Arizona State tears down wall within Wells Fargo Arena to increase capacity

“The Bank” has been busy.

Wells Fargo Arena or “The Bank,” as many have nicknamed it, has become the hot-spot in town with the emergence of ASU basketball.

As its national ranking jumped as high as No. 3, and its winning streak to start the season kept increasing, so did the amount of fans that packed the place.

In the Sun Devils’ last three home games the attendance hit spots that many only see when rival Arizona comes to Tempe. The Devils game against Vanderbilt on Dec. 17 drew 10,797 fans, the Longwood game had 9,308 and 10,646 people packed the place against Pacific.

With tickets in such high demand, ASU has taken down the back wall that covered up the top of the upper level — a move that will add almost 3,500 seats, increasing the Arena’s capacity to 14,100, according to Doug Haller of The Arizona Republic.

Since putting the wall up in 2010, Wells Fargo Arena’s capacity was the fifth-lowest in the Pac-12. The removal of the wall now puts “The Bank” just behind Utah’s Jon M. Huntsman Center and Arizona’s McKale Center in terms of seats.

Arizona State has yet to lose at home (8-0) and will get its first chance to play in front of the bigger Wells Fargo Arena crowd Thursday night when the Sun Devils host Oregon in their Pac-12 home opener at 8 p.m. MT.