This is really funny. You must be new here.
A little history they have a triple A baseball team and lost it. They had a semi-pro hockey team and lost it. They had another semi-pro hockey team and lost it. They used to host NCAA first round tournaments every four years and lost it.
They hosted a ACC-Big 10 basketball game and had it “rained out” even though it was in and indoor facility.
The reason we have never replaced an aging coliseum is because we couldn’t support any of the teams.
Richmond Metro has a population of 1.2 (#44) just ahead of cities Salt Lake City (46), New Orleans (47), and Buffalo (49). Those all have some big 4 professional sporting team and NO and Buffalo have 2.
Richmond is ahead of Winston-Salem (#90) and they have actual areas that support both sports and special events such as ACC tournaments. Wake Forest is the primary user of LJVM Coliseum and it’s size is 15k seats with a student enrollment under 9k. The Siegel Center can seat 7500 with a student enrollment over 32k. So this should not be a size issue for Richmond.
I could go on about Greensboro being a smaller city in the same part of the country without a Wake Forest anchor yet still gets the ACC tournament regularly.
So when I say Richmond is. It a sports town the comparison and history support it.