The Cleveland Browns will soon no longer be playing in downtown Cleveland. They won’t be playing outside, either. As rumored for months and officially announced by the team yesterday, the Browns are proceeding with a plan to build a new stadium in Brooks Park, 20 minutes outside of Cleveland proper, with a dome that will make AFC North football feel much different in December.
The organization made the announcement yesterday, saying this was the right decision after weighing all its options.
Here’s part of the team’s statement from owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam that renovating their current stadium or building a new one within city limits wasn’t possible.
“We also explored building a new stadium on multiple sites, both within and outside of Cleveland. We’ve learned through our exhaustive work that renovating our current stadium will simply not solve many operational issues and would be a short-term approach…Our work reinforced that despite the city, county and our team doing their best to make the economics work, building a stadium on the Burke property is cost prohibitive and not feasible, especially with no certainty regarding potential timing of closure of the airport.”
Their current stadium, now named Huntington Bank Field, has been the location of the Browns since their return to Cleveland in 1999. It’s undergone different names and soon will have a new location. Above, you can see the artwork of what the new stadium may look like, more roof than true dome but a lid on the stadium all the same.
There’s no announcement on exactly when construction will start on a new stadium, and the Browns haven’t secured funding to start it. The lease for the current stadium expires after the 2028 season. The team estimates the new stadium will cost $2.4 billion and is hoping to receive at least partial public funding to support it. Attempting to do so while leaving the city will only make that challenge more difficult. Given the multi-year process stadiums can undertake, the Browns will have to move fast. Earlier this year, the Browns released a video showing a mock up of what their new home could look like.
Like the on-field product, the announcement hasn’t been received well by fans. Many are against the idea of building a dome and taking away from a fan base that embraces the cold and the weather advantage that brings, lake-effect winds making life tough on kicking and passing late in seasons.
The team argues building a dome has benefits. Not only is it more fan-friendly to avoid frigid December and January weather, a dome also opens up the possibility of hosting other events throughout the winter months. Concerts, trade shows, and the like. It could also allow the NFL to bring a Super Bowl to Cleveland, perhaps the closest the franchise will ever get to the game. Most Super Bowls are played in warm climates, but the league has been open to colder locations for stadiums that have a dome, like U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis for the 2017 season.
In the Mike Tomlin era, the Browns are 7-9-1 hosting the Steelers. Pittsburgh will host Cleveland in Week 12 before heading to their place two weeks later in December, making for perhaps one of the few cold games the Steelers will play there.
