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There is a long-held belief that arenas need a professional sports team to survive. In fact, an arena without one was seen as a disaster. A sink pit of lost opportunity. Well, until recently that is. It turns out that not only can arenas find success without an NBA or NHL franchise, but these are actually a drag on revenue.

We are approaching five years since the last Golden State Warriors game at Oakland Arena. In the aftermath of that, people were stumbling all over themselves to talk about the decline of Oakland, the fact the city wouldn’t build a new stadium and this, that and the other. These narratives exist to this day.

The problem? These narratives are nothing but a bunch of crap. Oakland Arena is proof of that. While some would like to think the former home of the Warriors is a decaying structure having long since been condemned. In reality, 2022 was the facility's most successful and highest-grossing year in its nearly 60-year history.

2023 figures haven’t been released yet but the story is likely to be similar given the busy schedule Oakland Arena has maintained post-Warriors. Concerts, PBR, comedy acts, various entertainment performances, you name it, chances are it is happening in Oakland.

A similar story has played out in Glendale, Arizona and Desert Diamond Arena, formerly known as Gila River Arena. They told the Coyotes to go kick rocks after the team constantly missed payments to the arena manager. Instead of dealing with such a bad tenant, they opted to go it alone.

The results speak for themselves. 2022 was a banner year for Desert Diamond Arena in terms of revenue bettering anything the facility did with an NHL team calling it home. As for the Coyotes, well, they are currently playing in a college arena and still haven’t made any real progress on a new barn.

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