UNC is already losing its identity. The Smith Center must stay | Opinion
For an alternative perspective on the Dean Dome from Associate Opinion Editor Ned Barnett: Basketball is evolving. UNC’s basketball arena should, too.
Back in 2024, UNC leaders paid a public relations firm a million dollars to give advice that most alumni could’ve given for free: Carolina has lost its way.
The Carolina Way is the philosophy of the late, great Dean Smith. And nowhere does his legacy shine through more than in the UNC men’s basketball program, which has clung to its roots despite how much college athletics has changed. Which is why it’s so alarming that the administration may abandon the Dean E. Smith Center altogether. It would be yet another example of the nation’s oldest public university abandoning pride for profit.
There’s no question that the Dean Dome in its current state is in serious need of improvement. It’s dated, offers limited amenities and traffic is a pain. A serious renovation, at the very least, is inevitable. The administration has considered a range of possibilities for the Smith Center’s future, but the most likely of them seems to be a move to Carolina North, a planned satellite campus located 1.6 miles north of UNC’s main campus. Building a new arena is one thing, but moving the heart of UNC athletics all the way off campus? It’s the kind of decision that only a chancellor who graduated from Duke could make.
While the administration may think the most important stakeholders are donors and season ticket holders, the lifeblood of the fan base is the students. They trudge down the hill to the Dean Dome for every home game, rain or shine. Just look at what happened last month when UNC played Duke. It was everything anyone could ask for from a rivalry game. Students and fans stormed the court — Roy Williams Court — twice. They flooded Franklin Street, a roaring river of celebration. Attending those games, participating in those traditions, is a core part of every UNC student’s experience. The administration shouldn’t be so quick to strip that away.
On a recent podcast, Chancellor Lee Roberts claimed that the move is to make games more engaging for the students, because the new location would ostensibly move student seating closer to the court. But if the goal is really to engage students, moving the arena further away from them doesn’t seem like the best way to achieve it. It would come at the expense of attendance and atmosphere.
The biggest problem, though, is the optics. The plan to move the Smith Center faces very outspoken opposition from people whose opinions carry a whole lot of weight: legends like Williams himself and Tyler Hansbrough, the most decorated player in program history. Williams has said that Smith’s wish was for the arena to remain on campus, and said Smith told him it would become his responsibility to fight for it.
UNC has pumped the brakes on making an official decision, in large part because former players and others close to the basketball program were outraged they had been left out of the decision-making process until one had seemingly already been made. Their opinions, as well as the opinions of fans, students and alumni, should be paramount. Yet the administration seemed to treat them as an afterthought. Leaders are trying to correct those missteps by soliciting public input now, but it’s unclear how convincing those efforts will be.
At the end of the day, it seems to come down to finances. The Carolina North location would reportedly generate an additional $20 million in revenue per year. But there are some things that are just more valuable than money, and there are things that money can never buy. Just ask any Wolfpack fan whether they think that moving basketball off campus was a good thing.
It’s not just about basketball, either. It’s about no longer trusting UNC leaders to act in the community’s best interest — athletically, academically and institutionally. This is just another example of the opaque, top-down decision-making that has plagued the university for years. Under the control of leaders who view higher education through the lens of ideology and money, UNC is becoming a shell of its former self. Those who control the purse strings and the levers of power seem determined to slowly strip the university of everything that makes it great: its independence, its diversity, its values, and now, its traditions.
Even if the administration is right about relocation being the best option, the process by which it arrived at that decision has destroyed any goodwill and trust it may have had. It would be an insult to plow forward with this plan when so much of the public is against it. And it would be an insult to turn the Dean Smith Center into something Dean Smith never would have wanted.
Deputy Opinion Editor Paige Masten graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2021.
This story was originally published March 9, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
