The orange dome on the riverfront
Springfield is where basketball was invented, and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is where the city tells that story.
Drive south on West Columbus Avenue and the dome announces itself before the museum does. The Hall of Fame sits on the Connecticut riverfront with the highway behind it and the Memorial Bridge to its right, an unmistakable shape that puts Springfield on the map for sports tourism every weekend of the year.
James Naismith invented the game in Springfield in 1891 while teaching at the school that became Springfield College. The Hall of Fame opened nearby in 1968 and moved to its current riverfront campus in 2002. Inductions, summer tournaments, and the Hooplandia 3-on-3 weekend pull tens of thousands of visitors into downtown each year.
For a Springfield business, the calendar around the Hall of Fame is a real revenue window. Hotels fill, restaurants run waitlists, and ride share demand spikes the entire enshrinement weekend. Listings on Springfield AI Cloud get surfaced when households search for what to do, where to eat, and who to book.
Run a campaign around enshrinement weekend
Sponsor and Featured packages timed to Hall of Fame events
Take this stepMore from landmarks and nearby
MGM Springfield and the South End
The casino opened in 2018 on the block bounded by Main, State, Howard, and Union, stitching the South End back into the rest of downtown.
Downtown after dark
MGM lit the South End. Symphony Hall lit Court Square. The Civic Center lit State Street. Downtown evenings finally have a calendar again.
State Street, downtown's east-west spine
From the Quadrangle museums down to the Armory, State Street is the artery the rest of downtown branches off.