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America West Arena is a sports and entertainment facility located in Phoenix, Arizona. It is home of the NBANBA redirects here, as it is the most common usage of the abbreviation; for more uses, see NBA (disambiguation). The National Basketball Association of the United States and Canada, commonly known as the NBA is the premier professional basketball league i's Phoenix Suns, the WNBAWNBA may also refer to WNBA-AM, a radio station in Illinois. The Women's National Basketball Association or WNBA is an organization governing a professional basketball league for women in the United States. Formed in 1996, the league started play in 1997.'s Phoenix Mercury, and arena football's Arizona Rattlers. The NHL's Phoenix Coyotes previously played here, but have moved to a new arena of their own in the suburb of Glendale. It was also the home of the indoor soccer Arizona Sandsharks . Three of the games of the 1993 NBA Finals between the Suns and the Chicago Bulls, including game six where John Paxson hit basketball's version of the shot heard around the world, were played there, as was one of the three 1998 WNBA finals games and two Arena Bowl games. In 1997, the Rattlers won the Arena football world championship at America West Arena.
Construction of this arena began in 1988, as Suns owner Jerry Colangelo envisioned a need for a new playing facility for his sports team. In 1993, the arena was officially inaugurated with an 111-105 Suns win over the Los Angeles Clippers. After the Suns failed to win the NBA championship that year, a parade that attracted more than 300,000 Suns fans finished up at the America West Arena.
In addition to sports events, many important singers and musical acts, such as The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys, Vicente Fernandez and others have performed at the arena. Oscar De La Hoya had one of his first professional boxing bouts (versus Narciso Valenzuela ) there, and Michael Carbajal also fought there various times.
The arena, which is situated across the street from Bank One Ballpark, is named after its sponsor, America West Airlines, under a naming rights arrangement.
Indoor arenas
Basketball venues
Phoenix sports
