Cleveland Cavaliers parade date, time, route: Parade will be 'biggest party Cleveland has ever seen' - LeBron
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be celebrating their historic NBA Championship win with a parade and rally in downtown Cleveland this Wednesday, June 22.
The Cavs returned home on Monday afternoon, where they were greeted by hordes of cheering fans as they emerged off the plane with the Larry O'Brien trophy.
On Wednesday, the City of Cleveland will host the 2016 Cavaliers' NBA Championship Parade and Rally, the first championship parade in the city's history.
On Sunday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, winning the city's first major sports championship in 52 years. There was not a parade when the Cleveland Browns won the NFL Championship in 1964.
City officials have not announced the exact route and time of the parade, but according to NEO Sports Insiders, an insider says that the parade will kick off at 11 a.m. and will traverse Ontario Street, Carnegie Avenue, and East 9th Street. It will end at Mall C, where an hour-long program will commence at 1:30 p.m. The program may also be moved to First Energy Stadium, the home of the Cleveland Browns.
According to the source, the city is expecting around 800,000 people at the event.
Cleveland City Mayor Frank Jackson spoke to News Network 5 before Game 7 and said that Cleveland officials didn't want to jinx the finals by planning a championship parade beforehand.
"We have seriously not talked about it," he told News 5. "You know, this morning we had Mayor Voinovich's funeral. Today we have this, so you know, in due time, we'll talk about it, at the right time."
The newly crowned NBA champs defeated the Warriors, 93-89, in Game 7, led by James, who won the Finals MVP award after leading "all players on both teams in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in series," as ESPN Stats and Info noted.
James brought the championship trophy home just two years after coming back to Cleveland.
"I'm coming home with what I said I was going to do," he said, as quoted by sports columnist Marla Ridenour. The championship parade "will be [the] biggest party Cleveland has ever seen," he added.
While there has been no official announcement regarding the TV broadcast for the parade on Wednesday, it is expected that NBA TV will broadcast the event, just as they did the Warriors' championship parade last year.