design & photos: Wyatt Downey
The crowd goes into silence as the Blue Jackets move the puck down the ice. The puck is shot from the point, it goes in top right and the Jackets score! The crowd erupts as the cannon blasts, the horn sounds, and a remix of “Those about to Rock”by AC/DC plays.
Nationwide Arena in the Arena District, within downtown Columbus, is home to the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets.
“My favorite thing to do is go to Jackets games. They are my favorite thing to do because I play hockey and am a big fan of the team.” Sophomore Devin Parker said.
Sophomore Ethan Wilkoff travels to the Arena District to watch his favorite music artists perform live.
“My favorite things to watch are concerts because I love concerts and how loud it is.” Wilkoff said.
Greg Murray is the in-game announcer for the Jackets and attends every single one of the team’s home games as a part of his job.
“The atmosphere at a CBJ game is always fun, energetic, spirited and competitive. Sometimes the product on the ice isn’t the best and fans get a little testy but that’s because they love their team,” Murray said.
Nationwide Arena finished construction in 2000 when the Blue Jackets became an NHL expansion team. The stadium doubles as a concert venue and holds up to 20,000 people according to nationwidearena.com. Nationwide Arena has held concerts for famous music acts such as Brittney Spears, Def Leapord, Khalild, and many others.
“That part of downtown had sat for years as a literal toxic cesspool after the state penitentiary that was there previously was torn down. It was a wasteland and an eyesore. Who would have thought what an amazing hub of activity it would become,” Murray said.
Nationwide Arena was the catalyst that started the growth of the Arena District. Around one year after Nationwide Arena’s debut, KEMBA Live had its grand opening on October 2. 2001, according to promotewestlive.com.
At the time, the concert venue was still named directly after its parent company, PromoteWest, as PromoteWest Pavilion. PromoteWest would go on to rebrand the name twice before settling on KEMBA Live at the end of 2021. Other previous names included Lifestyle Communities Pavilion and Express Live.
KEMBA Live is an outdoor and indoor live music venue that can hold up to 2,200 guests indoors and 5,200 guests outside. Being a dedicated live music venue, KEMBA Live holds significantly more concert events than Nationwide Arena. KEMBA is on pace for its highest number of concerts in a single year with 92 concerts in 2022.
The Columbus Clippers are a Minor League Baseball team with affiliations to the Cleveland Guardians (previously known as the Cleveland Indians) and have been around since 1977. From 1977 to 2008, the Clippers played in Cooper Stadium.
However, in 2009, Huntington Park in the Arena District became home to the Clippers and has been ever since. The baseball stadium can hold up to 10,100 fans according to the MiLB’s official website.
The Columbus Crew was founded in 1994. The Crew play in the Major League Soccer and have won two MLS cups in the franchise’s history.
Despite the success of the Columbus Crew, the team almost got relocated to Austin, Texas in 2017. For months Crew fans protested the relocation online with the #SaveTheCrew movement before Jimmy Haslam, owner of the Cleveland Browns, took ownership of the franchise in 2018 and kept the team in Columbus.
However, with new ownership came new branding. In 2021, the Columbus Crew attempted to change their team name to the Columbus SC or Columbus Soccer Club. Ownership took note of the backlash and kept the name as the Columbus Crew.
The one thing that didn’t receive much backlash from fans amongst the rebrand was the new stadium. In 2021, The Columbus Crew moved from Mapfre Stadium to the newly built Lower.com Field. Lower.com Field has a capacity limit of around 20,000 people according to lowerfieldcbus.com.
All these stadiums, concert venues, and buildings were built around Nationwide Arena to form the Arena District.
“Take some time to walk around the arena district and the arena itself. There’s so much more to the experience than just the game on the ice. Appreciate what we are blessed to have in Columbus, there are only 32 cities in the whole world that are lucky to have what we have.” Murray said.
