Sports
Cleveland's professional sports teams include the Cleveland Indians (Major League Baseball), Cleveland Browns (National Football League), Cleveland Cavaliers (National Basketball Association), Cleveland City Stars (United Soccer Leagues), and Lake Erie Monsters (American Hockey League). Annual sporting events held in Cleveland include the Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland, the Cleveland Marathon, the Mid-American Conference college basketball tournament and the Ohio Classic college football game. The city hosted the Gravity Games, an extreme sports series, from 2002 to 2004. Local sporting facilities include Jacobs Field, Cleveland Browns Stadium, Quicken Loans Arena, and the CSU Wolstein Center.
Cleveland has long been known as a "football town", and the Browns dominated the NFL from 1950 to 1955. The city's franchise is one of the most storied in football, though it last won an NFL championship in 1964 and has never appeared in the Super Bowl. The Cleveland Indians last reached the World Series in 1995 and 1997, though they lost to the Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins, respectively, and have not won the series since 1948. Between 1995 and 2001, Jacobs Field sold out for 455 consecutive games, a Major League Baseball record. The Cleveland Cavaliers are experiencing a renaissance with Cleveland fans due to LeBron James, a native of nearby Akron and the number one overall draft pick of 2003. The Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference in 2007, but were defeated in the NBA Finals by the San Antonio Spurs. The city's recent lack of success in sports has earned it a reputation of being a cursed sports city, which ESPN validated by proclaiming Cleveland as its "most tortured sports city" in 2004.
At the 2005 Major League Soccer All-Star Game in Columbus, MLS commissioner Don Garber announced that Cleveland was one of several top areas in contention for an expansion team in 2007. Delays in securing a soccer-only stadium have now delayed any such team from beginning play until the 2009 season, but the Cleveland area is still a contender for expansion. Cleveland fielded an NHL team, the Cleveland Barons, from 1976 to 1978, which was later merged into the Minnesota North Stars. The city has had other major-league hockey teams in the past. The most recent incarnation of the Barons, was an AHL affiliate of the San Jose Sharks, that moved to Worcester, Massachusetts in 2006. The tradition of professional hockey in Cleveland started with the original Cleveland Barons in 1937. A new professional team is slated to begin play in 2007 with the Lake Erie Monsters, an AHL team purchased by Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. Cleveland was also home to the Cleveland Rockers, one of the original eight teams in the WNBA in 1997. However, in 2003, the team folded after owner Gordon Gund dropped the team from operation.
(Source: Wikipedia.org)
