In 1995, the City of Cleveland was rocked when then-Browns Owner Art Modell essentially moved the Browns to Baltimore in the middle of night, creating the Baltimore Ravens. The worst part about the move: he didn’t tell the City of Cleveland about it prior to announcing it to the world, nor did he get permission from the NFL to move before the announcement.
The lawsuit that followed led to the Browns returning to Cleveland in 1999 and the creation of the Art Modell Law (ORC §9.67) by the State of Ohio. The law, named after the man whose incompetence led to the creation of half the teams in the AFC North, barred teams that use a “tax-supported facility for most of its home games” and that “receive financial assistance” from playing their home games “elsewhere.” It also requires that teams give their cities six-months’ notice before leaving town and give residents a chance to buy the team first. In layman terms, it’s meant to prevent teams from moving out of state without permission. It has only been invoked once since its creation, in 2018, to keep the Columbus Crew from moving (and led to the Crew being bought by the current Browns owners).
After 1995, it would make sense that the City of Cleveland would like to avoid the embarrassment of being caught off guard by a team moving. So, on October 17, 2024, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced that the Browns were moving to Brook Park… before the Browns could announce it themselves.
Shockwaves went through the city, but there had been chatter about the Browns and the future of the stadium previously for one big reason: The Super Bowl. The City of Cleveland has proven time and time again that it can host big sporting events, previously hosting the NBA All Star Weekend, the MLB All Star Game, and recently this summer WWE, so it theoretically could host a Super Bowl. However, the NFL would never go for it because one of the main rules is that the stadium must have at least 70,000 seats and be climate-controlled if the average temperature in the area is below 50 degrees on game week. While it wouldn’t be hard to renovate the current stadium to hold an additional 2,000 seats, without a dome, the stadium can’t be climate controlled, and unfortunately, the current stadium structurally cannot hold a dome. Of course, the Haslams (the current owners) have stated that hosting a Super Bowl is not the reason they want to build a dome; hosting multiple events year-round is the reason they want to build a dome. Brook Park has the land, the Haslams have (mostly) the money, and the RTA has the Red Line stations for fans without cars, considering the new location is located directly opposite the airport terminal of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Unlike Art Modell, who couldn’t (or more specifically wouldn’t) get a renovation from the city, Cleveland actually offered to renovate the stadium as part of their master plan to revitalize downtown Cleveland. The plan also includes: a land bridge linking downtown to the lake front, the new training center for the Cavs and the current expansion of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But a dome just wasn’t feasible for the renovation and while the city also offered to build a stadium on the land currently held by the Burke Airport, the city claims a dome wasn’t economically feasible there either, though the Browns also claim that building a stadium on the Burke Land isn’t feasible at all since there is no certainty the airport would close and the new stadium would be built before the end of 2028, when the current stadium lease is up.
With the move to Brook Park, the city of Cleveland stands to lose tens of millions of dollars. Downtown businesses would also take a financial hit. The Haslams, though, claimed the opposite. In a statement, they claimed that “moving the current stadium will allow the city and region’s collective vision for the Cleveland lakefront to be optimally realized, and Downtown will benefit from the major events the Brook Park dome brings to the region.” And while the City responded by suing under the Art Modell law, the Browns countersued, claiming the law wouldn’t apply to them since they don’t want to move the team out of the state. To be fair, they don’t even want to move the team out of the county.
The Browns also amended the lawsuit stating that the law also doesn’t apply to them because the lawsuit only applies when a team is under a contract with the city. Since they intend to fulfill their contractual obligations by playing at the current stadium until the lease expires after the 2028 season, they would no longer be under contract when they move.
Meanwhile, the residents and Mayor of Brook Park have expressed their support for a dome stadium and are excited about the economic boom it could bring to their city. However, the Browns need to solve the lawsuit and start breaking ground soon if they have any hopes of having the Brook Park Dome ready to go for the start of the 2029 season. Because if there is no Browns football in 2029, well… there’s a reason Art Modell never came back to the State of Ohio.
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