In olden days, owners found a big building and slapped down, say, a basketball court. The MCI Center starts with the court. It's built from its heart. Vantage points abound. Unlike US Airways Arena, the MCI Center's seats wrap around the center of the action.
Rows rise gently upward instead of sweeping back and away toward nowhere.
The truest test is the top row of the top level. But up there you still will be much closer to the games than you were before. Before, you felt almost back on the Beltway. Sports fans have come to want more from new stadiums and arenas. They want a sense that even if things are shiny, the place looks like and feels like history could be made there, that it's a place to which the game's ghosts could be summoned.