GL Events Slick Seating Puts London Olympic Basketball Arena Up For Sale

The London Olympic basketball arena "has been put up for sale," according to Keith Weir of REUTERS. Potential purchasers have the option of buying the venue complete with its "distinctive white rippled external shell or bidding instead for the 12,000 seats and internal fittings." GL events Slick Seating, a British company which provided temporary seats for Olympic venues across London, said that it was organizing the sale of the arena. Seeking to "avoid the mistakes of past Games, which were left with sports stadia they did not need, London made extensive use of temporary venues during the Games last summer." Workers on the Olympic Park in East London are in the process of taking down the basketball arena, which will be "stored in central England until a buyer is found." There had been reports that Rio de Janeiro might want to purchase the venue for the 2016 Games, "but restrictions on the import of second-hand materials into Brazil would complicate that" (REUTERS, 1/21).