Greensboro Coliseum's Matt Brown to Receive 2026 NC Sports Hall of Fame Legacy Award

Matt Brown walked into the Greensboro Coliseum in 1994 and found an arena with no luxury suites. "I walked into the largest seated arena in North America and said, 'This is embarrassing,'" he recalled. Thirty years later, the complex he reshaped, now carrying the First Horizon Coliseum name after a 10-year naming rights deal with First Horizon Bank finalized in October 2024, boasts 30 suites, three club lounges, and a sports footprint that generates more than $26 million in annual economic impact for the City of Greensboro.

The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame named Brown the recipient of its 2026 Don Fish Legacy Award, a lifetime achievement recognition honoring contributions to sports in the state. He joins a short list of previous honorees that includes inaugural winner Wendell Murphy (2021), Eddie Smith (2022), and Charlotte businessman and Quail Hollow Club owner Johnny Harris (2024). The award is named for Don Fish, who led the NCSHOF for more than 15 years, and is presented by the organization housed on the third floor of the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

The economic case for the honor is difficult to argue with. During Brown's tenure, the Greensboro Coliseum hosted the ACC men's basketball tournament 23 times since 1967 and the women's championship 12 times since 2000, each edition drawing thousands of fans and driving spending across Guilford County hotels, restaurants, and retailers. The Greensboro Sports Foundation, the local organizing committee for events including ACC, NCAA, U.S. Figure Skating, USA Swimming, USA Gymnastics, and AAU competitions, served as the structural engine behind those bookings.

Brown's three-decade building agenda transformed the physical campus. He secured tens of millions of dollars in arena upgrades to keep the coliseum eligible for ACC tournament rotation, added a 30,000-square-foot exhibit hall, and opened the Greensboro Aquatic Center in 2011, which now hosts NCAA championships. His most visible project was the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 2021 after Brown supervised the conversion of a former Canada Dry bottling plant into the largest enclosed concert hall in North Carolina.

Succession at the complex appears settled. Scott Johnson, a Greensboro native with 33 years at the facility, was promoted to general manager following Brown's retirement. "It was a little scary, but he gave me confidence and put me into different roles that allowed me to move up," Johnson said. Oak View Group assumed management of the Coliseum Complex and Tanger Center in early 2024 after the City of Greensboro competitively bid the contract. The First Horizon naming rights agreement runs through 2034, providing a stable revenue baseline as OVG shapes the next phase of programming.

Brown's reach extended well beyond arena doors. In 2017, the Greensboro Sports Council established the Matt Brown Learn to Swim Endowment, funding water safety instruction for every second-grade student in Guilford County Public Schools. VenuesNow, the global live entertainment trade publication, inducted Brown into its Hall of Honor in 2024. Post-retirement, he became a partner in what has been described as the industry's first minority-owned facility management firm, a next chapter carrying the same institutional ambition that defined his three decades in Greensboro.