The Cage Fieldhouse: A day of basketball

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This past weekend I got the chance to go and watch my nephews play basketball at a local facility. The Cage Fieldhouse is actually part of the Swartz Creek School District down by Flint, MI. The building sits right off I-69 on your way from Flint to Lansing and you would have to try pretty hard to miss it.

There isn't much at the exit where it sits besides a Meijer superstore a gas station and the field house. In fact, I am not quite sure why they decided to build it so far away from the campus of the school district. Unless of course it was because they anticipated events like this.

I have a feeling pretty much every weekend this place is packed with recreational league basketball games taking place. Inside the building there really isn't much to talk about. There is a small locker room area, there is a front desk and a couple of offices. Some bathrooms, and a concessions area. That's about it. The remainder of the building consists of the courts.

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The fieldhouse consists of four separate full sized basketball courts with seating on each side for the spectators to watch. If you sit at the top of the bleachers, you can actually see the action that is taking place on all four courts of the facility.

It's pretty crazy just how massive this place is on the inside. As you can see in the photo above, they have four separate scoreboards as well all with their own controller so they can keep track individually of each game.

My nephews didn't have a lot of luck this past weekend playing. I think both their teams failed to score more than single digits and the other teams had close to 50 points. I think a lot of these suburban kids aren't used to the aggressive play style by the inner city teams from Flint.

It felt a bit like a deer in headlights type of moment for them.

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There was a $6 per adult fee to get into the facility. It almost makes me wonder how much income they generate off this place. I am sure a lot of it goes toward paying the officials and they definitely have the upkeep of the building to consider, but I still wonder if it generates revenue.

I would imagine they had to pay for the building somehow right?

I don't think this is the nicest fieldhouse I have ever been too, but given the fact that the district I work for has no field house, I can definitely see the benefit to something like this. It probably helps when you are close to a large city hub like Flint as well.

A district like the one I work for out in the middle of a farm field probably isn't going to have the draw for recreational teams like they do down there.

Then again who knows, we could become a destination!

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Keeping in mind the fact that they probably collect a fee to keep the place in order, I feel like it could have been a bit cleaner. After just a morning of kids playing basketball, the bleachers were filthy. I saw a woman using her own wet wipe to clean a spot for herself to sit.

The bathrooms were also kind of ick, but again, when you have hundreds of young boys cycling through a single bathroom throughout the day, you can only imagine the state it might end up in.

I didn't see a single custodial staff the whole time we were there.

All that being said, there are worse places to watch a day of basketball games at. The Cage Fieldhouse has a lot to offer and I can see why it has become a hub for many recreational teams.

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced