The Mitchell Center hosted its first ever NBA basketball game between the New Orleans Hornets and Miami Heat on October 23, 2008.

On the May 8, 2007, edition of "Lunch with Lee" on WNSP in Mobile, recently hired head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow called the Mitchell Center "the best arena in the state of Alabama."

The Rand McNally Map Company painted the original aluminum exterior of the 12-foot (4 m) diameter globe, which depicts countries as they were in the 1940s.

Local artist Joe Wilson worked as a modern-day Michelangelo, lying on his back at the globe's new home in the Mitchell Center to restore the paint.

The globe made its second Mobile debut at the May 1999 USA Spring Commencement, which marked the opening of the Mitchell Center.