After a successful inaugural season on the court, but not in the stands, Everett’s professional basketball team is changing venues.
The Everett Explosion is moving out of Everett.
Nathan Mumm, who is general manager for the Explosion’s parent company, Courtyard Media, confirmed that a deal is in the works to build a facility “on the east side of (Snohomish) County.”
A press conference is scheduled for this afternoon in Monroe.
The new arena is projected to be ready for the 2009 International Basketball League season. Mumm said that the Explosion will play the 2008 season at the Monroe High School gym.
When reached by telephone on Wednesday afternoon, Mumm did not want to get into too many details about the exact site of the facility. He did say that Courtyard Media was planning to build a 50,000-square-foot arena that could host 3,500 fans for both basketball and indoor football.
“Six years is what’s on the docket right now,” Mumm said. “There are a lot of interesting things happening. We’re not moving out there to play in a high school gym; we’re moving out there to play in a first-class facility.”
Mumm added that “public and private entities” will be involved in the project.
The Explosion went 16-4 and won the West Division while playing their inaugural IBL season in the Everett Events Center earlier this summer. Despite their success, attendance numbers fell short of expectations.
According to recent figures released by the IBL, attendance for the Explosion’s 10 home dates averaged 1,500 fans. Before the season, Mumm said he was hoping for average crowds that exceeded 5,000 per night.
Kim Bedier, general manager for the Events Center, said in May that she was not overly concerned with the low attenMay that she was not overly concerned with the low attendance figures from the team’s inaugural season.
“(Mumm) had such a solid business plan, and he had the owners and so much enthusiasm that I wasn’t worried about (attendance) in the first year,” Bedier told The Herald on May 15. “But the fact that he’s getting 1,000 people is great for that league.”
Bedier was not available for comment on Wednesday.
Mumm said Wednesday that “there were three main things that we asked (people at the Events Center) to get done and they weren’t able to be met. For the fans, we weren’t going to have all our games being on weeknights. That wasn’t going to work for our fan base.”
The 2008 venue at Monroe High currently holds 2,065 seats, according to Mumm. But he said that there are plans to put “$10,000 to $20,000” into renovating the gym and calling it Evergreen Sports Arena.
As for the Explosion’s eventual home, Mumm was confident that the new venue will be successful. “It will be exciting,” he said. “And everything that will happen in the next week is going to be even more exciting.”
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