Philadelphia Flyers unveil new arena upgrades costing $400 million
The Philadelphia Flyers have massively upgraded their arena, including a new locker room, player lounge, coaches room, and medical facilities. The total cost of the extensive upgrades done for Wells Fargo Center have costed the team about $400 million. For context, the recent sale of the entire Ottawa Senators franchise costed $950 million.
“Our players were blown away and our entire organization is going to benefit so much from these investments,” said Flyers President of Hockey Operations Keith Jones in a press release. “We have training facilities, medical facilities, video technology to breakdown game tape, and great new spaces for players and their families before and after games. This is what a modern, first-class facility looks like.”
Wells Fargo Center was built in 1996 to host the Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers. The arena costed $210 million to build and has been the home of the Flyers and 76ers consistently for the last 27 years.
“Every inch of this arena has been torn down and rebuilt into something so impressive, and the facilities now available to players and performers are truly world class,” said Wells Fargo Center President Phil Laws. “As we begin to finish the transformation of this entire arena, we can certainly say that we’ve achieved our goals to create the best fan experience in sports and build facilities that will help our players and performers succeed on the ice, on the court, or on stage.”
The arena has a capacity of 20,306 for hockey games. From the first season of playing in Wells Fargo Center until COVID-19 hit, the Flyers were consistently near the top of the NHL in average attendance. In 2020-21 they had no in-person seating for NHL hockey and it the last couple of years haven’t been as good for them at the ticket office.
In 2021-22, the Flyers averaged 16,541 fans per game, a far cry from the north of 20,000 capacity. They improved to 17,635 last season and hope to keep up the upward trajectory of fan attendance this season as the rebuild on the ice continues.