there had been talk about building an on-campus arena at Fresno State. But it wasn’t until Jerry Tarkanian’s seven-year tenure as the Bulldogs’ head basketball coach that the ball began to roll, and the talk became reality.

Hired in 1995, Tarkanian brought national attention, as well as success, to what had become a stale basketball program.

“I don’t think there’s any question,” Weakland said, “that the success that [Tarkanian] had and the interest he brought to the program set up the process to get the funding for [the Save Mart Center] to get it up and running.”

Adishian-Astone agreed.

She said Tarkanian was “very instrumental due to the excitement and support that happened when he was hired and the number of sellout seasons at Selland Arena. During his coaching era, the demand for a larger on-campus facility materialized.”

That demand led to fundraising, which led to the construction of the Save Mart Center.