United Center
United Center in September 2015 | |
United Center Location in Chicago United Center Location in Illinois United Center Location in the United States | |
| Address | 1901 West Madison Street |
|---|---|
| Location | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Coordinates | 41°52′50″N 87°40′27″W / 41.88056°N 87.67417°W |
| Owner | United Center Joint Venture (UCJV) (Chicago Bulls 50%/Chicago Blackhawks 50%) |
| Operator | United Center Joint Venture |
| Capacity | Basketball: 20,917 (23,129 with standing room) Concerts: 23,500 Ice hockey: 19,717 (22,428 with standing room) |
| Scoreboard | Mitsubishi Electric |
| Record attendance | 22,819 (February 15, 1997 vs. New York Rangers) |
| Field size | 960,000 sq ft (89,000 m2) |
| Public transit | Green at Damen GreenPink at Ashland Blue at Illinois Medical District |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | April 6, 1992 |
| Built | 1992–1994 |
| Opened | August 18, 1994 |
| Renovated | 2009–10 (300 Level) 2014 (exterior) |
| Expanded | 2016–17 (atrium) |
| Construction cost | $175 million ($380 million in 2025 dollars) |
| Architect | Populous (then HOK Sport) W. E. Simpson Company, Inc. Marmon Mok |
| Project manager | International Facilities Group, LLC |
| Structural engineer | Thornton Tomasetti |
| Services engineer | Flack + Kurtz |
| General contractor | Morse Diesel/Huber Hunt & Nichols |
| Tenants | |
| Chicago Bulls (NBA) (1994–present) Chicago Blackhawks (NHL) (1994–present) | |
| Website | |
| unitedcenter | |
United Center is an indoor arena on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is home to the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). It is named for its corporate sponsor United Airlines. With a seating capacity of up to 23,500, the United Center is the largest arena by capacity in the NBA, and second largest arena by capacity in the NHL after the Bell Centre.
Opened in 1994, the United Center replaced the West Side's Chicago Stadium ("the madhouse on Madison"), which was opened in 1929 and located across Madison Street from the center. It is owned by the Reinsdorf and Wirtz families, owners of the teams that use the arena, and which also own much of the surrounding land. The first event held at the arena was WWF SummerSlam, and it hosts hundreds of sporting events, and concerts a year. The center also hosted the Democratic National Convention in 1996 and 2024. The arena served as the municipal emergency hub in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
The arena is home to a statue of basketball great Michael Jordan, posed mid-air in his iconic "flying" jump, erected in 1994. Originally outside, it now stands inside an atrium extension and event space which was added to the Center in 2017. The Jordan statue has since been joined by statues of Blackhawks ice hockey players Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita, while a statue of various Blackhawks players is located across the street on the site of Chicago Stadium.