Basketball Arena (2012 Olympics)

The Basketball Arena for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England will be situated in the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London.

London's Olympic bid proposed that there would be four arenas in the Olympic Park, but the revised masterplan published in 2006 reduced this to three, with the volleyball being moved to Earls Court Exhibition Centre. The fencing arena was also cancelled, and the fencing will now take place at ExCeL.

The Basketball Arena will have 12,000 seats for Olympic basketball and the semi-finals and finals of the Olympic handball, and 10,000 for Paralympic wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. Concept designs were agreed in June 2008 and a planning application is due to be submitted in November 2008. It will be a temporary venue, and it is hoped that it will be reassembled elsewhere in the UK after the games.

In early October 2008 it was speculated that Wembley Arena could be used as a replacement venue for the preliminary rounds of the 2012 Olympic basketball tournament instead of the Basketball Arena, thus saving up to £90 million but in March 2009 it was confirmed that a new arena will be built in Stratford as originally proposed.