BancorpSouth Arena

BancorpSouth Arena, formerly Tupelo Coliseum, and BancorpSouth Center, until December 2006, is a 10,000-seat multi-purpose arena, near downtown Tupelo, Mississippi, named for the locally based BancorpSouth, a large multi-state commercial banking company.

It was the home of the Tupelo FireAnts and Mississippi MudCats indoor football and the Tupelo T-Rex ice hockey teams. Currently, its primary tenant is the Mississippi Hound Dogs of the Ultimate Indoor Football League.

The $16 million, 32,000 square foot (3,000 m²) facility was built in 1993, and is one of the more modern arenas, serving a small market in the Mid-south. Its lot was previously occupied by a shopping mall called Downtown Mall, which closed in 1990.

The arena also seats 8,000 for sports events, ranging from basketball to rodeos to wrestling — serving as a venue for WCW Uncensored in 1995 and 1996, as well as for WCW Spring Stampede 1997. Also one taping of WWE Smackdown!, and numerous House Shows hosted by WWE.

From 2001 to 2005, the arena hosted the Gulf South Conference Basketball Tournament.

The arena has also hosted the Harlem Globetrotters on several occasions.

One Memphis Pharaohs (Arena Football League) home game was held there in 1996.

The arena can be scaled down to 4,500 for theater-style concerts. The arena is also used for trade shows and conventions (33,800 square feet (3,140 m²) of exhibit space plus 5,000 square feet (500 m²) of meeting space.).

The arena was actually retrofitted from a former shopping mall.

On November 14, 2008, the arena hosted the Mississippi State University club hockey team in a game against the Loyola University New Orleans club in the arena's first venture into ice hockey since the T-Rex left in 2001.

On November 21, 2010, BancorpSouth Arena will host a college basketball game featuring the University of Memphis Tigers and the Louisiana State University Tigers

Famous quotes containing the word arena:

    O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)