(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The NFL's Most Hated Owner Ever Belongs in the Hall of Fame... REALLY! [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-18 Let me preface what you’re about to read by admitting that I bleed Cleveland Browns brown and orange. As a native Clevelander, I was a Browns fan even before Art Modell bought the team in 1961, back to the time Hall of Fame Steelers’ coach Chuck Noll was a Browns player. (No, I’m NOT wearing golf pants up to my nipples and driving 25mph on the highway in a Mercury Marquis, but I’m getting close…) Even with the current team’s dismal post-Modell record, I remain a fan, and always will be. In ways too numerous (and obvious to any longtime Browns fan) to list here, it must be stated that Modell was not a great businessman. Then there is “The Move.” In light of all this, suggesting that Modell belongs in the Hall of Fame must seem insane, especially to my fellow Browns fans. However, let’s look at some facts. Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which opened in 1931, had been decaying for years. It was in mediocre condition when Modell bought the Browns, and steadily got worse. In spite of this, Modell took responsibility for the facility by creating the Stadium Corporation. It wasn’t a bad move at all for Modell. In fact, it was a money maker for him. The corporation leased the stadium from the city for one dollar a year. Under the lease terms, the corporation would enjoy revenues from Browns home games, Cleveland Indians home games, and any other events booked into the Stadium. In exchange, it assumed all maintenance costs. These costs climbed each year. Then there was Gateway. The idea for the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex had its genesis in the early 1980s. City fathers had longed to bring the Cavaliers back to downtown Cleveland since the team left for the Richfield Coliseum in 1974. Moreover, the Browns and Indians were housed in Cleveland Municipal Stadium, which was costing the city money in a time when it could ill-afford it. A multipurpose dome would be the new home to the Browns and Indians, and would attract the Cavs back to Cleveland, according to the original proposal by County Commissioner Vincent Campanella. The concept was modeled after the Pontiac Silverdome, home of the Detroit Lions. Modell backed the domed stadium idea, as did Ohio Governor Dick Celeste, however, he did not like funding the project with property taxes. On May 8, 1984, a ballot initiative for the $150 million dome stadium was crushed by a 2 to 1 margin. In 1985, another dome called Hexatron, a six-sided structure with a retractable roof was proposed but never got anywhere. Funding for Hexatron would have been a sin tax on alcohol and cigarettes in Cuyahoga County, an idea floated by a young member of the Ohio House of Representatives named Jeff Jacobs, the son of the future Indians owner Richard Jacobs. Still, Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich and Governor Celeste pushed forward to create the Greater Cleveland Dome Stadium Corporation, borrowing $22 million from banks and the state of Ohio. Cleveland Tomorrow, a group of top executives from Cleveland's biggest firms, launched a development fund to further the project, and acquisition of property began in December 1985. By 1989, the site of the former Central Market, a fruit and vegetable market that dated back to 1856, and other adjacent buildings were razed and made into parking lots. However, there were funding gaps and big disagreements as to who would pay to build the project, along with a change in leadership. In 1990, new leadership took the baton from the dome stadium group. The team was a partnership of Cleveland Tomorrow, led by lawyer Tom Chema, and a group of elected officials. The group included newly elected Mayor Michael R. White, newly elevated Cleveland City Council President Jay Westbrook, along with Cuyahoga County Commissioners Tim Hagan, Virgil Brown, Mary Boyle, and Jim Petro. The group hastily coordinated a plan to finance the complex by asking county voters for a 15-year sin tax, styled after the Hexatron plan. The tax, which amounted to 1.9 cents on a can of beer, 1.5 cents per ounce of liquor, and 4.5 cents on a pack of cigarettes, was a way to get suburban county voters to pay for the project. But it required a countywide vote, which added it to the May primary election ballot as "Issue 2" in the hopes that it would pass with the normally light turnout. There was heavy advertising both for and against Issue 2. There was also a Major League Baseball lockout in February 1990 over player salaries. It directly threatened weaker teams, such as the Indians, that did not have the cushion of additional revenues from luxury boxes and other stadium amenities. Just days before the vote, baseball commissioner Fay Vincent attended a city council finance committee meeting and stated, "Should the vote be a negative one, we may find ourselves confronting a subject we want to avoid." Obviously, this was a threat that the Indians could leave Cleveland. All this triggered a large turnout, as nearly half of all registered voters cast ballots. On May 8, 1990, Issue 2 passed by the narrowest of margins. A month later, Mayor White and Commissioner Hagan created Gateway Economic Development Corporation, a non-profit organization, and installed Chema as its executive director. Both venues were completed in 1994. Through it all, nothing was done about the Cleveland Browns and its dilapidated home. At the same time, several other NFL teams were getting new stadiums. There was also a desperate need to revitalize downtown Cleveland. Also, the Cleveland Indians were seeking a new home. Modell understood this, and was amenable to sharing a new facility with the Indians. The Indians and the American League itself were not. They wanted a baseball-only venue for the Indians. And eight years after real estate developers Richard and David Jacobs bought the team, the Indians got what they wanted. Jacobs Field opened in 1994, and became one of the finest stadiums in baseball. Once the Indians moved into their new digs, Modell’s Stadium Corp. was stuck with maintaining the Stadium, but no longer had the revenue stream generated by 80 baseball games. Did Modell demand a new stadium for the Browns? Did Modell even lobby for one? No. Instead, he spent millions on studies to how best renovate the old Municipal Stadium, which had opened in 1931. The best of the renovation plans would have cost about $65 million (in 1990 dollars). When Modell approached the city and, he got the “Talk to the hand!” treatment. Not a nickel would be forthcoming. During this period, the Gund brothers, the new owners of the Cleveland Cavaliers, were eager to move the basketball team from its home at the Coliseum in Richfield, midway between Cleveland and Akron, to the downtown Cleveland area. The Richfield Coliseum, where the Cavaliers played at the time, was only 20 years old and in superb condition. Because of easy access and its intelligently selected location, it drew fans from both Akron as well as from Cleveland. It was also an outstanding venue for concerts. In fact, Nick Mileti, the likable and savvy original owner of the Cavaliers, opened the facility with an event a bit splashier than a basketball game. The first event was a concert by Frank Sinatra. George and Gordon Gund were ultra-wealthy members of a Cleveland old money family. Their father, George Gund II, was president and chairman of Cleveland Trust when it was largest bank in the state of Ohio. Because of the family’s prominence in Cleveland and in spite of the fact that their personal wealth was substantial enough to pay for it themselves, they had little trouble getting the taxpayers to pony up the $155 million with a sin tax on alcohol and tobacco. However, the Gund brothers did pull $14 million out of their pockets to have their name on the joint for the next 20 years, something Modell would never have done. Even though it sounded vaguely like a sexually transmitted disease, this hot new basketball arena, paid for by the people of greater Cleveland, would be named Gund Arena. (The current Cavaliers owner and founder of Quicken Loans renamed it Quicken Loans Arena.) After sitting dormant for five years, the 20-year-old Richfield Coliseum was demolished. The location is now a meadow. In the meantime, Baltimore was ramping up efforts to bring pro football back to the city. Cleveland gave Modell the cold shoulder for five years, and didn’t even begin to discuss improvements to the Stadium until other cities began courting Modell. But it was too little too late. In the meantime, Modell did what any businessman would do under such circumstances. He began to negotiate with Baltimore about moving the team. Baltimore lost the Colts pretty much the same way Cleveland lost the Browns. But unlike Cleveland, Baltimore was trying to work out financing to renovate the old Memorial Stadium. Meanwhile, the city of Indianapolis offered the Colts owner a $12,500,000 loan, a $4,000,000 training complex, and the use of the brand new $77.5 million, 57,980-seat Hoosier Dome. And so in the dead of night trucks came in to move the team to Indianapolis. 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 for refurbishing the rapidly decaying stadium. Once again, Cleveland’s power elite rebuffed him. So Modell cut a deal with the Maryland Stadium Authority, a legal entity created by the state’s general assembly in 1986. The agency’s original mission was to return NFL football to Baltimore. Finally, on November 6, 1995, with a handful of games left, he made the announcement in Baltimore. He said “I had no choice.” Although Browns fans dismissed this claim as garbage, it was true. He was in dire financial straits. And compared to the feast Baltimore served up, Cleveland was offering Modell nothing. Any smart team owner would have done the same thing, but would probably have tried to leave five years earlier. If blame is to be properly assigned for the departure of the Cleveland Browns, it must be heaped on Cleveland’s movers and shakers, who thought they could ignore the winds of change in the NFL, ignore the need to improve Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and ignore Art Modell, regardless of what the infamous Sports Illustrated cover told its readers what they should think. Cleveland’s nabobs, power brokers like former Mayor White and Law Director Nance, were so desperate to deflect blame for the Browns moving out of town that the City of Cleveland sued Modell, the Baltimore Browns, the Stadium Corporation, the Maryland Stadium Authority and its director, John A. Moag Jr. Ultimately, Modell did something Clevelanders still fail to appreciate. He changed the team’s name from the Browns to the Ravens, and returned the Browns' name, colors and heritage (including team records) to Cleveland for a new or relocated team. Though he did it to settle the lawsuit, in the end, the brown and orange would back where they belong. The most absurd aspect of this whole thing is that while Cleveland’s big shots insisted for years that there was no way to finance the old Stadium’s repairs and renovations, they found a way to come up with more than SIX TIMES the money to build a new stadium as Modell sought to fix up the old one! As recently as 2005, Modell was still trying to set the record straight, when he granted an interview with a Cleveland television reporter. He revealed that that in the 11th hour of his financial crisis, a powerful Ohio leader actually advised him to leave Cleveland with the Browns for Baltimore. He would not name that person on camera, but almost identified him by his title. Modell wouldn't spell out the name of Ohio’s highest-ranking politician at the time, but Gib Shanley, the station’s sports director did. Shanley told his audience, "You know, he [Modell] refuses to name the one politician who told him to move because he doesn't want to hurt that man. I am not that nice. It was George Voinovich, then the governor. He will deny that today, tomorrow and probably forever." This should come as no surprise, since the mob-connected Voinovich was a weasel as Cleveland’s mayor, just as he was when he was governor, and when he was a U.S. senator. He’s probably still a weasel in the great beyond. It’s not as if Voinovich tried to hide his mob connections. He attempted to appoint a long-time friend, Ray Gallagher to an $80,000 a year state job after Gallagher had been convicted of theft in office. Another of George’s buddies, Booker Tall, was indicted for writing checks to three nonexistent state employees. Then there was his attempt to appoint mobster and Teamster official Carmen Parisi to the Ohio Turnpike Commission. But I digress... Once Modell made the announcement of the move, Browns fans unleashed a stream of hatred and bigotry so outlandish, countless fans expressed embarrassment. One example of this was connected to the press conference in Baltimore announcing the move. Before Modell and other dignitaries spoke, they asked for a moment of silence in honor of Israel’s beloved Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, who was assassinated days earlier. At the first Browns home game after the announcement, someone at the Stadium held up a sign that read “THEY KILLED THE WRONG JEW!” Those most responsible for The Move, the power brokers who didn’t give a damn about the Browns or the condition of Muny Stadium until it was too late, were among the torch-bearing villagers ready to march on Castle Modell. Was the move a knife through the city’s heart? Sure. Cleveland Browns fans were so steamed they would have choked Modell to death, and then try to bring him back to life, just so they could kill him again! Because he had the nerve to fire the legendary Paul Brown, Modell was the carpetbagger fans would barely tolerate during good seasons and hate during bad ones. It must have been the right decision because in 43 years of ownership, Modell produced 28 winning seasons As Chairman of the NFL television committee for 31 years, and as the fiercest crusader among naysayer owners for a crazy innovation known as “Monday Night Football,” he remains the single greatest force in making football the dominant American sport. As such, if any non-player belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, it is Art Modell. Another aspect of Modell’s sojourn in Cleveland ignored by Clevelanders who still pick at their wounds over The Move was his abundant philanthropy. Hospitals and educational institutions throughout northern Ohio benefitted from countless millions given by Modell and his late wife Pat. As for the Browns’ record since the team’s rebirth in 1999 as a new NFL franchise, Modell’s stewardship looks pretty good. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/18/2247251/-The-NFL-s-Most-Hated-Owner-Ever-Belongs-in-the-Hall-of-Fame-REALLY?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/