In many towns arenas turn often into white elephants, used sporadically for various events, Quicken Loans Arena does not fall into that category. The "Q" was recently ranked by industry tracker Pollstar as the 13th busiest venue in the country, 33rd in the world.
This year though will be unlike any other. "Never, never in our 22 year history have we ever entered into a period like we'll have, like our community will have of pure adrenaline rush for the next 3.5 months," said Cavaliers and Arena CEO Len Komoroski to a group of journalists last week for the RNC's media walkthrough.
The Cavaliers start their playoff run on Sunday at the arena. The team finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference, third in the NBA behind Western Conference Champion Golden State and San Antonio.
If the Cavs were to face one of those two teams in the NBA Finals which start June 2, they would be the away team meaning the latest they could play at the arena would be a Game 6 on June 16. That would give the RNC three more days to convert the arena into a convention site, three more days, for a total of 32, than if they played a Game 7.
It's not just the Cavs occupying the 22,562 seat arena, the Lake Erie Monsters are in the Calder Cup Playoffs which could also stretch into early June and the Gladiators will play their final home Arena Football League game of the regular season on June 3 before finishing their season with six games on the road.
It normally takes six weeks to convert an arena into a convention space, organizers say they've never done it in less than five which is what would happen if the Cavs played a Game 6 at home in June. That being said they've made plans for it and say they will have no problem working on a tighter timeline.
