NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament - Session 1 Benchmark International Arena Tampa

Amalie Arena is located at 401 Channelside Drive, downtown Tampa, Florida. This building of the arena was opened in 1996 and originally called “Ice Palace.” After the failure of Tampa Coliseum Inc, the Amalie arena was the second location to be chosen. It has been used for basketball, ice hockey, arena football games, NBA exhibition games, NCAA tournament games, and even concerts. The arena has also hosted the event by the PBR’s premium tour, popular as, “ The Bud Light Cup” since 1998 annually. It is the primary location for Tampa Bay Lightning affiliated to the National Hockey league.

The naming rights of the arena were given to St. Petersburg Times on August 2002, according to which, the Amalie arena was known as, “ St. Pete Times forum” (2002-2012). Later on from 2012 to 2014, the arena was popular as, “ Tampa Bay Times Forum.” Finally, in September 2014, the arena was renamed as, “Amalie Arena” with the transfer of naming rights to the Amalie Oil company.

The Amalie Arena is currently owned by Lightning. In 2010, the arena was ranked 4th as the busiest arena in the United States. It has hosted games in the Stanley Cup Finals and the National Hockey League All-Star Game twice. The capacity of the Amalie arena is 19,092 for Ice hockey, 20,500 for Basketball, 18,500 for Football Arena, and 21,500 for the concert. 19,092.