Does Cleveland have any hope?

[jayk009]

Now that Lebron James is gone, they still have the same incompetent management except now they have no superstar to bail them out.

Unless I see them dumping Mo Williams, Antawn Jamison for cap relief and picks, I feel like they will continue to do make stupid moves and stay mediocre for years and years to come.


I don't like their sessions trade at all unless they trade away Mo Williams.


I feel really bad for Cleveland right now actually...the fans do not deserve this at all...

[csfansince60s]

All Cleveland fans really have is hope. First Art Modell yanks the storied (Jim Brown)franchise from the "Dog Pound" (man, were they rabid fans, painted up and shirtless in O* weather) and now Lebroid takes his HGH'd body to South Beach, leaving the franchise and fans that bent over backwards to please him at the altar. Talk about a jilted lover and unrequited love.

There is very little loyalty left in sports both regarding players and owners. The irony is that the people who ultimately pay for the product (we, the fans) are the ones who are loyal but really have no control over what we are paying for.

Sorry, Cleveland...I feel ya.....again.....

[Moranis]

Modell didn't yank the Browns, he had been saying for years he was going to move the team if the city didn't build a new stadium.  The city didn't actually believe him and consistently refused to build a new stadium and called him on what they believed was a bluff.  Only problem, Modell wasn't bluffing and  he finally had enough and moved the team for a much a better offer and stadium.  

Moral of the story, don't ever believe you are so great that no one would leave you.  Apparently Cleveland still hasn't learned that lesson.

Here is an after-the-fact article on the move
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/3129

Here is a very detailed article from December 1995 in the Baltimore Sun that talks about the whole deal and how it arose
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/bal-modell121795,0,7910265.story

[csfansince60s]

Modell didn't yank the Browns, he had been saying for years he was going to move the team if the city didn't build a new stadium.  The city didn't actually believe him and consistently refused to build a new stadium and called him on what they believed was a bluff.  Only problem, Modell wasn't bluffing and  he finally had enough and moved the team for a much a better offer and stadium.  

Moral of the story, don't ever believe you are so great that no one would leave you.  Apparently Cleveland still hasn't learned that lesson.

Here is an after-the-fact article on the move
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/3129

Here is a very detailed article from December 1995 in the Baltimore Sun that talks about the whole deal and how it arose
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/bal-modell121795,0,7910265.story

Real moral of the story: sports is a business and the bottom line is the bottom line, fans be [dang]ed.

As comments after the "article" (which is clearly not unbiased and written by a Modell apologist)indicate, Modell's intentions and motivations were not always above board or selfless. "Even by your own admission Modell never came out and clearly stated, I'm going to move the club! If he had you really don't think Browns fans would have spoke out to the string pullers in city hall?" The commenter also informs that a major motivation for the move as being to mitigate the effect of the inheritance tax on Modell's son.

My point in my post wasn't so much to pillory Modell, but rather point out both the helplessness and powerlessness of fans (borne out of both lack of knowledge and actual power)and to perhaps proffer the idea that fan loyalty is far more prevalent and deep-rooted than franchises' (teams and owners) loyalty to fans and players and players' loyalty to fans and franchises.

[csfansince60s]

Also, Moranis, TP for the article. Definitely gave me some knowledge that I didn't have. thanks.

[Moranis]

No doubt sports is a business.  The Baltimore Sun article has a of stuff from the time.  I thought this part was very intersting from page 2

Engineers said 64-year-old Cleveland Stadium was basically sound, but cement chunks were falling off and workers occasionally had to climb ladders to hammer out dangling sections. Its wooden pilings had petrified.

The drab, horseshoe-shaped facility was built for Olympic track and field and featured some of the worst spectator views in the NFL. The oval shape meant the 50-yard-line seats, usually football's most coveted, were the farthest from the field. And its retrofitted sky boxes commanded bargain-basement rents.

Meanwhile, Cleveland was already committed to $650 million worth of community projects: Jacobs Field, the Indians' new baseball park; Gund Arena, home of the NBA's Cavaliers; and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had opened to rave reviews. The Great Lakes Science Center was going up next to the Browns' stadium.

Modell had supported the competing attractions, but they were now sapping corporate support from his team, as droves of sky-box customers dropped their leases and rented more modern suites at the new arena and ballpark. A quarter of his sky boxes were vacant. And the move of the Indians from Cleveland Stadium cost his stadium-operating company $700,000 a year in rent.

Modell says he repeatedly was promised, over six years, that his stadium would be next. But by the time attention turned to the Browns late last year, the political and economic climate for sports stadiums had grown bleak. Construction of the Gateway baseball and basketball complex had run way over budget and some unpaid contractors had filed for bankruptcy. Cuyahoga County had to cover interest payments when revenues fell way short of projections.

Politicians began linking Browns stadium funding with measures to pay off the other projects, a tar pit the football team didn't dare enter.