📍 Cleveland, Ohio
🏀 Home of the Cleveland Charge

Cleveland’s ornate Public Auditorium, a longstanding performing arts and exhibition center, has recently become the newest addition to the NBA G-League’s unique collection of venues. Built back in 1922 and home to the Cleveland Charge since they moved in during the 2024-25 season, the century-old auditorium is an architectural wonder that makes for one of the best basketball ambiances in the world.

Designed in a neoclassical style that was slowly fading by the time Public Auditorium was constructed, the building features a plethora of gilded, elegant elements. Amazing stained glass windows allow plenty of natural light to flood through the tiled ceiling of the venue, while art deco murals are present at the top of each section. Many of the narrow passageways and decorative staircases feel unchanged from the Roaring Twenties, despite renovations and reworking of the arena’s interior in 1964, 1987, 2010 and most recently in 2024.

Ultimately, the auditorium’s provocative motif provided inspiration for other public exhibition halls, including Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall and the Philadelphia Civic Center, with the former also still in use for basketball. The building’s main event space – known as Public Hall – can seat more than 10,000 spectators in its U-shaped bowl, featuring seats that appear dated yet remain cushioned and comfortable in spite of their age. For the Charge – whose attendance has gradually increased with their move into one of America’s most beautifully unique venues – a videoboard has been hung from the ceiling of the stage end of the arena. Behind and below the screen, Pope’s Cocktails’ Courtside Club and a merch shop take up the remaining floor space and give fans a cool spot to mingle before and during games.

In the main lobby, the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame adorns the upper reaches of the building’s marbled walls, celebrating accomplished local athletes from the last hundred years and beyond. Above the legions of plaques that make up the Hall of Fame, breathtaking art deco finishes grace the high ceilings.

After stints in Huntsville and Albuquerque, the Charge would relocate permanently to Northeast Ohio in 2011. The team played for a decade at Canton’s Memorial Civic Center before settling in Cleveland proper in 2021 and taking up residence at Cleveland State’s Wolstein Center. Public Auditorium – which was also coincidentally the home of the Cleveland State Vikings throughout the 1980s as the school awaited the completion of Wolstein – became the new home of the Charge after some modifications to the arena wrapped up in December 2024. Of course, the team is the G-League affiliate of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who play just blocks away at Rocket Arena.

Since the franchise’s inception in 2001, they’ve made the G-League playoffs – before that, the D-League – about half the time. Their only league title came in 2006 when they were still in New Mexico, competing as the Albuquerque Thunderbirds. Now, the team is blazing trails at a true historic gem that is undeniably the coolest new home court in the nation. After most games, the Charge even hold an autograph session with the players and let folks shoot free throws, really connecting with their fanbase and helping to grow minor league basketball’s popularity in The Land.