State Farm Arena

State Farm Arena is a multi-purpose arena located in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The arena serves as the home venue for the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). It also served as home to the Atlanta Thrashers of the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1999 to 2011, before the team moved to Winnipeg, as well as the Atlanta Dream of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 2008 to 2016 and 2019, and the temporary home of Georgia Tech basketball in 2011. It opened in 1999 as Philips Arena at a cost of $213.5 million, replacing Omni Coliseum. It is owned by the Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority and operated by the Hawks, owned by Tony Ressler along with a group of investors including Grant Hill.

The arena seats 17,608+ for basketball and 18,000+ for concerts.^{[needs update]} The largest crowd ever for an Atlanta Hawks basketball game at the arena was Game 6 of the 2008 Eastern Conference First Round on May 2, 2008 (against the Boston Celtics), where there was an announced attendance of 20,425. The arena includes 92 luxury suites, 9 party suites, and 1,866 club seats. For concerts and other entertainment events, the arena can seat 21,000.

The arena was originally laid out in a rather unusual manner, with the club seats and luxury boxes aligned solely along one side of the playing surface, and the general admission seating along the other three sides (the arrangement was later emulated in Ford Field, Addition Financial Arena, Soldier Field, Levi's Stadium, and other venues). This layout was a vast contrast to many of its contemporaries, which have their revenue-generating luxury boxes and club seats located in the 'belly' of the arena, thus causing the upper deck to be 2–4 stories higher. The layout at Philips was done so as to be able to bring the bulk of the seats closer to the playing surface while still making available a sufficient number of revenue-raising club seats and loges. Renovations in 2017–18 removed the upper levels of the suite wall in favor of premium seating spread throughout the arena, turning those upper areas to standard seating.

On the exterior, angled steel columns supporting the roof facing downtown spell out "ATLANTA." The side facing the Georgia World Congress Center originally spelled out "CNN" (whose headquarters adjoins the arena), but that section has since been altered to accommodate a Taco Mac restaurant. The GWCC/CNN Center rail station below the arena provides access to MARTA public transportation.

Eindhoven, Netherlands-based technology company Philips purchased the initial naming rights to the arena in February 1999 for $185 million over 20 years. In February 2018, it was reported that Philips would not renew its naming rights agreement for the arena when it expired in June 2019, primarily due to Philips' withdrawal from the consumer electronics market in 2013. On August 29, 2018, State Farm purchased the naming rights to the arena, in a 20-year deal that cost $175 million.

For the 2007–2008 season, State Farm Arena utilized the new "see-through" shot clock units which allow spectators seated behind the basket to see the action without having the clocks interfere with their view, joining FedExForum, Wells Fargo Center, TD Garden, United Center, Footprint Center and the Spectrum Center. Video advertising panels replaced the traditional scrolling panels.

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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, many cities started building new state-of-the-art sporting venues for their NBA and/or NHL franchises, or in hopes of attaining one. Many of these arenas had modern amenities for their high-end customers, such as luxury boxes, club seats, and large, posh club-level concourses; some even had practice facilities on-site. These attractions were rarely found in arenas constructed in the early 1970s, when the Omni Coliseum was built. However, it was likely that the Omni would have had to be replaced in any event due to a serious design flaw. It had been built using Cor-Ten weathering steel that was intended to seal itself, ensuring it would last for decades. However, the Omni's designers didn't account for Atlanta's humid subtropical climate. Rather than form a seal, the Cor-Ten steel never stopped rusting, causing the arena to deteriorate faster than anticipated.