In the 1970s, Cleveland's outlook was grim. The city was losing large swaths of its population, defaulting on its loans, planning on converting Playhouse Square to a parking lot, and becoming known as "Bomb City USA" due to mob violence. The Cuyahoga River was dying, and manufacturing in the city was on the decline. The city's National Basketball Association franchise, the Cleveland Cavaliers, was established in 1970, at the beginning of this tumultuous decade. The first home of the Cavs was the historic Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue near E. 36th Street. The Arena was beloved by some for hosting Alan Freed's Moondog Coronation Ball in 1952, but was well past its prime and hardly suitable for a modern NBA team. After only four years, the Cavaliers, like many downtown Cleveland businesses, moved out of the city and into the suburbs.

Richfield, Ohio would be the new hometown of the Cavaliers and the Richfield Coliseum their arena. Although the Coliseum featured state-of-the-art architecture at the time of its opening, Richfield never developed the way that Cavaliers' owner Nick Mileti had hoped. Mileti imagined Richfield developing rapidly with new roads, businesses, and sports facilities to create "a megalopolis stretching from Cleveland to Akron." Due to the creation of the 50-square-mile Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area in 1974, this never materialized and Richfield remained an isolated and rural town, far from most of the team's fans and overwhelmed by out-of-town car traffic. The Richfield experiment had failed.

When Gordon Gund became the principal owner of the Cavaliers in 1983, the organization began searching for a new home in Cleveland, with hopes of sparking a downtown revitalization. To make an impact, Cleveland needed something more significant than just a sports arena with four walls and a roof. To accomplish this, the city used the concept of an urban entertainment district, or UED, in the creation of Gund Arena. In 1990, the Gateway Economic Development Corporation was formed to build a stadium for the Cavaliers and to create a financially productive district for Cleveland.

The Gateway project was unveiled amidst years of sports-related controversy. A plan for a domed sports complex had already failed to generate sufficient public and political support. In 1984, voters had rejected a $150 million bond issue to fund the domed stadium by a vote of nearly two to one. For the Gateway plan to succeed, the city and the team would need to generate support for the public funding portion of the project. In 1990, following endorsements from business and civic leaders, voters approved a "sin tax" on liquor and cigarettes by a narrow margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. With public funding secured, the path was cleared for the Gateway Project to begin and for the Cavaliers to build their new home downtown. Gund Arena opened on October 17, 1994. After a decade of planning and work, the result was a state-of-the-art sports facility that was "well integrated into the existing fabric of downtown." At the grand opening of the venue, visitors got their first look at the curved roof, glass walls, and large arcades throughout the stadium. The interior of the complex was visible from the outside and featured, "lobbies, a restaurant and sports bar, box offices, stairways and escalators." The architects – from Ellerbe Becket and Robert P. Madison International – succeeded in making the stadium seem open and living in accordance with the rest of downtown Cleveland.

Team and public expectations for stadiums and arenas never remain unchanged. By the 2010s, Gund Arena, by then known as Quicken Loans Arena following its purchase by Dan Gilbert, was no longer state-of-the-art in comparison to some cities' newer venues. The impetus for renovation drew strength from the increasing importance of the venue. Quicken Loans Arena (or "the Q" as it was then known) hosted the 2016 Republican Convention and was also one of six finalists to host the 2016 Democratic National Convention. That same year, the Cavaliers won the NBA championship. In 2018-2019, the arena underwent a massive $185 million renovation in which the team and taxpayers shared the cost, with the Cavs contributing around 68% of the total after cost overruns. The changes included an increase in square footage, a new glass entryway to emphasize a connection to downtown Cleveland, new wireless access points, luxury suites, membership spaces, and an additional 731 television monitors. With renovations complete, and the arena newly-rechristened as Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, the Cavaliers signed a lease to occupy the space until 2034. When that lease expires, the arena will have been home to the Cavaliers for 40 years following their move in 1994.

In 2022, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse (or "the Rock," as it has come to be known) hosted the National Basketball Association's All-Star Weekend event. Thanks to continuous improvement and innovation, the complex was able to host these events in both 1997 and 2022, for the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the NBA. Despite controversy regarding the initial funding for the project as well as for ongoing maintenance, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse has proven to be an unwavering symbol of Cleveland.

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National Basketball Association Hall of Fame inductee Larry Bird’s favorite place to play was one steeped in history, with hundreds of sporting events and concerts taking place within its confines each year. When Bird discusses his favorite place to play he is not talking about the Celtics’ Boston Garden where he won three NBA championships, but is instead referring to the Richfield Coliseum. Larry Bird praised the venue often both during and after his playing career, frequently expressing his affinity for the arena, saying if one were to create the perfect arena it would be in the Coliseum’s image. His compliments did not come without some critiques, all that reference the location of the arena. He disliked the long drive out to the Coliseum twenty-five miles south of Cleveland, which required his team to leave early in order to arrive on time, and wished it was “in a city somewhere — not a suburb.”

The construction of the Richfield Coliseum was a hot topic in Northeast Ohio in the early 1970s, mainly due to its location in Richfield Township, which is over twenty-five miles south of downtown Cleveland. This would be a significant location change from the Arena that had not only been home to the Cavaliers but also the Cleveland Barons since its opening in 1937. The site was chosen by Cleveland Cavaliers and Indians owner Nick Mileti, who saw its northern Summit County location as optimal for bringing in the largest possible number of Northeast Ohioans to events because, as he noted, no one lived in Lake Erie. Mileti wanted the Richfield Coliseum to be “the big brother to Madison Square Garden,” not only a testament to his perceived quality of the new location, but its upcoming cultural significance.

This move of the Cavaliers and other sports teams was met with resistance almost immediately after Mileti announced his plans to construct the Richfield Coliseum. Opposition to Mileti’s plans were from the politicians and officials of Cleveland, who all wanted the Cavaliers to remain downtown and keep other performing acts coming to the city, not to a venue twenty-five miles away. This desire was motivated by the revenue produced by the events held downtown and was aligned with their attempts to revitalize the area. Ultimately city officials were unable to prevent Mileti from relocating his teams to Richfield, and the twenty-thousand–seat venue was constructed in Summit County.

The Richfield Coliseum hosted the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Barons as well as countless concerts during its twenty years of operation. The Coliseum proved it was a viable event location from its opening, hosting Frank Sinatra on October 26, 1974, the first of many famous artists to visit Richfield Township. The list of acts that performed in Richfield is strikingly similar to the current list of inductees of Cleveland’s Rock and Rock Hall of Fame, with acts like Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, KISS, The Who and Grateful Dead performing in the Coliseum.

Concerts were not the only significant events that took place at the Coliseum, it also had its fair share of historic sports moments. Richfield Coliseum hosted the Chicago Bulls for Game 5 of the 1989 Eastern Conference First Round where Michael Jordan would hit ‘The Shot’ as time expired to end the series with a 101-100 Bulls win. Another significant event that took place in the Coliseum was a heavyweight boxing match between Muhammed Ali and Chuck Wepner. The bout was held on March 25, 1975, and determined the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council heavyweight title. Wepner, the underdog, lasted until nineteen seconds before the final bell when he lost by TKO. Wepner’s life and match against Ali has been widely credited as the inspiration for the Rocky film franchise, which depicted an underdog Rocky Balboa going toe-to-toe with the champion Apollo Creed.

The Cavaliers returned to downtown Cleveland in 1994 after twenty seasons in Richfield, and the Coliseum was torn down five years later in 1999. The Coliseum was an important building both locally and nationally from when it was first proposed by Nick Mileti, and embodied the national trend of sports teams fleeing city centers in the 1970s. The demolition of the Coliseum was less controversial than its construction, yet many came to the site in Richfield to see it one last time. Twenty years of historic events occurred within its concrete walls, events that would not only hold significance for Northeast Ohio but the nation as a whole. Perhaps Nick Mileti’s 1974 prediction of a venue on par with Madison Square Garden wasn’t too far from the truth.

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The Arena at 3717 Euclid Avenue was built in 1937 by sports promoter Albert C. Stuphin. Originally designed to be the home ice for Stuphin's Cleveland Barons hockey team (which until that point had played as the Indians and then the Falcons further up Euclid Avenue at the Elysium), the Arena also hosted many other sporting events throughout its history, including boxing, basketball, wrestling, and racing. The Arena served as the original home of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers in the early 1970s before the team moved to the Richfield Coliseum in Summit County.

The Cleveland Arena was also the site of one of the first rock and roll concerts ever held: the Moondog Coronation Ball of 1952. Cleveland DJ Alan Freed organized the concert, which drew crowds of teenagers so large and unruly that the fire department canceled the show before most of the acts could play.

By the 1960s, the arena's facilities were becoming outdated, and in 1974, after the Cavaliers moved to the Coliseum and the Barons to Jacksonville, the Arena stopped holding large events. The building was demolished in 1977.

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