Afterpay Arena

The arena sits in Sydney Olympic Park, and the first thing you notice is that it does not look like a traditional sports hall. Its roof is a single, heavy span sitting on eighteen steel masts that rise from the concrete floor. That structure has defined the place since it opened for the 2000 Summer Olympics, and it still casts a shadow over the hardwood floor below.

Inside, the scale is different. The seating tiers wrap tight around the court. The energy changes when the Sydney Kings play an away team. Underneath that roof hangs the largest centrehung LED video system in the Southern Hemisphere, installed during a 2017 refurbishment. It dominates the centre of the arena.

The ground has hosted finals for the National Basketball League, including a record crowd of 18,589 fans for a match between the Kings and the Adelaide 36ers in 2026. But the floor is not just for basketball. The hardwood surface is the standard for indoor gymnastics. There are fifty-two corporate suites tucked away in the upper levels.

The arena is also a concert hall. A performance by Billie Eilish drew 21,001 people, filling the floor sections to create a space that feels smaller than the vast roof above. The solar panels on the roof provide ten percent of the daily energy consumption. It is a multi-purpose space, but it is most often defined by the sound of the basketball bouncing off the hardwood.