It all started with Billy Joel. You toss in a little LeBron James, some Taylor Swift and any number of other music headliners, add a pinch of wrestling, politics and hockey and you have a recipe for success. In this case, success is the 30-year history of Gund Arena, Quicken Loans Arena and Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. Yes, it has had three names, but it has made one big statement: Cleveland can be the place to be again.
Courtesy Cleveland Cavaliers
1. Nov. 8, 1994, Opening Night: A new era dawned for the Cleveland Cavaliers, with a new home and a new look (the “blue streak” uniforms weren’t universally well-received but engender some nostalgia today). The Cavs fell 100-98 to the defending champion Houston Rockets, thanks to a buzzer-beater.
2. March 30, 1995, Mike Tyson returns: Mike Tyson’s ascent in the boxing world was as swift as his decline. After serving three years for a rape conviction, Tyson, who had a mansion in Trumbull County, announced his return at the Gund Arena.
3. Jan. 4, 1996: Tupac Shakur debuted the songs on the double album All Eyez On Me in one of his rare stops in Cleveland.
dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo
4. July 7, 1996, USA Basketball vs. Brazil: The 1992 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team was called the Dream Team for its collection of talent and dominance. The 1996 version sleepwalked through a tuneup game in Detroit but regrouped for a decisive win against Brazil, 109-68. The game is more notorious for what happened in the wee hours: Charles Barkley got in a fight in The Basement, a bar in the Flats.
5. Feb. 9, 1997, NBA All-Star Game: The NBA celebrated its 50th anniversary with a ceremony honoring the league’s top 50 players, and Cleveland was celebrating its new home. Ex-Cav Steve Kerr won the 3-point contest, and the dunk contest was won by a Los Angeles Lakers rookie who would also become an all-time great: Kobe Bryant. The East beat the West 132-120, with Glen Rice the MVP.
Courtesy Dan Hughes
6. June 21, 1997, The Rockers take the court: Cleveland was a charter member of the WNBA and lasted seven seasons.
7. March 26, 2001, Monday Night Raw: The Worldwide Wrestling Federation had a challenger in World Championship Wrestling — both with Monday night shows, WWF Raw and WCW Nitro. A simulcast was shown in Cleveland, and WWF (now WWE) founder Vince McMahon was stunned to find out that his son Shane had purchased WCW.
8. March 13, 2002, St. Vincent-St. Mary vs. Warrensville Heights: Before he played for the Cavs, LeBron James could draw a crowd in Cleveland. As a junior at SVSM, his Irish played the Tigers in a regional semifinal at the arena. James scored 16 — pedestrian by his standards; Romeo Travis led SVSM with 31 points. The dazzled crowd of 20,562 is still the most ever to see an Ohio high school game.
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9. April 18, 2004, Prince: In what turned out to be his final appearance in Cleveland, the newly minted Rock & Roll Hall of Famer performed for more than two hours on a stop in support of his then-new album, Musicology.
10. Oct. 2, 2004, Vote for Change: Ohio became a stop on a tour organized by MoveOn that brought serious star power to swing states. The lineup at the arena was Bright Eyes, R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen, with a special appearance by John Fogerty.
11. April 22, 2006, Cavs vs. Wizards: LeBron James was living up to the hype. The Cavs were making their first playoff appearance in nearly a decade. Facing a more seasoned (but lower-seeded) Washington Wizards team, James had
a
triple-double — the third player in NBA history to do so in his playoff debut — in a 97-86 Cavs win.
12. June 2, 2007, NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 6: The Cavs always seemed to have someone standing in their way, but in 2007, they finally could not be denied. LeBron James scored 20, and Daniel Gibson scored 31 points in 29 minutes to clinch a 98-82 win and the Cavs’ first NBA Finals appearance.
RELATED: Why Did the WNBA's Cleveland Rockers Leave 20 Years Ago? Largely, LeBron James
13. May 22, 2009, NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 2: The Magic had stolen Game 1 of the series, and it looked like they were about to do the same again, as Hedo Turkoglu hit a go-ahead jumper to give Orlando a 95-93 lead with one second left. But Mo Williams inbounded the ball to James, who hit a 3-pointer from the top of the arc to send Cavs fans home happy.
Courtesy Cleveland Cavaliers
14. April 13, 2011: Cavs announcer Joe Tait retires after 39 seasons.
15. April 15, 2011, Rush: The Canadian rock band got an early boost in Cleveland, and in tribute, their stop here on the Time Machine tour was recorded and released as a CD and DVD. The hook for the tour was playing the entire Moving Pictures album cover-to-cover, and the band closed with “Working Man,” the song that found heavy rotation in WMMS.
16. Aug. 23, 2014, ArenaBowl XXVII: Like its predecessor in Richfield, the arena was home for indoor football. In 2008, the Las Vegas Gladiators of the Arena Football League relocated to Cleveland. The team hovered around .500, but in 2014, it put it all together, going 17-1 and setting a record for most wins in an AFL season. The arena hosted the championship game, where the Arizona Rattlers beat the Gladiators 72-32 for their third consecutive title.
Courtesy Cleveland Cavaliers
17. Oct. 30, 2014, LeBron comes home: After four years in Miami, LeBron James stunned many by announcing (in a Sports Illustrated article and NOT with a live ESPN special) that he was returning to the Cavaliers. His first game back was a 95-90 loss to the Knicks, but the party atmosphere throughout Downtown was a sign of epic things to come.
18. March 28, 2015, Notre Dame vs. Kentucky: The NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament had stopped here before, but in 2015, it hosted the regional round. Unbeaten Kentucky hammered West Virginia, and Notre Dame beat Wichita State, setting up a game in which the Irish gave the Wildcats all they had. Andre Harrison hit two free throws with six seconds left for the 68-66 Kentucky win.
Sam Kovak / Alamy Stock Photo
19. June 3, 2015: Taylor Swift visits with her 1989 tour, marking her crossover from country to pop.
Courtesy Cleveland Monsters
20. June 11, 2016, Calder Cup Finals, Game 4: For decades, Cleveland was a hockey hub, and since it opened, the arena has hosted a variety of minor-league teams. Since 2007, it’s been the (first Lake Erie, then Cleveland) Monsters of the American Hockey League. In 2016, the Monsters brought home Cleveland’s first Calder Cup since the Barons did so in 1964, beating the Hershey Bears in a sweep.
21. June 16, 2016: The Cavs won the NBA Finals title for the first time in franchise history.
Philip Scalia / Alamy Stock Photo
22. July 18-21, 2016, Republican National Convention: For the first time in 80 years, Cleveland hosted a political convention. Where the previous two were at Public Auditorium, this one was at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, and the city proved a gracious host for a flurry of activity.
RELATED: How Cleveland Landed the 2016 Republican National Convention
23. Dec. 25, 2016, Cavs vs. Warriors: Christmas has become the marquee day of the NBA regular season. The Cavs-Warriors rematch lived up to it with the Cavs winning on a Kyrie Irving shot with 3.4 seconds left.
Bobby Singh / Alamy Stock Photo
24. June 10, 2017, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Joe Walsh, himself an icon in Northeast Ohio and beyond, opened for the rocker’s 40th-anniversary tour stop in Cleveland, where he played many of the hits that had made him famous. Sadly, it would turn out to be his last tour. A week after it ended in September, Petty died.
25. March 15-17, 2018 NCAA wrestling championships: The arena has proven itself again and again as a great venue for high school and college sports, and this was no exception. The tournament set an attendance record with more than 113,000 people coming through the turnstiles to watch wrestling greats like Kyle Snyder and Spencer Lee win titles, with Penn State taking the team title.
26. March 11, 2020, Mid-American Conference Tournament: Another great season of March Madness was on tap, starting with the annual MAC Tournament at the arena. (The men’s NCAA Tournament was scheduled to come to Cleveland the following week.) Women’s games were played in an empty arena in response to concerns about a new strain of coronavirus. The next day, before the first men’s quarterfinal game, between Akron and Ohio, the entire tournament was canceled, as were tournaments for the Big Ten, Southeast Conference and American Conference. It wouldn’t take long for the NCAA Tournament to be canceled, as well.
27. Oct. 30, 2021, Rock & Roll Hall Inductions: The first induction at the arena (previous Cleveland ceremonies were at Public Hall) featured the most diverse class in history. Taylor Swift kicked things off with a cover of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” written by inductee Carole King. LL Cool J and the Go-Gos, both inductees, performed, and the night closed with Paul McCartney and new inductees the Foo Fighters.
28. Feb. 20, 2022, NBA All-Star Game: For the third time in team history — and the second time at the arena — the Cavs hosted the All-Star Game. The game was hardly a classic (Team LeBron beat Team Durant 163-160), but the festivities around it had grown to encompass a host of events, including the celebration of the NBA’s 75th anniversary.
29. Jan. 2, 2023: Donovan Mitchell‘s 71 points set the team’s single-game scoring record in a 145-134 win over the Chicago Bulls.
Carolina Kane
30. April 7, 2024, NCAA Women’s National Championship: Women’s basketball reached an inflection point for this Final Four. The basketball tournament was filled with stars like LSU’s Angel Reese and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, and Connecticut continued its dynastic ways. But it was South Carolina that was the champion over Iowa in the first women’s championship game — which got higher ratings than the men’s game.
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