The Milwaukee Panthers announced that they are moving back to the Klotsche Center. This move back to the Klotsche is a stupid decision. The Klotsche Center only seats 3.500 people and it is below Horizon League standards, which requires the arena to seat 5,000 people, but the Horizon League decided to make an exception. The Panthers will regret moving back to campus instead of paying to play at the US Cellular Arena, even though it was very expensive to play there, because students are still not going to come to the games and they will lose fan support. Moving back to the Klotsche Center will also hurt their chances of moving into a better conference until they build a new arena on campus. If the Panthers want to be a competitive and a respected basketball program they can't play in a high school gym. No high school basketball player is going to want to come and play for the Panthers when they have awful facilities. The Panthers should have continued to play at the US Cellular Arena, while they built a new arena on campus. Until the Panthers play in an arena that is suited for a college team they will have trouble recruiting talented players, and they won't have support from students and fans.
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This is a very risky move. You make many valid points. I have to believe something else is in the works....otherwise this could turn in to be a complete trainwreck. I understand that the athletic department is in the middle of a budget crisis...and this move does save the department money, but if this move was made just to save $$$$, this signals the beginning of the end for this D1 program. I'm also very concerned about the possibility of losing my PRIME seat location in regards to my season tickets. I'm very anxious to see how the athletic department is going to handle this transition.
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