Sports

Louisville is synonymous with the greatest two minutes in sports – the running of the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May.  Hundreds of thousands of people pack Churchill Downs to view the winner of the first leg of the Triple Crown of racing.

But Louisville’s love of sports goes much deeper than horse racing. This is Kentucky and Kentucky always means basketball, as in the University of Louisville Cardinals who made the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament in 2005 and the Kentucky Wildcats (with their home base in nearby Lexington).

There’s also football, baseball, soccer, swimming (Louisville is home to 1984 Olympic Medalist Mary T. Meagher), extreme sports and a host of others.

The four best known sports venues in Louisville are Freedom Hall – home to the University of Louisville Cardinal basketball team and the Louisville Fire arena football team; Slugger Field, stadium for the Louisville Bats minor league baseball team; Papa John’s Cardinal football stadium and Churchill Downs, site of the Kentucky Derby.

One of the country’s top skate parks, Louisville Extreme Park is located in downtown Louisville. It features a 24-foot full pipe. It includes 40,000 square feet of outdoor concrete skating surface and a wooden vert ramp, along with restrooms. It is open 24-hours a day, year-round. The park provides opportunities for skateboarding, in-line skating and biking for people of all ages and skill levels.

State and local government officials approved the construction of a new arena for U of L basketball. The facility will also accomodate a variety of other events such as concerts, boxing, swimming, NCAA basketball, and more. The 721,762 square-foot arena, located in downtown Louisville at Third and Main Streets, is scheduled to open in November 2010.