Straw man, preposterous statement alert.
Actually, if read all of my posts, you might detect that I'm currently pessimistic about Cleveland's future, largely due to horrendous decisions by our political leaders, and many of these problems also will impact St. Louis, as American manufacturing prowess and competitiveness is slowly being obliterated.
Additionally, however, Cleveland's situation has been greatly imperiled by the actions of current crop of Ohio Republicans led by John Kasich -- unchecked agricultural pollution of Lake Erie and the leveraging of the Ohio Turnpike, northern Ohio's land artery, to support state-wide transportation spending in the absence of an increase in Ohio's gasoline tax.
Excuse me for objecting when persons argue that Buffalo is superior to Cleveland, largely because it's their opinion, as the facts, well documented in this thread, prove otherwise.
Excuse me when persons posit the NHL players are the equal or superior athletes to NBA players, or when I state the fact that the NBA is more popular, especially globally, than the NHL.
The following comments in your post are the incredibly ridiculous and foolish comments of a Cleveland basher.
?????
So you don't believe that value of a sports team is in any way reflective of some combination of the popularity of its sport, or the excellence of the franchise?
Again, good luck with that.
Forbes most recently estimated the Cavaliers value at 1.1 billion, the St. Louis Blues at $270 million, and the Buffalo Sabres at $300 million.
Forbes Welcome
Forbes Welcome
Forbes Welcome
There are many things that make basketball a better sport than ice hockey. Chief among them is that it's a game that can be played almost anywhere with only the cost of a relatively inexpensive ball.
The number of actual basketball players in the U.S. by any measure that I could find dwarfs the number of ice hockey players.
• Number of basketball players in the USA, 2015
https://unitedstatesofhockey.com/201...s-for-2013-14/
Ice hockey apparently is a superior sport for those interested in obtaining a university scholarship, as there are over 15 times more high school basketball players than high school ice hockey players.
Basketball Scholarships & Chances of playing college basketball
Hockey Scholarships & Chances of Playing College Hockey
Are you proud of your disingenuous falsehoods?
I don't believe and I never said that Cleveland is in the same league as Chicago. I did say that Chicago and Cleveland generally are considered to have the two best orchestras in the U.S., and that the Cleveland Orchestra has better facilities. Those are facts.
Apart from that, Chicago has a vastly superior sports scene, better museums, and much more, however including vastly greater financial problems than Cleveland.
Greater Cleveland's and even Cleveland itself likely have reached a level of relatively stable population. The great legacies of once having been the nation's fifth largest city by population and one of the most wealthy cities in the nation continue to bestow great joy on the city's residents, and some of greatly enjoy the region's resulting lack of congestion, significantly lower housing costs, etc.
Yet Cleveland is hardly decaying. That's an egregiously false statement by a deluded individual. I urge anybody to visit downtown Cleveland, its University Circle, or its gentrifying neighborhoods. There's a reason the Republicans picked Cleveland for their national convention, as should be evident to anybody who reads this thread.
At least some are impressed.
http://www.city-data.com/forum/cleve...cleveland.html
Even visitors from Chicago are impressed.
Exploring Cleveland - A City Revitalized (Travel Guide)
This report says that just downtown Cleveland had $6 billion in development in the past eight years form 2008-2015. What are the totals for downtown Buffalo and downtown St. Louis? I'm curious.
http://www.downtowncleveland.com/med...pressed-1-.pdf
Here's the most recent DCA report:
http://www.downtowncleveland.com/med...compressed.pdf
"Decaying?" You embarrass yourself.
As to Cleveland's sports scene, Cleveland has three major sports franchises. St. Louis and Buffalo do not, and even though the deluded NHL fans in this thread can't deal with it, NHL franchises are greatly inferior to NBA franchises. No city would trade their NBA franchise for an NHL franchise. Get real. Even as frustrating as the New Browns have been, no football-loving Clevelander would trade places with St. Louis, now that the Rams are gone (sadly and unfairly) and a replacement NFL franchise is not on the horizon.
Cleveland's downtown has three major league sports venues, very rare among American cities.
I've repeatedly said where Cleveland excels in C-D forums and in this thread. You can't handle the truth, so you take refuge in laughable insults. Deluded individuals become nasty when their delusions are pricked.
Cleveland bashers would like us to roll over and play dead. Forget it. That's not us.