CLEVELAND — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said there were a number of “passionate” discussions about bringing the All-Star Game back to Cleveland.

Those talks culminated with the Cavaliers being awarded the game for the 2022 season, a cornerstone event during the league’s 75th anniversary.

Cleveland last hosted the game in 1997 in the same building, which was called Gund Arena at the time, when the league honored its Top 50 players.

Silver said he had a number of discussions with Cavaliers chairman Dan Gilbert and chief operating officer Len Komoroski. The game will be played at Quicken Loans Arena.

The Cavs had submitted bids to host earlier All-Star Games. The downtown arena is undergoing a massive renovation. Construction began this year and should be completed by the end of next summer.

The arena’s renovations played a major role in the city being awarded the game. Silver said hosting the game will have a direct $100 million impact on Cleveland.

“This event is so big now,” Silver said. “We have 1,000 members of the media. The festivities are televised, I should say distributed, not just televised, in 250 countries and territories that we need a massive infrastructure in order to do it. Because the conversations were ongoing about potential upgrades in the building we wanted to wait until those discussions were done and obviously successful before we could lock in the day.”

Hosting the game again was a major goal for the franchise.

“It puts Cleveland on the stage for the whole world to see,” Gilbert said. “It’s great for the region. You can’t measure all the stuff and how important it is for the future growth and reputation for a city like Cleveland that’s clearly on the way back.”