Menu
Facilities

Spurs’ Parker part of French arena effort

NBA star Tony Parker is playing a key role in developing a new arena in France.

The plan is to build an indoor facility with 12,000 to 15,000 seats in Villeurbanne, a suburb of Lyon, said Marshall Glickman, the project’s senior adviser and former president of the Portland Trail Blazers. Lyon has 1.4 million residents and is the country’s second-largest market.

Parker, a native of Belgium who grew up in France, is the second-largest shareholder of Gones & Sports, whose firm SPSM is representing the city to build the arena. Gones & Sports also owns Asvel, the country’s most successful pro basketball team, which will play in the new arena.

Construction costs are estimated between $168 million to $196 million, but that could change after the final design is completed, said Antony Thiodet, vice president with Gones & Sports in charge of Asvel’s daily operations.

Parker’s interest in Lyon dates to a 2006 preseason game his San Antonio Spurs played in the city’s 5,800-seat Astroballe arena, Asvel’s current home. Asvel officials started having conversations with Parker about their vision for expanding the sport locally, and those talks ultimately led to developing a new facility for Asvel, Thiodet said. Parker bought a piece of the team in 2009.

“In the beginning, it was about Tony’s passion and dedication to basketball, but it turned out to be something else, a business proposition,” Thiodet said. “He put a significant amount of money into the project, and he is really paying attention to all the details.”

Parker has played in every NBA arena and has ideas from some of them that he would like to see incorporated into the French facility. The tower suite configuration at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, the loge boxes at new Amway Center in Orlando and the new event-level club at AT&T Center in San Antonio are three examples of facility design Parker has mentioned to Gones & Sports officials, Thiodet said.

Attempts to reach Parker through the Spurs were not successful.

Plans call for two public concourses and a club/suite level, a permanent ice floor for Lyon Hockey Club and a design to accommodate major tennis tournaments, said officials with Global Spectrum Europe, a joint venture between Global Spectrum and the United Kingdom’s NEC Group that is a partner in the arena’s development.

Thiodet expects the arena to play host to 165 events annually.

The developers have selected an architect but were not ready to release that information last week. The arena is targeted to break ground in the fall of 2012 and open in October 2014.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/28/Facilities/France.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2011/03/28/Facilities/France.aspx

CLOSE