Browns Sued By City of Cleveland Over Planned Stadium Move to Suburban Brook Park

The fight between the team and town is growing messier.

FirstEnergy Stadium (now Huntington Bank Field) in 2021. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

With the future of the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland proper up in the air, the city has moved to initiate a legal fight.

Cleveland filed a lawsuit against the Browns Tuesday accusing the team of violating the "Modell Law," a statute that allows locals to attempt to buy a relocating team within a six-month period before the team's relocation. The lawsuit seeks to stop the team from attempting to build a new domed stadium in the suburb of Brook Park.

In the lawsuit, according to Ed Gallek, Peggy Gallek, Darcie Loreno and Laura Morrison of WJW-TV in Cleveland, the city accuses the team of "(bilking) the City and its taxpayers for millions, only to unilaterally abandon what the city provided to them."

The Browns have played on the shores of Lake Erie since their 1946 founding—first at Cleveland Stadium from '46 to 1995, and then at Huntington Bank Field since their 1999 reinstatement.

The team, which has won one playoff game since its '99 return, has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking "clarity" on how precisely the law applies to it.

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