Want to own a piece of the original Rupp Arena court? Here’s your chance
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Artsman dismantled 220 numbered panels, processed maple, and prepared keepsakes.
- Company prints, plates and packages items; it pays licensing and shares revenue.
- Fans can buy ornaments, mini courts and framed pieces online or at Rupp gamedays.
What does it take to get the court that the Kentucky men’s basketball team called home for more than two decades into the hands of UK fans for the holidays?
Christopher Rose, managing partner and founder of Artsman — the company that acquired the most recent Rupp Arena floor — describes a painstaking process in which pieces of the revered surface pass through 20 or so people before getting to their final destination.
It started last year, when the court was taken up piece by piece from Rupp Arena — its home since the start of 2001-02 season — loaded into a semi and shipped to Artsman’s home base in Cincinnati.
After arriving at the shop, it was taken off the truck with forklifts and then brought inside to be “curated.” Each of the 220 panels that had been pieced together to form one basketball court were numbered, so Rose and his team would know exactly which part of the floor they would be dealing with in the future.
“Then we have to take all the runners off the back, very carefully, and deconstruct each panel,” he said.
The “runners” elevate the court off the arena floor utilizing rubber feet on the bottom to provide a gap between the two surfaces that allows for cushion. Between the runner and the bottom of the playing surface itself, there’s a layer of plywood that’s one-inch thick.
“And so we have to pry the maple off of the plywood backer, and then carefully shoot the nails out of each piece, and then we have to plane and grind the back of each piece of maple down so that it’s consistent in thickness for each piece,” Rose said.
After that, each piece of wood is sanded and then either shaved down or left as is before transforming into whatever keepsake it’s been tagged to become. Depending on the product, that step entails printing, applying license stickers and/or affixing descriptive plates to its surface.
Finally, it’s packaged for sale and delivered to whichever Wildcats fan selected it to purchase.
“So, each piece requires a lot of care and preparation,” Rose said.
The company also pays licensing fees and splits its revenue with the managing group that controls Rupp Arena, with additional proceeds going back to the university’s athletics interests.
Artsman, which has also worked with recent NBA championship teams and other major college basketball programs to turn their old courts into keepsakes, unveiled its first line of Rupp Arena products during the NCAA Tournament last season, but Rose said at the time that they held back enough of the floor to be able to roll out new items for years to come.
The latest line launched this week, and UK fans can buy pieces of the old court — in various shapes, sizes and configurations — at ArtsmanSport.com.
The items currently for sale include replica mini courts, ornaments, bottle openers, keychains and pendants — all made with actual pieces from the Rupp Arena court played on by the 2012 national championship team and other prominent Wildcats like Tayshaun Prince, John Wall, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Reed Sheppard. They range in price from $66 for a Christmas tree ornament to $198.50 for a piece of the court in a framed display.
Artsman’s new drop also features some more exclusive items.
Along with the last Rupp court, which was permanently replaced ahead of Mark Pope’s first season as UK’s head coach, the company acquired a small part of the original floor, which was the home to Kentucky basketball teams from the building’s opening in 1976 through the end of the 2000-01 season. The big-ticket item from the original court is a replica mini court for $273.50.
The first products from that surface also came out this week, and that line includes ornaments, mini courts and military-style dog tags, which Rose says have become popular in other markets, used by fans as a sort of good-luck charm on gamedays.
Artsman’s next big wave of products will come from the last Rupp floor’s center court. “And that’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said of that release, which should come deeper into this season.
Until then, UK fans can check out the new stuff on the Artsman website. The company also has a kiosk set up in Rupp Arena for home games, with items for sale there and Artsman employees available to answer questions or even take requests.
“It’s really cool listening to the fans, when they come up and they’re like, ‘This isn’t the wood. Is this the wood?’ And, yeah, this is the actual basketball court,” Rose said of interacting with the fans on gamedays. “And they get so excited. Kentucky fans are just a different breed, so it’s really cool. For us and our mission and what we try to do, it’s kind of like the Holy Grail of fans. So that part is a lot of fun.”
