On nights that used to shake downtown, FedExForum now has whole stretches of seats sitting dark. Sections that once felt packed have been roped off, and even the lower bowl can look patchy. Longtime Memphis Tigers fans and visiting coaches alike have noticed the change this winter, as the energy inside the building dips and the empty premium chairs raise a touchy question: how big a deal is college hoops in Memphis right now?
Black drapes and empty sections
Local columnist Frank Murtaugh has described FedExForum as visually downsized, with what he calls “a pair of gigantic black drapes” hanging from the rafters to disguise bare terraces. The problem, he wrote, is that “the curtains haven’t worked.” His piece outlines a season of sparse-looking home crowds and one of the program’s rougher stretches in decades. The optics, as the Memphis Flyer notes, have left many veteran fans more than a little irritated.
The numbers behind the quiet
University officials are not pretending that nothing is wrong. The school plans to remove 3,649 Terrace seats and cap basketball capacity at about 14,470 starting with the 2025–26 season, according to SportsBusinessJournal. NCAA season figures list Memphis with an announced average home crowd of 11,931 in 2024–25 on the team’s season page. That gap between what the arena can hold and who is actually showing up helps explain the black curtains, the upper deck closures, and the tinkering with premium seat pricing.
Why this matters for the roster
The arithmetic is blunt. Ticket revenue still matters, and thinner gates can tighten what is available for recruiting, NIL opportunities, and other day-to-day program needs, a point local commentators have hit repeatedly. Local reporting also notes that the athletic department is reshuffling price structures and will start adding sales tax to tickets as NCAA revenue rules change, a tweak that could further shape how fans buy in, according to Daily Memphian coverage.
The football facelift looms large
All of this is happening while the city and university are deep into a major renovation at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium, a multi-phase project that channels big money toward football and facility upgrades. Reporting on the stadium work puts the cost in the low to mid 200 million dollar range and details staged upgrades to premium seating and hospitality spaces, as noted by StadiumDB and planning notices.
Small arenas and a nostalgia trap
Some frustrated fans have floated a smaller setting as the fix. Elma Roane Fieldhouse, on campus, holds roughly 2,565 people, but modern Division I requirements and building codes make a permanent move there for men’s basketball a long shot, according to University of Memphis facilities information. The Mid-South Coliseum, which once seated about 11,000, has not seen a meaningful Tigers home game since the early 1990s, and local writers say refitting big downtown venues is costly and operationally messy, per the Memphis Flyer.
What happens next probably comes down to a familiar trio: wins, price, and experience. Memphis’s athletic leadership has started to trim capacity and adjust ticketing. Whether that pulls fans closer together and brings back the roar on Beale Street nights, or simply concentrates the quiet in fewer sections, will be the storyline carrying into the offseason.
