pontiac51

So if we get to just make up what MSA's we like, can I say that Columbus includes Dayton and Toledo? Cincinnati can have Indianapolis, maybe? I guess you weren’t around when God passed out common sense!!! The bottom line is that there are cities in Akron’s MSA such as Northfield, Macedonia, Twinsburg, Sagamore Hills, Aurora and others that are FACTUALLY Cleveland suburbs. Akron is only 39 miles from Downtown Cleveland in the next county. So for you to suggest that Columbus/Dayton (75 miles) Columbus/Toledo (140 miles) and Cincy/Indy (100 miles) would be in the same boat as Cleveland/Akron shows a level of incompentence and cluelessness that I’ve rarely seen!!! Furthermore, what you fail to realize these govt definitions are very political. The reason that Cleveland and Akron are not in the same MSA Is because Akron officials don’t want to be part of the Cleveland MSA, pure and simple. It has very little to do commuting patterns or any other metric. The fact of the matter is that Cleveland and Akron are in the same metropolitan area, and is by far the largest in Ohio.

This is approaching a done deal. Tuesday ESPN reported that "Gary Bettman authorized an ownership group to conduct a season-ticket drive in Seattle, invited the city to apply for expansion and set the fee at $650 million... The goal is for a new franchise to begin play in 2020-21." Quebec City and Houston are figured to be the next in line if Seattle doesn't work out. Sacramento and Milwaukee have recently built new arenas, so they won't be moving anywhere soon. The NBA has found they do really well in two types of cities: 1. Huge metro areas (NY, LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, etc.) 2. Small (around 1-2 million) metro areas with no other pro teams (Portland, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Orlando, Sacramento, Memphis, Oklahoma City) Interestingly, the MLS has found that cities in the second category are very successful for them. Midsized metros that already another pro team are currently unattractive to the NBA. By this metric, all of the cities you mentioned, other than Seattle, are not attractive to the NBA. Baltimore, St. Louis, Nashville, and Cincinnati all have two major teams. Columbus has one and OSU football almost counts as a second. In a few years MLS could potentially be in Nashville, maybe Columbus, and maybe Cincinnati. I wish Columbus could get another team, but geography really hurts them. In the previous rounds of expansion / relocation the top cities have been: Louisville, Hampton Roads, Seattle, and Vancouver. My rankings would be: 1. Hampton Roads - Largest MSA (1.7 million) without a pro team; no nearby college teams; Virginia would probably build them a free arena 2. Seattle - never should have left in the first place; very wealthy and rapidly growing metro; might get a free arena if the Seattle NHL expansion goes through 3. Louisville - 4th largest MSA (1.0 million) without a pro team; YUM arena already exists; UofL and UK are two of the only fanbases that are strong enough to scare the NBA 4. Vancouver - very wealthy and rapidy growing metro, but still only around 2 million; would never be more popular than the Canucks; team didn't work the first time; being in Canada is tough because salaries are in USD I agree Charlotte/Raleigh and Austin/San Antonio make sense. I've also been seeing a lot of talk about Montreal recently, but I don't know what to think about that. Television Market size is the most important metric when it comes to pro sports. Too many of you goofballs get too wrapped up in MSA size, which is not a much better metric than the city size. Another factor is how close one city is to another major city. For example, Columbus would have a hard time getting a MLB team because it’s too close to Cleveland and Cincinnati.

Took a decade - yes, but I don't think CLE management were really serious until WOW picked PIT over CLE last year. I know it was not an urgent goal for the civic promotion groups like GCP. It will be interesting to see how much new traffic the Icelandic lines generate. CLE's Europe traffic number has been about 200-250 per day. If the new carriers capture half that number and generate an equal number of new bargain-seeking travelers, that will still leave room for a third carrier to offer a flight 3 or 4 times a week to a traditional European hub. It's quite obvious that you're just making stuff up!! According to an article in cleveland.com, airport officials were after Icelandair long before PIT got WOW. They just didn't get serious about overseas service last year; they've been serious since 2009 when Continental ended the London flight. So for you to suggest that the airport officials were motivated solely because of PIT shows what kind of grade-school reasoning you have!! They were so serious it took 8 years (!!) to get Iceland service and it was after PIT landed WOW! service to Iceland which already had a non-stop to Paris. I know you're in love with the current administration but think how silly it makes the city look if true! Thanks for making my point. So are the STL airport officials incompetent because it took 16 years to replace their overseas service? How about the BNA officials? It only took over 25 years to replace their overseas service!! You are obviously in love with the PIT officials, but are they incompetent because there is very little service to the west coast? Are the IND officials incompetent because it took them like forever to establish overseas service? On the other side of the spectrum, are the MIA officials incompetent because while there is obviously an abundance of overseas service, there is none to East Asia, which they've been trying to get for years? We can play this nickel and dime game all day long!! Are airports like JFK, YYZ and EWR the only ones that meet YOUR standards? The bottom line is that your coming across like someone who has an ax to grind with the city of Cleveland!! It's obvious you know very little about the airline industry. You need to stop embarrassing yourself!!!

Took a decade - yes, but I don't think CLE management were really serious until WOW picked PIT over CLE last year. I know it was not an urgent goal for the civic promotion groups like GCP. It will be interesting to see how much new traffic the Icelandic lines generate. CLE's Europe traffic number has been about 200-250 per day. If the new carriers capture half that number and generate an equal number of new bargain-seeking travelers, that will still leave room for a third carrier to offer a flight 3 or 4 times a week to a traditional European hub. It's quite obvious that you're just making stuff up!! According to an article in cleveland.com, airport officials were after Icelandair long before PIT got WOW. They just didn't get serious about overseas service last year; they've been serious since 2009 when Continental ended the London flight. So for you to suggest that the airport officials were motivated solely because of PIT shows what kind of grade-school reasoning you have!!

Why are you so concerned about what IND is doing? I just don't get it!!! Just be happy that Hopkins has 2 new foreign airlines to Europe, after many of you goofballs swore up and down that Hopkins would never get overseas service because the mayor, airport director and others were so incompetent!! There are enough overseas flights for everyone. In other words, whatever happens at IND or any other airport HAS NO BEARING on what happens at Hopkins. So let's stop with the childish stuff!! Not a goofball. It still took a decade to restablish a Euro link to Iceland. Still think Hopkins is going to have trouble direct service to places like London, Paris and Frankfurt because of the facility until narrowbodies can make the leap. I have to admit, I have no links with the Icelandair or WOW folks so I didn't see that one coming. Let's stop with you trying to shut everyone down if they aren't a 100% Cleveland cheerleader. This isn't about being a cheerleader; it's about being fair, which you are not!! This is also about having common sense, which you are severely lacking!! The bottom line is that you carried on and on about how CLE would never ever get European/overseas service. You said that the mayor/airport director and others were too incompetent. Then all of the sudden CLE gets two new foreign airlines to Iceland, and now you're upset that it's not London, Paris or Frankfurt. You're upset that the Iceland flights are on narrowbody airplanes. Soon, your going to tell us that Iceland isn't really a part of Europe, and on and on and on!!! Never satisfied!! Now I'm not trying shut you down, but so far your batting average ain't been too good!! I'm not a cheerleader; I just give credit when/where it is due. I don't complain about everything like you do!!

You obviously don't know what your talking about!! Television market size is what matters in pro sports (Cleveland is 18th), not MSA size. Why are so many of you people concerned with MSA size? It's one of the least consistent ways to judge a region's size!!

Why are you so concerned about what IND is doing? I just don't get it!!! Just be happy that Hopkins has 2 new foreign airlines to Europe, after many of you goofballs swore up and down that Hopkins would never get overseas service because the mayor, airport director and others were so incompetent!! There are enough overseas flights for everyone. In other words, whatever happens at IND or any other airport HAS NO BEARING on what happens at Hopkins. So let's stop with the childish stuff!!

^^You beat me to it!! For all of the criticism that the airport has taken from some people, especially from some on UO, maybe they aren't so incompetent after all!! I'm sure that some on here will give all the credit to the new airport director Robert Kennedy. But I'm pretty sure that his predecessors deserve some credit too, because this effort probably started a few years ago, according to articles I've read. And as much as some people on here like to criticize Mayor Jackson, he also deserves credit!!!

The bottom line is that some of our neighborhoods are screwed up primarily because of the people who live in these neighborhoods. Throwing money at this problem isn't going fix it!!! And the fact that we've probably lost an All-Star game and the revenues that come with it because of some crooked greedy-a$$ pastors is outrageous!!! How is everyone going to feel if the Cavs are ultimately moved out-of-town because of this? And if you don't think this is possible, go ask fans of the Seattle SuperSonics!!! If you can't comprehend this, then maybe YOU are the one who is uninformed!!!

No, the people challenging this are sick and tired of living in neighborhoods that have been facing decades and decades of neglect and disinvestment, while we have been subsidizing millionaires/billionaires with sweet stadium deals. If you go outside of downtown, University Circle, Ohio City, and a few other neighborhoods, you'll see that Cleveland is very much not in a "comeback" but we are still continuing to bleed population and are faced with huge issues of infant mortality, lead poisoning, poverty, etc. I think people can have disagreements over this issue, but I don't think you should be disparaging people's motives when you don't really know what's going on. If people are sick and tired of neglect and disinvestment, maybe these people should stop trashing their neighborhoods. Maybe they should stop robbing and killing each other in their neighborhoods. Maybe they should raise their kids and make sure they go to school and do their homework. These neighborhoods aren't screwed up because of neglect and lack of investment. They're screwed up because the ignorant people in these neighborhoods screw it up. And there is no amount of money from Dan Gilbert or anyone else that is going to fix THAT problem!!!

This is obviously your opinion because you wouldn't know a fact if it ran over you!! The bottom line is that Hopkins has done a decent replacing some of the flights it lost because of the hub closure. Hopefully international service will come as the airport continues to rebound. But for you to come on here and trash the airport every chance you get is getting ridiculous!!! Maybe it's getting a little too personal for you. Go find a hobby!!!

You obviously don't know what you're talking about!!! Forbes was very good for downtown development when he was city council president. He would have supported this project. Kucinich was mayor for less than 2 years. So you need to find someone else to pick on!!!

The bottom line is that the Bulls, like the Pacers, didn't want to trade with a team within the division and conference. Griffin wouldn't have changed that. And while he did a decent job here, a lot of you people have him way overrated!! After all, LeBron and Kyrie fell into his lap (he had absolutely nothing LeBron coming back), and he made the easy trade for Kevin Love. Any GM would look good with these players. Griffin was just in the right place at the right time. He's really not all that special!! I'm not saying Griffin was God, but you downplay him way too much. And the fact is you simply don't fire a GM right at the beginning of free agency when we needed a GM in place. And this free agency was critical for us because the Warriors showed the world how much better they are than us. It was a bonehead move and indicated that the organization is/was unstable. What I'm telling you is that he had little to do with the Cavs winning the title because he basically inherited a championship caliber roster. And you don't know the circumstances of why he was let go. I read where he wanted to be one of the highest paid GMs. If that's the case, I don't blame Gilbert for saying adios!! As far as free agency goes, because of Griffin's moves, the Cavs obviously don't have the cap space to sign any meaningful free agents. And because we are a long way from the trading deadline, there is plenty of time to improve the roster. So let's stop all of this "Griffin-to-the-hall-of-fame" talk!! He just happened to be the GM when LeBron decided to come back!! You are giving him WAY WAY too much credit!!!

The bottom line is that the Bulls, like the Pacers, didn't want to trade with a team within the division and conference. Griffin wouldn't have changed that. And while he did a decent job here, a lot of you people have him way overrated!! After all, LeBron and Kyrie fell into his lap (he had absolutely nothing LeBron coming back), and he made the easy trade for Kevin Love. Any GM would look good with these players. Griffin was just in the right place at the right time. He's really not all that special!!

http://realestate.cleveland.com/realestate-news/2017/07/cleveland_school_board_will_co.html Update!! Looks like it's going to be built!!

^^You're right about that!!!??

^^Gilbert is much more concerned about developing his hometown!! He owes Cleveland absolutely nothing!! Besides, Downtown Cleveland is far ahead of Downtown Detroit in terms of development. It's not even close!!!

I'm all for renovations/restorations, don't get me wrong. But there are more than a few posters on here that criticize Starks for not being fast enough in constructing his proposed towers on the one hand, and then on the other hand heaps praise on Gilbert for doing something that he apparently has never done. My guess is that he'll run into a few roadblocks before he breaks ground. The slobberfest for Gilbert is just astonishing!!!?

Renovations are all fine and dandy, but how many skyscrapers has he built?

Let's see what Gilbert does first before we put him in the "Developers Hall of Fame". So far he's done very little to deserve such a$$-kissing from some of you overly negative Cleveland posters!!!

Just another infantile post!!? First of all, it's good to see this kind of development happening in downtown Detroit. But to use this project to criticize what's going on in Cleveland in just childish!!! Over the last decade or so there have been many projects completed in downtown Cleveland and there are several more in the works, including Nucleus. As far as Stark is concerned, construction for the "515" project is about to start and things seem to be finally coming together for the Nucleus project. So at this point, your childish little rant about Stark and the city of Cleveland is totally unwarranted!!!