The Lloyd Noble Center is a 10,967-seat multi-purpose arena located in Norman, Oklahoma, some 19 mi (31 km) south of downtown Oklahoma City. It opened in 1975 and is home to the University of Oklahoma men's and women's basketball and women's gymnastics teams of the Southeastern Conference. It also regularly hosts concerts, including city school orchestra concerts, and graduation ceremonies for colleges with the University of Oklahoma as well as those for several high schools in area.
History
Before the construction of the facility, the teams played in the much smaller OU Field House, now known as McCasland Field House, located on campus near Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. The success of Sooner basketball teams in the early 1970s including star forward Alvan Adams, motivated the building of a larger, state-of-the-art, arena, the Lloyd Noble Center (LNC), which was built in 1973-75 at a cost of $6 Million.
The center is named after Samuel Lloyd Noble (1896–1950), a Houston oilman and philanthropist, and founder of the Noble Corporation and the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. Noble is an alumnus and former member of the OU Board of Regents, and his foundation provided OU's first ever $1 million gift to finance the center.
The LNC has hosted NIT games and NCAA Women's Gymnastics Regional and Semifinal competitions, an NCAA Wrestling Championship, as well as one NBA game. In January 2006, the NBA and the New Orleans Hornets decided to move two games from the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge to Oklahoma City due to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent low attendance it caused. The Ford Center in Oklahoma City was unavailable for one of the games against the Sacramento Kings, so it was played in the Lloyd Noble Center.
OU and OU Athletics donors have made several investments in the arena over the years to update it, including a $17.1 M renovation in 2001<refOU Athletics Press Release 11/08/2001</ref>, the addition of the $7 M 18,000 sq ft Griffin Family Performance Center in 2018,[4] and extensive expansion and modernization of the men's and women's basketball locker rooms, offices and meeting facilities, updated video and sound systems, and renovated concourse amenities in 2023 ($9.5 M).
Facilities Description
For sports the LNC can seat 11,700, but with standing room tickets the attendance has sometimes swelled to 12,000. As a concert venue, the Lloyd Noble Center can hold between 2,848 and 4,516 in a theater set-up, 6,165 for end-stage concerts, and 11,238 for center-stage concerts. The arena contains 18,000 sq ft (1,700 m2) of arena floor space as well as 22,534 sq ft (2,093.5 m2) of concourse space, allowing for trade shows to be held at the arena. The arena stands only 51 ft (16 m) tall since the majority of the structure is under ground (including the entire lower arena level), and contains a 40 by 60 ft (12 by 18 m) portable stage and a state-of-the-art scoreboard and video systems that were updated in 2023. There are 12 concession stands at the concourse.
Concerts
Numerous concerts have been held in the Lloyd Noble Center, and the arena was particularly popular for that in its first ten years. With increased competition from Oklahoma City venues, such as the Myriad/Cox Arena, Ford/Chesapeake/Paycom Center, Jim Norick Arena, Zoo Amphitheater, and Gaming Casinos statewide, the number of musical acts has diminished to just a few per year.
Some of the notable musicians and bands that have performed at the LNC include Elvis Presley performing two back-to-back concerts at the center on March 25 & 26 1977, just five months before his death.[citation needed], The Grateful Dead on October 11, 1977, [U2]] on June 10, 1983, and Journey Frontiers Tour for three dates in July, 1983, returning in 1998. Amy Grant recorded half of her live albums, In Concert and In Concert Volume Two, at the LNC.[5]
