The Cleveland Cavaliers drew about 1.3 million people into downtown Cleveland to celebrate the Cavs parade. As seen in the following photos from Good Morning America and Yahoo Sports , the 800,000 people expected for the Cavs parade ended up swelling to more than 1.3 million people who made the trip downtown to see LeBron James and superstars from the whole Cavs team.
Estimated 1.3 MILLION people in downtown Cleveland for @Cavs ‘ parade and rally. #cavsparade
?: @DustinFox37 pic.twitter.com/TeZ0Of7jCG
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 22, 2016
More than 1 million pack streets for #cavsparade —> https://t.co/0ceZGQHdHF …
— Selena H (@CurlySel) June 22, 2016
With so many people crowding the downtown streets of Cleveland, the Cavs parade took much longer than expected. The beginning of the parade was supposed to be 11 a.m. local Cleveland time, with the Cavs scheduled to end up at the culmination of the parade at approximately 2 p.m. ET. Instead, it was nearly 4 p.m. ET when the Cavs ended up on the stage with Dan Gilbert, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and others as the Cavs received the key to the city.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson made Wednesday a local holiday in honor of the Cavs, reports WKYC-TV ?.
I can see myself out of 1.3 million people. #cavsparade pic.twitter.com/qKt1Mfdq3q
— Coach Ricardo Hill (@CoachRicardoHil) June 22, 2016
As seen in the top photo above, LeBron came to the Quicken Loans Arena with his kids as the Cavs parade was scheduled to begin. On Instagram, “King James” could be seen in the below video from the Cavaliers Central account, which showed LeBron at the start of the Cavs parade in Cleveland. LeBron joked about nearly dropping his phone as he took the selfie video prior to the parade to celebrate the Cavaliers’ NBA Championship in downtown Cleveland.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BG9mxP-l-r8/?tagged=lebronjames
A search for the hashtag #LeBronJames on Instagram shows more than one million posts under that label. On Twitter, the top trending hashtag at the moment is #cavsparade . Plenty of the photos found under those two hashtags show overhead photos of the massive crowd that showed up for the Cavs parade. Some of those photos show the types of up close and personal photos that people who attended the Cavs parade were able to get of members of the Cavs team.
Since cell phone service was reportedly really bad with 1.3 million people crowding the downtown area in Cleveland, plenty of people took photos with their smartphones and uploaded them later to their social media accounts.
The Cavs parade participants took their time as the parade headed down the parade route. At certain times during the parade route, the motorcades with LeBron, his family and others had to pause while the authorities attempted to clear out the streets of Cleveland so that the parade could safely continue.
With temperatures soaring into the higher realms, there were reports of people fainting or requesting lots of water in order to deal with the heat and long wait times.
As seen in the above photos from the Cavs parade, LeBron hugged his wife, Savannah, on the back of a Rolls Royce in downtown Cleveland.
Fans are reacting to the Cavs parade in a myriad of ways on social media, as can be read below.
“Like guys, I was less than 20 feet away from Lebron. # cavsparade ”
“ # cavsparade Just imagine Cleveland residents telling their kids about ‘The D’”
“I TOUCHED DELLY! # cavsparade ”
“Glad to have been apart of Cleveland history and attend this parade! A memory I will always remember!! # CavsParade ”
“No matter what happens the rest of this celebration – nothing will top the Mayor of Cleveland clearly not knowing Ty Lue’s name # CavsParade ”
“As they go thru this Cavs lineup the cheers are gonna get gradually louder. # CavsParade # ALLiN216 .”
“In other news, no one in Cleveland skipped work to attend the Cavaliers victory parade. # cavsparade ”
“I have never seen so much wine and gold in my life and it makes my heart happy.”
“Did he just drop the mic?? # cavsparade “
[Photo by AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar]
