LAS VEGAS — Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz paced the court of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, using her feet as measuring tools on the baseline.
Iowa wants to get students closer to the action for men’s and women’s basketball games. In the long term, more significant renovations can deliver that. But that won’t address the goal in the shorter term, such as the upcoming 2025-26 seasons.
Goetz took matters into her own hands, trying to map out how Iowa could move students closer.
“As we’ve been exploring the renovations to Carver-Hawkeye Arena, moving the students closer certainly has been a piece of that,” Goetz said at Big Ten Media Days on July 24. “You’d love to start that tomorrow and have it executed for this season, but we just can’t move quite that fast on that major project. And 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 that baseline and grabbed our facilities staff and said, hey, let’s try to strategize and see what we can do here.’”
Goetz’s efforts helped spark change.
In early July, Iowa announced that a courtside riser with a capacity of more than 200 fans would be installed on the south baseline of Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the 2025-26 season men’s and women’s basketball seasons. Primarily designated for students, this came as a welcome development for those hoping Carver-Hawkeye Arena could offer a more intimate viewing experience and help improve the in-game environment.
“As always, they (our facilities staff) do a great job of trying to find a temporary solution,” Goetz said. “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.”
This could essentially serve as a band-aid for much larger repairs in the future.
Iowa has been exploring the possibility of renovating Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The venue, which opened in January 1983, had a multi-million-dollar facelift completed in September 2011. But it could use modernization again.
“We are making really good progress in our fundraising efforts and so I think we’re taking some steps there,” Goetz said. “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, it serves our fans really more than even just our student-athletes, but multiple sports. We need that facility to be standing and service everybody for another 40 years.”
What exactly could those changes look like?
“There are some things that are just … old,” Goetz said. “(44) years and you’re going to have to do some replacing. So that sort of upkeep is going to have to happen. And so, you’ve got that component first. But some other things are just how we best service our fans. Anything from restrooms to how do we figure out how to navigate the congestion that (is) in the concourses? (Do) we need to replace the entire bowl? How do we get students closer? All those things are really key. But the other piece, and it probably goes to the question about why are you still continuing to think about doing the facility project at all? It’s one of our key revenue drivers and right now we just don’t have enough opportunity there to drive revenue through premium seating and through the way that many fans want to enjoy games these days.”
An updated Carver-Hawkeye Arena could make it more marketable to host other non-sports entertainment, such as concerts, which Goetz is leaving the door open to considering.
“I think that would certainly help,” Goetz said, “and it would be something we would want to explore.”
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This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa AD Beth Goetz details her vision for the future of Carver-Hawkeye Arena
Reporting by Tyler Tachman, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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