NBA: Here's the Top 5 highest rated arenas (spoiler: Madison Square Garden misses No. 1)

Let’s keep it 100 - is there any better outing than going to an NBA game to see your favorite team lace up? If we’re talking MLB, there’s always a chance of a rain shower and if you’re a diehard NFL fanatic, you already know about frigid conditions. The National Basketball Association always has you covered - pun intended - so it’s only right to see how every arena ranks from top to bottom.

Here’s the Top 5 highest rated NBA arenas

While my Brooklyn Nets have some serious work to do - both roster-wise and arena - it’s clear the New York Knicks’ Madison Square Garden has serious bragging rights when it comes to the Top 5 spots around the league.

The FedExForum, home of the Memphis Grizzlies, has come out as the highest-rated NBA arena, with an average score of 4.57. 

 Sportsbooks comparison site SportsbooksOnline.com averaged Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Google review scores for all 29 NBA Arenas, to find out which is the highest rated by the public. 

In cases where average combined scores were tied, the arenas were then ordered by the total number of reviews, from the largest to the smallest number of reviews. 

The FedExForum, home of the Memphis Grizzlies, has come out as the highest-rated NBA arena, with an average score of 4.57 from 7,248 total reviews. The venue cost $250 million to construct, and the naming rights were sold to FedEx for $92 million. 

In second place is Madison Square Garden, home to the New York Knicks, with an average score of 4.40 from 39,695 total reviews. Madison Square Garden was the most-reviewed arena of all the NBA venues featured in the study. 

In third place is the Crypto.com Arena, the shared home of the Los Angeles Clippers and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Crypto.com Arena also scored an average rating of 4.40, from 31,841 reviews. 

The Kaseya Center, the home of the Miami Heat, is in fourth place with an average score of 4.40 from 25,298 total reviews. The United Center which had the same average score, and is home to the Chicago Bulls, came just behind in fifth, with 23,422 total reviews. 

Need to know the rest of the line-up? Of course you do.

The Orlando Magic’s home arena, the Amway Center, is in sixth place with an average score of 4.37 from 17,160 total reviews. 

The home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, is the NBA arena in seventh, with an average score of 4.37 from 11,678 total reviews. 

The Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Paycom Center, and the Smoothie King Center are eighth, ninth and tenth respectively, all with an average review score of 4.37. These arenas are home to the Indiana Pacers, Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans. 

The NBA arena with the lowest overall rating was the Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings. It only managed an average rating of 3.83 from 9,945 total reviews.  

Patrick Corkery, Content Writer at SportsbooksOnline.com commented on the study:  

“Looking across the average scores among the top ten, reveals there is actually not a lot separating the best arenas, which suggests they are all offering fans a good game day experience at a reasonable price. 

“It's worth bearing in mind that as well as gamedays, many of these arenas also play host to NHL, boxing, and musical events, which makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly which reviews are contributing the most to their overall score. 

“It is also interesting to see that the most highly rated arena is not necessarily the most well-known one, as iconic arenas such as Madison Square Garden and the Crypto.com Arena, had to make do with second and third place respectively.”