Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse has been providing “world class” services for 30 years.

LONG TERM: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse has undergone approximately $250 million in improvements since Dan Gilbert took over the Cavaliers.

The venue opened as Gund Arena

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse shoots for sports and entertainment stars in Cleveland, Ohio.

The downtown arena has been home to the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers since it opened in October 1994 and celebrates three decades of sporting and musical milestones while also keeping an eye on the future.
“We talk a lot about Cleveland and Northeast Ohio being a world-class city without a world-class ego, and our building embodies that every day,” said Nic Barlage, Cleveland Cavaliers, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and CEO of Rock Entertainment Group.

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse opened as Gund Arena and has a distinguished history. It was preceded by the 12,000-seat Cleveland Arena, which opened in 1937. The arena was the Cavaliers' first home venue in 1970 and is known for hosting the Alan Freed-produced Moondog Coronation Ball in 1952, considered the first rock and roll concert. After falling into disrepair, the downtown venue was replaced in 1974 by the 20,273-seat Richfield Coliseum, 25 miles south of Cleveland.

The reclaiming of the inner city from the rural outskirts was a turning point. Gund Arena opened as part of the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex, owned by the city and Cuyahoga County and run by the nonprofit Gateway Economic Development Corp. is managed. The complex consists of the 19,432-seat Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and the adjacent Progressive Field, a 34,830-seat baseball park that serves as the home of Major League Baseball's Cleveland Guardians and also opened in 1994.

Billy Joel performed at the grand opening on October 17th and the Cavaliers played their first regular season game on November 8th. The Cavs celebrated their biggest win of their inaugural season in the new arena on February 15, 1995, when the team defeated Shaquille O'Neal and the Orlando Magic 100-99 in overtime.

LET IT KNOW: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, shown during a 2024 playoff game against the Boston Celtics. (Getty Images)

“It was the shot that gave us an even longer chance,” said Barlage. “We have gone through our evolution as a venue and I give huge credit to our chairman Dan Gilbert; From a private perspective, we have invested significantly in the venue.”

Barlage puts the investment at “nearly a quarter of a billion dollars” and the spending began in 2005, when the NBA approved the purchase of the Cavs by the investor group led by Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans. The arena was renamed Quicken Loans Arena and renovations included new wine-colored seats, state-of-the-art scoreboards, video and sound system upgrades, new arena graphics and signage, and improvements to security, locker rooms and suites.

In 2007, the Utah Grizzlies minor league ice hockey team moved to Cleveland and became the Lake Erie Monsters (now Cleveland Monsters) of the American Hockey League. On April 7, the arena hosted the NCAA Women's Final Four for the first time. On June 2, the Cavaliers defeated the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, advancing and hosting their first NBA Finals at the FieldHouse.

“We were fortunate to have had two All-Star Games here. We just hosted the most productive Women's Final Four in NCAA history, and that was our second Women's Final Four hosted here,” Barlage said. “In addition to the five NBA Finals, we have hosted major sporting events that have made the former Gund Arena, then Quicken Loans Arena and now Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse a must-see location.”

After the return of homegrown son LeBron James in 2014, the Cavaliers won the 2016 NBA championship, the city's first major league title since 1964. The arena hosted the 2016 Republican National Convention and announced expansion plans that would last two years and cost money $185 million, with 70% funded by the arena and 30% from public sources.

The renovation increased the arena's square footage from 95,380 to 152,970 and added a new glass facade, 42,530 square feet of new public space in the atrium, and 62 redesigned suites. The venue was renamed Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in April 2019 to coincide with the floor-to-ceiling remodel. Akron, Ohio favorite The Black Keys played at the grand reopening.
The transformation “allowed us to invest in some of the best technology and some of the best experiences across the board,” Barlage said.

The renovations included an art program curated by the Library Street Collective and privately funded by Gilbert and his wife Jennifer. The 100-piece collection includes site-specific works by 22 different local, national and international artists, including a basketball rippling on a white background.

Technology was at the forefront, including the addition of the Power Portal, a 360-degree tunnel with 2,200 square meters of LED panels and more than 24 million pixels to create an immersive audiovisual entrance connecting the atrium to the street-level hall. Also new was the Curtain Wall, a 7,100 square meter aluminum facade that can be illuminated with 1,500 different color combinations. The main scoreboard, named “Humongotron,” is the fourth largest scoreboard in an NBA arena.

ENGAGE: Major technology-focused projects at the arena include the Power Portal, an immersive tunnel that connects the atrium to the street-level concourse.

Cleveland rocked Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse for the first time in 2021 with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Cleveland, which usually takes place in New York City or Los Angeles, was the big winner with a total economic impact of $50.7 million, $18.7 million in local employee income, $4.7 million in state and local tax revenue due to additional economic activity and an estimated 30,455 unique participants, 90% of whom were visitors from outside Cuyahoga County. The 2024 ceremony will take place on October 19 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and will be streamed live on Disney+ and then broadcast on ABC.

“We're an incredible sports town, but what's equally remarkable is the fact that we have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame right down the street from us,” Barlage said, referring to the Rock Hall Museum's physical location downtown Cleveland. “Now we're actually on rotation to host the induction ceremony here in collaboration with the Rock Hall and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, and you have an additional element of what I would call an experiential value proposition for the artists.”

FIRST SEATS: Former Cavs managers Dave Aucker and Tom Chestnut at the 1994 opening of Gund Arena, the original name of Cleveland Arena.

While major renovations in 2019 focused on the public-facing aspects of the venue, the renovations didn't stop there. In 2022, two bars were added to the venue's club level, and in 2023, a sportsbook and a redesigned team shop were added, and there was a shift towards prioritizing the artist and entourage back-of-house experience .

“It has always been a priority for us to ensure that we showcase Cleveland at its best when we bring nationally and internationally recognized acts to Northeast Ohio,” Barlage said. “We want it to be a world-class experience.”

The key was versatility and the ability to accommodate both visiting teams and high-profile individual events, with the ability to configure spaces as needed while providing high-quality finishes and amenities, including a $15 million remodel of the venue's rooms, so-called star rooms.

“This gives us another exclamation point,” explained Barlage. “The secret behind the scenes is the experience we curate for the artists, the managers and the promoters. We want to make this a prescriptive experience.”

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse used these renovated spaces in 2024 for the largest NCAA Women's Final Four event in history, with an estimated viewership of 18.9 million and 436,055 spectators across all tournaments, a record attendance the Division 1 women's basketball championship. In October, they will host the return of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the venue's 30th anniversary celebration on October 17 and the start of the Cavaliers' preseason.

“We have some of the biggest fans in the world and now we have a venue that celebrates 30 years of excellence and it's really important for us to maintain and build on our reputation but also the momentum that we have going forward.” about 30 years in the making,” said Barlage.

Looking forward, the FieldHouse Now app launches on February 12, 2025. The app makes fans part of the game, including a light show triggered by their phones during the game's most hyped moments. The app features countdown triggers that remind fans when it is time to return to their seats for a tip-off, half-time break or other important moments during the game.

Additionally, Rocket Mortgage will become the presenting sponsor for Canon's C-View technology, which will be renamed FieldHouse Vision. The Cavaliers are the only NBA team with this on-site camera system that records and recreates what happens on the court. The result is a lifelike experience that transports fans to Center Court virtually from home.

“We view Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse as this brick-and-mortar platform that is the living room for the world to look at Cleveland in a positive and impactful way,” Barlage said. “It is our primary responsibility to ensure that we have a venue that not only attracts world-class events, but can also host them truly smoothly and showcase all of the positive attributes of our city and Northeast Ohio.”