The Cleveland Gladiators two year hold off has been announced by the team and the league on Tuesday, November 28, 2017. Their arena, Qucken Loans Arena will be undergoing construction during the 2018 and 2019 season.
Cleveland Gladiators Two Year Hold Off
The Quicken Loans arena will be undergoing construction at the end of the Cleveland Cavaliers season. Their final game in the National Basketball Association (NBA) season is on March 11, not counting playoffs, and construction will start right as the NBA season ends.
Quicken Loans Arena
The arena currently can hold up to 20,562. With construction in the next two years, the number should be larger. Their intentions for the arena is to bring more state of the art fan experience. They also want to improve for “decades to come” says Cavaliers and Quicken Loans Arena CEO Len Komoroski.
The arena will be open for the Cavaliers to play in 2018-2019, but will not be able to reopen for the Gladiators of the Arena Football League (AFL).
Cleveland Gladiators and AFL’s Future
This two year break will leave the AFL at five teams to play. Philadelphia Soul, Tampa Bay Storm, Baltimore Brigade, Washington Valor, and the new team in Albany, NY will be the teams to play.
The league also said that they intend on growing as a league and will bring more teams to play.
In these two years, it is unknown when it comes to what the players will do. The coaching should remain the same and the players should be able to return to Cleveland if they are allowed to go somewhere else to play.
The Cleveland Gladiators have been in the AFL since 1997, so losing the team for now will hurt the league.
With the team suspending operations, will they become a dominant team in the AFL like their old days or will they have more kinks to work out?
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