Cleveland Browns relocation controversy

Cleveland Stadium, where the Browns played until 1995.

The Cleveland Browns relocation controversy, sometimes referred to by fans as "The Move",[1][2] was the decision by then-Browns owner Art Modell to move the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from its long-time home of Cleveland to Baltimore during the 1995 NFL season. Subsequent legal actions by the city of Cleveland and Browns season ticket holders led to a compromise that saw the Browns history, records, and intellectual property remain in Cleveland, while Modell was permitted to move to Baltimore and establish the Baltimore Ravens, who are officially regarded as a 1996 expansion team. The city of Cleveland agreed to demolish Cleveland Stadium and build a new stadium on the same site, and the NFL agreed to reactivate the Browns by the 1999 season through either an expansion draft or a relocated franchise. The Browns were officially reactivated in 1998 through the expansion process and resumed play in 1999.

The compromise between Cleveland, the NFL, and Modell was a first in North American professional sports. The compromise has been cited in other franchise moves and agreements, including those in the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Soccer (MLS), and Major League Baseball (MLB).

Dissatisfaction with Cleveland Stadium

Art Modell

In 1975, knowing that Municipal Stadium was costing the city over $300,000 annually to operate, then-Browns owner Art Modell signed a 25-year lease whereby he agreed to incur these expenses in exchange for quasi ownership of the stadium. Under the terms of the lease he agreed to give back the City a portion of the profits he would realize each year, and also agreed to make capital improvements to the stadium at his expense.[3] Modell's newly formed company, Stadium Corporation, paid an annual rent of $150,000 for the first five years and $200,000 afterwards to the city.

Modell had originally promised never to move the Browns. He had publicly criticized the Baltimore Colts' move to Indianapolis, and had testified in favor of the NFL in court cases where the league unsuccessfully tried to stop Al Davis from moving the Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles.

However, Modell refused to share the suite revenue with the Cleveland Indians, who also played at Cleveland Stadium, even though much of the revenues were generated during baseball games as well as football games.

In 1990, the Indians prevailed upon the local governments and voters and convinced them to build them their own facility where they controlled the suite revenue.[4][5] Modell, mistakenly believing that his revenues were not endangered, refused to participate in the Gateway Project that built Progressive Field for the Indians and Quicken Loans Arena for the Cleveland Cavaliers.[6] Modell's assumptions proved incorrect, and Stadium Corp's suite revenues declined sharply when the Indians moved from the stadium to Jacobs Field in 1994.[5] Soaring player salaries and deficits also contributed to Modell's financial losses. Modell lost $21 million between 1993 and 1994.[7]

Announcing the move

After Modell realized how much revenue he lost from the Indians moving out of Cleveland Stadium, he requested an issue be placed on the ballot to provide $175 million in tax dollars to refurbish the outmoded and declining Cleveland Stadium.[8]

On the field, the Browns, coached by Bill Belichick, were coming off a playoff season in which the team finished 11–5 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs entering the 1995 season. Sports Illustrated even predicted the Browns would represent the AFC in Super Bowl XXX at the end of the season.[9] However, the team disappointed many fans by losing three straight games after starting the season 3–1.[10]

On November 6, 1995, with the team sitting at 4–5,[10] Modell announced in a press conference at Camden Yards that he had signed a deal to relocate the Browns to Baltimore in 1996 – a move which would return the NFL to that city since the Colts relocated to Indianapolis after the 1983 season.[5][11] The reason Modell chose to relocate to Baltimore was because he felt the city did not have the funding to build a first-class stadium.[12] The very next day, on November 7, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved the aforementioned tax issue to remodel Cleveland Stadium.[13]

Initial reaction

The City of Cleveland sued Modell, the Browns, Stadium Corp, the Maryland Stadium Authority, and the authority's director, John A. Moag Jr., in City of Cleveland v. Cleveland Browns, et al., Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Case No. CV-95-297833, for breaching the Browns' lease, which required the team to play its home games at Cleveland Stadium for several years beyond 1995, filing an injunction to keep the Browns in the city until at least 1998. Several other lawsuits were filed by fans and ticket holders.[13][14] The United States Congress even held hearings on the matter.[15][16]

Actor/comedian Drew Carey returned to his hometown of Cleveland on November 26, 1995, to host "Fan Jam" in protest of the proposed move. A protest was held in Pittsburgh during the Browns' game there against the Pittsburgh Steelers but ABC, the network broadcasting the game (and also the home of Carey's new sitcom that had just premiered), declined to cover or mention the protest. That game was one of the few instances that Steelers fans and Browns fans were supportive of each other, as fans in Pittsburgh felt that Modell was robbing their team of their long-standing rivalry with the Browns.[13] Browns fans reacted with anger to the news,[14] wearing hats and T-shirts that read "Muck Fodell".[17]

On the field, the announcement cut the legs out from under the Browns, as they stumbled to finish 5–11 after the announcement, ahead of only the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars, to whom they lost twice, in the AFC Central, becoming the first team in the NFL's modern era to lose twice to a first-year expansion team.[10] Virtually all of the team's sponsors pulled their support,[13] leaving Cleveland Stadium devoid of advertising during the team's final weeks. The final game the team played at Cleveland Municipal Stadium was a 26–10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the first and only win since the announcement of the relocation.[18] The game itself was blacked out on television locally, but NBC did broadcast extensive pregame coverage from Cleveland.

Settlement

After extensive talks between the NFL, the Browns, and officials of the two cities, Cleveland accepted a legal settlement that would keep the Browns' legacy in Cleveland. On February 9, 1996, the NFL announced that the Browns would be 'deactivated' for three years, and that a new stadium would be built for a new Browns team, as either an expansion team or a team moved from another city, that would begin play in 1999. Modell would in turn then be granted a new franchise (the 31st NFL franchise), for Baltimore, retaining the current contracts of players and personnel. There would be a reactivated team for Cleveland, where the Browns' name, colors, history, records, awards, and archives would remain in Cleveland.[18][19] The only other current NFL team to suspend operations without merging with another was Cleveland's previous NFL team, the Rams, during the 1943 season at the height of World War II.[20]

An additional stipulation was that in any future realignment plan, the Browns would automatically be placed in a division with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals, because of longstanding rivalries with those two teams.[21] Upon their reactivation in 1999, the Browns were placed back in the AFC Central with the Steelers and Bengals, as well as the Ravens, Titans, and Jaguars. This arrangement had the effect of creating – for the first time in NFL history – an alignment with teams from Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh all playing in the same division. When the NFL realigned into divisions of four teams for the 2002 season, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Baltimore remained together, but in the newly created AFC North.

Aftermath

The return of the NFL to Baltimore compelled the departure of the professional football team already in Baltimore at the time, the Grey Cup champion Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Although they had generated respectable fan support during their two seasons in Baltimore, Stallions owner Jim Speros knew his team could not compete with an NFL team and opted to establish a new franchise in Montreal.[22] They subsequently adopted the name of the team that previously played in the city, the Alouettes.

Focus groups, a telephone survey, and a fan contest were all held to help select a new name for Modell's team. Starting with a list of over 100 possible names, the team's management reduced it to 17. From there, focus groups of a total of 200 Baltimore area residents reduced the list of names to six, and then a phone survey of 1000 people trimmed it down to three, Marauders, Americans, and Ravens. Finally, a fan contest drawing 33,288 voters picked "Ravens", a name that alludes to the famous poem, "The Raven", by Edgar Allan Poe, who spent the latter part of his life in Baltimore, and is also buried there.[23] The team also adopted purple and black as their team colors, a stark contrast to the brown and orange colors of the Browns.[24] Ex-Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas disowned[25] the Colts after their move to Indianapolis. The former Colts Marching Band, which remained in Baltimore after the Colts moved, was subsequently renamed the Baltimore's Marching Ravens.[26] Along with the San Francisco 49ers, Buffalo Bills, and Washington Redskins, the Ravens are one of only four NFL teams with an official marching band.

Modell's move to Baltimore came at the height of NFL teams relocating.[27][28] The move also fueled a proliferation of 12 new stadiums throughout the NFL. Several NFL franchises used the threat of relocation to coerce their respective cities to build new stadiums with public funds. Such franchises include the Seahawks, Buccaneers, Bengals, Lions, Cardinals, and Bears.[27][28] In the three-year period from 1995–1997, four NFL teams moved. In addition to Modell's move, Los Angeles lost both of its teams for the 1995 season, as the Raiders moved back to Oakland and the Rams moved east to St. Louis. The fourth and final move saw the Houston Oilers move to Tennessee in 1997 to eventually become the Tennessee Titans in 1999.

After several NFL teams used Cleveland as a relocation threat to become the reactivated Browns (most notably the Tampa Bay Buccaneers[29]), the NFL decided in 1998 to make the reactivated Browns an expansion team, which while it temporarily gave the league an odd number of teams (causing at least one team to be off in each of the 17 weeks of the NFL season from 1999–2001), it also eliminated any possibility of an existing franchise giving up its own identity for the Browns and thus prevented more lawsuits. In a somewhat ironic twist, Al Lerner—who helped Modell move to Baltimore—was granted ownership of the reactivated Browns;[30] his son Randy took over ownership after Al's death in 2002 before selling the team to Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam in 2012. From its beginning, the odd number of teams and the ensuing awkward scheduling was considered a temporary arrangement pending the addition of a 32nd NFL franchise – although Los Angeles was heavily favored, it was ultimately the Houston Texans who were created as the 32nd team to replace the Oilers in Houston, Texas for the 2002 NFL season to give the league once again an even number of teams. Following this decision, Los Angeles became the favored destination for owners threatening to move their teams until the St. Louis Rams finally returned to Los Angeles for the 2016 season.[31]

The reactivated Browns have had only two winning seasons since returning to the NFL in 1999: a 9–7 finish in 2002 which also saw the team clinch a wild card spot in the playoffs, and a 10–6 finish in 2007 while barely missing the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Ravens have been more successful, reaching the playoffs eight times since 2000 and winning Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII, often to the dismay of Browns fans.[18][32] Longtime placekicker Matt Stover was the last remaining Ravens player that played for the Modell-owned Browns – he departed the Ravens following the 2008 season when the team chose not to re-sign him, finishing his career (somewhat ironically) with the Indianapolis Colts.[33] General manager and former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome (who was in a front-office role under Modell in Cleveland) remains with the Ravens.

The move would also have an effect in Pittsburgh as well. Steelers owner Dan Rooney was one of two owners to oppose Modell's move to Baltimore because of a mutual respect for the team and the fans. Because of the move, the Browns–Steelers rivalry, arguably one of the most heated rivalries in the NFL, has somewhat cooled in Pittsburgh due to the new Browns' lack of success. The Steelers–Ravens rivalry is considered the spiritual successor by fans in Pittsburgh and is one of the most heated current rivalries in the NFL.[34] Since returning to the NFL, the Browns and Steelers rivalry has been largely one-sided in favor of Pittsburgh; although the rivalry is not as intense in Pittsburgh, Browns fans still consider it their top rivalry despite the Browns' recent struggles against the Steelers.

Because of continual financial hardships, the NFL directed Modell to initiate the sale of his franchise. On March 27, 2000, NFL owners approved the sale of 49 percent of the Ravens to Steve Bisciotti.[35] In the deal, Bisciotti had an option to purchase the remaining 51 percent for $325 million in 2004 from Art Modell. On April 8, 2004, the NFL approved Steve Bisciotti's purchase of the majority stake in the club.[36]

Although Modell later retired and had relinquished control of the Ravens, he is still hated in Cleveland, not only for relocating the Browns, but also for his firing of legendary head coach Paul Brown in 1963. Some considered the Browns' relocation and subsequent lawsuits costing Modell a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is located in Canton, Ohio, just 60 miles south of Cleveland and is both part of the Cleveland television market and part of the Browns' territorial rights.[37][38] Modell died in 2012, never returning to Cleveland after the move.[7]

On July 23, 2014, a video surfaced on YouTube of a unidentified Browns fan desecrating the grave of Modell wearing a Lyle Alzado jersey by urinating on the grave through a catheter, saying in the video that "he had no choice", echoing Modell's comments on moving his team to Baltimore.[39] Baltimore County filed charges for disorderly conduct at the request of Modell's son David Modell once the fan was identified.[40]

Effect on teams in other sports leagues

Major League Baseball

Major League Soccer

National Hockey League

National Basketball Association

See also

References

  1. ↑ Dyer, Bob (2007). The Top 20 Moments in Cleveland Sports History: Tremendous Tales of Heroes and Heartbreaks. Gray & Company. pp. 277–291. ISBN 9781598510300. Retrieved June 28, 2012.
  2. ↑ "LeBron James makes his pick: He's going to Miami". NBA.com. NBA Media Ventures, LLC. Associated Press. July 9, 2010. Retrieved July 9, 2010.
  3. ↑ Henkel, Frank (2005). Cleveland Browns History. Arcadia. p. 102.
  4. ↑ Munson, Lester (December 4, 1995). "A Busted Play". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 Henkel 2005, p. 102
  6. ↑ Naymik, Mark (September 13, 2012). "Art Modell was offered a stadium for the Cleveland Browns and passed". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  7. 1 2 McFadden, Robert D. (September 6, 2012). "Art Modell, Owner of Browns, Then Ravens, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 6, 2012.
  8. ↑ Smith, Timothy (November 4, 1995). "Baltimore Browns May Be a Done Deal". The New York Times. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
  9. ↑ Zimmerman, Paul (September 4, 1995). "Postseason Predictions". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on June 28, 2010. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 "1995 Cleveland Browns". Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  11. ↑ Morgan, Jon (November 6, 1996). "Unforgettable is what it's been". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  12. ↑ Morgan, Jon (December 17, 1995). "Inside the Browns Deal". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Sandomir, Richard (November 12, 1995). "A City Fights To Save The Browns". The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2010.
  14. 1 2 Rushin, Steve (December 4, 1995). "The Heart of a City: Cleveland won round 1 in what will be an agonizing battle to hold on to its beloved Browns". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Franchise Relocation Curb Sought on Hill". Washington Post. 1995-11-30. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
  16. ↑ Cleveland Browns Move to Baltimore Debate. C-SPAN. December 1, 1995. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  17. ↑ "Muck Fodell". September 4, 1995. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  18. 1 2 3 Henkel 2005, p. 103
  19. ↑ "Agreement between the NFL, Cleveland". National Football League. February 8, 1996. Archived from the original on November 12, 1996. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  20. ↑ "The Cleveland Rams". Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
  21. ↑ Stellino, Vito (October 7, 1999). "NFL to try realign play". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  22. ↑ Klingaman, Mike (November 26, 2000). "Once, the Stallions rode high". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  23. ↑ "Baltimore Ravens History". Pro Football Hall of Fame. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  24. ↑ "Naming Baltimore's Team: Ravens". Baltimore Ravens. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  25. ↑ Chappell, Mike; Richards, Phil; Marchibroda, Ted (2004). Tales from the Indianapolis Colts Sideline. p. 21.
  26. ↑ "Band History". Baltimore Ravens. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  27. 1 2 King, Peter (November 13, 1995). "Down...And Out: Citing his crushing debts, Art Modell is taking his Browns to Baltimore". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  28. 1 2 Crothers, Tim (June 19, 1995). "The Shakedown: Greedy owners are threatening to move their teams if demands for new stadiums, better lease deals, etc., aren't met". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  29. ↑ Williams, Charean (December 7, 1995). "Tampa Still Hopeful Bucs Will Stay Put". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  30. ↑ Sandomir, Richard (September 9, 1998). "PRO FOOTBALL; Lerner Wins Browns for $530 Million". The New York Times. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  31. ↑ "Rams to Return to Los Angeles". St. Louis Rams. January 12, 2016. Retrieved January 13, 2016.
  32. ↑ NFL Network (May 31, 2010). "Top 10 snakebit franchises". National Football League. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  33. ↑ Grossi, Tony (February 5, 2010). "Indianapolis Colts kicker Matt Stover has many ties to Cleveland Browns". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  34. ↑ "Top 10 New NFL Rivalries". Sports Illustrated Retrieved 2011-03-07
  35. ↑ "Bisciotti approved as co-owner of Ravens". Associated Press. 2000-03-27. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
  36. ↑ "Bisciotti takes control of Ravens". National Football League. Associated Press. April 8, 2004. Archived from the original on June 16, 2004. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  37. ↑ Livingston, Bill (December 12, 2010). "Upon further review, Art Modell's case for Canton gets weaker every year". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  38. ↑ Clayton, John (September 6, 2012). "Modell was mostly a model owner". ESPN. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  39. ↑ Hensley, Jamison (July 23, 2014). "Cemetery decries fan's actions". ESPN. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  40. ↑ "Man faces jail time, fine for urination". ESPN. Associated Press. July 29, 2014. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  41. ↑ Halpin, Jason (December 15, 2005). "Earthquakes set to move to Houston". Major League Soccer. Archived from the original on January 1, 2006. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  42. ↑ "San Jose's MLS team moving to Houston". USA Today. Associated Press. December 15, 2005. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
  43. ↑ "THE PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL CLUB, LLC AND CITY OF SEATTLE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT" (PDF) (Press release). City of Seattle, Washington. July 2, 2008. Retrieved June 3, 2016.
  44. ↑ "Charlotte Hornets Name Returns to Carolinas" (Press release). Charlotte Hornets. May 20, 2014. Retrieved May 23, 2014.

Further reading

  • Henkel, Frank M. (2005). Cleveland Browns History. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-3428-2. 
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