The city of Cleveland already saw one owner steal the Browns away from them. Art Modell abandoned the city and relocated to Baltimore, unable to preserve the name, thus birthing the Ravens. Cleveland has since passed the Modell Law, which it is now invoking in a lawsuit against the current iteration of the Browns.
As part of Modell’s move, the NFL required that the Cleveland Browns be preserved in Cleveland. Returning as an expansion team in 1999, the current team retains all of the organization’s records. Now current owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam want to take the Browns out of Cleveland; the city is fighting back.
The Browns announced a plan to relocate to a new domed stadium in Brook Park. However, they failed to inform Cleveland, which it argues is a violation of the law. “The Modell Law is clear: if you take taxpayer money to fund your stadium, you have obligations to the community that made that investment possible”, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk quotes Cleveland Law Director Mark Griffin as stating.
As Florio writes, the idea is to give Cleveland the opportunity to make alternative arrangements. That includes the possibility of actually buying the team, but the Haslams don’t want to sell the Browns. The former Steelers minority owners have been terrible trying to run a team on their own, or so the prevailing wisdom suggests.
The Modell Law requires that a team taking public funds, in this case the Browns, informs the city six months in advance of any plans to move out of Cleveland. The Haslams clearly failed to do this, the city invoking the law last month.
Now Cleveland has formally sued the Browns, though it’s unclear what this will mean in the long run. The Haslams could always opt not to take public funds, I write with an amused look on my face, knowing that an NFL owner will never pass up the opportunity to take public money. The Browns filed an earlier lawsuit seeking clarification about the Modell Law, which could potentially take precedence. In that case, whatever that suit determines could severely weaken Cleveland’s case.
No matter where the Browns play, however, they will always be the Browns, in every sense. Especially this Browns team, which has annually watched the old Browns do what it can’t. That includes win games, even Super Bowls, actually garner respect, and generally not be a joke.
Now, the Browns actually did beat both the Ravens and the Steelers this past season. But they are still shackled to easily one of the worst trades and contracts in the history of the game. The mistake by the lake persists no matter where they choose to lose games.
