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Scottrade Center Information
Scottrade Center (formerly Kiel Center and Savvis Center) is a 20,000 seat arena located in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, opened in 1994. It is nicknamed "The House that Brett Hull Built". It is the home of the NHL St. Louis Blues ice hockey team. Known for the quality of its ice (Scottrade Center was voted 2nd-best rink in a poll of NHLers, behind only Montreal's Bell Centre), the Scottrade Center is respected as one of the louder NHL arenas due to several factors including the 9-second foghorn blast after every Blue's goal followed by an organ rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In.
Besides ice hockey, the center features a range of arena programming, including professional wrestling, concerts, ice shows, family shows, and other sporting events. It hosts approximately 175 events per year, drawing nearly 2 million guests annually. For the first quarter 2006, Scottrade Center ranked second among arenas in the United States and fourth worldwide in tickets sold. Pollstar, a highly respected industry trade publication, consistently ranks Scottrade Center among the top 10 arenas worldwide in tickets sold to non-team events.
The most people to ever attend an event at the Scottrade Center was 22,612, which happened twice during the 2007 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, known as Arch Madness.
The arena is frequently selected by the NCAA for championship events, and played host to the NCAA Frozen Four Hockey Championships in April 2007, and will host the NCAA Wrestling Championships in 2008 and 2009 and the NCAA Women's Final Four Basketball Championships in 2009.
The building is operated by Sports Capital Partners, owner of the St. Louis Blues, under the leadership of its chairman, Dave Checketts. Major capital improvements being made to the arena under its new leadership include a new center scoreboard and LED ribbon board, luxurious new club seats and a point-of-sale system permitting credit and debit cards at concession stands for faster service.
History
Kiel Center opened in 1994* to replace Kiel Auditorium, where the college basketball team had played, which was torn down in December 1992. The Blues had played in the St. Louis Arena prior to moving into Kiel Center in 1994. The building is currently known as Scottrade Center, after naming rights were sold in September 2006 to Scottrade (the St. Louis based online investment firm and discount brokerage). The Kiel name still bears on the adjoining parking structure and the building cornerstone as well as on signs on the nearby Metrolink station.
Blues management decried its former naming-rights deal with tech company SAVVIS, as many of the monies paid out were in Savvis shares, then riding high. However, when the tech bubble burst, the team was left with almost nothing, and ended up losing money on the deal. Scottrade fixed that problem by paying its deal all in cash.
In September 2006, Scottrade founder Rodger O. Riney announced a landmark partnership with the St. Louis Blues hockey club and arena. The new name of the arena, Scottrade Center, was revealed in a joint press conference. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but were described as "long-term and significant." Both Scottrade and the Blues said the agreement was "equitable" to both parties. Most of the signage and other promotions were changed to Scottrade Center prior to the first home game of the Blues on October 12, 2006.
(* The first St. Louis Blues game was played in January 1995 due to the 1994-95 season being cut short because of a labor dispute.)
Tenants
It is home to the St. Louis Blues of the NHL and the Saint Louis Billikens basketball team of the Atlantic 10 Conference. It was formerly home to the St. Louis Vipers roller hockey team, St. Louis Ambush and St. Louis Steamers indoor soccer teams, the St. Louis Stampede arena football team, and the River City Rage indoor football team.
It also houses a number of other events throughout the year, such as concerts, figure skating, circus, World Wrestling Entertainment live events, graduations, and much more.
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