The once and future Cleveland Browns: Looking back at 'The Move'

As the return of football is upon us, the stadium formerly known as the Edward Jones Dome sits quiet. The all-too-familiar sounds of crunching shoulder pads, crowd cheers and beer vendors are gone, likely for a long time to come. For the second time in 30 years, football has abandoned St. Louis and its fanbase for greener, sunnier pastures.

Two states over and 559 miles away, the scene at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland is one of preparation. Now whether or not that preparation is for anything but another lackluster season of football is certainly up for debate, and given the fortunes of the Cleveland Browns over time, that debate would probably be a short one, but just about anyone you can ask would likely agree on one thing:

It’s better to have football than not.

Twenty years ago, Cleveland fans woke up to a season much like fans in St. Louis are waking up to now: a season without the NFL in their town. Win or mostly lose, Browns fans were among the most ardent in the league. The world-famous Dawg Pound, coined by cornerback Hanford Dixon, were often more entertaining to watch than the product on the field.

When former owner Art Modell made the decision to move the Browns to Baltimore after the 1995 season, the scene was understandably an ugly one. At the time, the dispute between Modell and the city of Cleveland was a relatively rare one. The Browns played in Cleveland Stadium since 1973, sharing the space with MLB’s Indians. The dispute wasn’t so much over an aging stadium, much as you see happen on a regular basis today, but rather suite revenues.

While both the Indians and the Browns were relatively poor franchises in terms of on-field success, when it came to revenue generation, the Indians were bringing in more money, particularly in the area of stadium suites.

Modell, whose company managed Cleveland Stadium, received 100 percent of stadium revenue, refusing to share it with the Indians, even though they were responsible for the lion’s share of the proceeds. Tired of being shortchanged, the Indians leaned on Cleveland in 1990 to build Jacobs Field as a baseball-only facility, leaving Modell and the Browns as sole residents of Cleveland Stadium by 1994.

Since this all happened in the era before the selling of naming rights, Modell’s revenue sharply declined in the wake of the Indians’ departure, something that despite all indications, he didn’t see coming.

At the time, the Browns were actually doing fairly well, finishing the 1994 season 11-5 under the helm of Bill Belichick, and making it to the second round of the playoffs. For Modell, this was the sort of success that he figured would make it easy to sell to Cleveland the idea of upgrading Cleveland Stadium, a venue that, while venerated, was significantly in decline.

Now after shelling out a significant amount of money to give the Indians their own stadium, there was no stomach for raising taxes once again to refurbish Cleveland Stadium, and as they still had the back end of a 25-year lease with the Browns, the city saw no reason to go further into debt just to give Modell $175 million.

By November 1995, Modell was ready to go, announcing the move to Baltimore, a town in its own NFL drought since losing the Colts to Indianapolis 12 years earlier (ironically, a move that Modell was against). Baltimore was ready and willing to erect a stadium, without forcing dual tenancy with the Orioles, and that was reason enough for Modell to jump.

In the wake of the announcement, lawsuits came from about every corner, from the city, from season ticket holders, from vendors, you name it. Anyone with access to a lawyer came at Modell with teeth bared. With 46 years of history invested, no one in Cleveland thought Modell would take the Browns, and with not enough resources to keep him in town, they had no choice but to lose the franchise to the willing arms of Baltimore.

The NFL, for their part, recognized what would be lost, and came up with the only plan they could: a promise to return football to Cleveland, which is probably the biggest irony of all. After the legal smoke cleared, the NFL offered Cleveland the Browns’ legacy. Even though Modell took the team, everything else would stay: the name, the wins, the records, the awards, everything.

For all intents and purposes, Modell took a virtually new franchise to Baltimore with only his operations and staff intact. Part of the NFL “deactivation” mandate was that Cleveland would have a new stadium built in three years’ time to house the once and future Browns.

It took Modell leaving to give the team a new stadium, when all he wanted were a few renovations.

Since moving, the now Baltimore Ravens have two Super Bowl wins while the new Browns have only two winning seasons. Less than five years after moving to Baltimore, Modell was forced to sell control of the Ravens to Steve Biscotti, who still owns the team to this day, responsible for the most recent of the team’s two championships.

The Browns have been passed from owner to owner, each with less success than the owner before. While Cleveland has their team, winning hasn’t been a part of it.

Wins and losses aside, the true legacy borne from the move 20 years ago is one that transcends any one team. Since Modell’s gambit, threatening cities for stadium funds is now commonplace, with some cities ponying up blood money in the form of increased taxes and inflated bonds, while many other cities being unable to pay exorbitant ransoms to keep flagging teams in order to fund state-of-the-art super stadiums, catapulting the value of teams by billions of dollars.

Yes, billions.

Since the move to Baltimore, six teams either relocated or are in the process of relocating, with the Rams and Raiders relocating twice in 20 years (the Raiders’ proposed move to Las Vegas is not yet final, but widely expected), with each relocation being focused on facilities.

The ultimate takeaway here is that revenues will always trump fanbases, and by now it’s a fact accepted by fans who feel powerless to protect their teams in an era where every stadium must be new and every fan must pay a premium to support their franchises.

So 20 years after the move that nearly killed a city, the curtain opens on yet another season of doubt in Cleveland, but one thing is not in doubt: the Browns are at home where they belong.

For now, at least.