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Cleveland City Council Ensuring Browns Use Proper Channels In Stadium Pursuits
In a press conference on Monday, Cleveland city council addressed the Browns stadium situation, vowing to make sure the team goes through the proper legal channels before any decisions are made.
The city of Cleveland isn't going to let the Browns leave downtown easily.
In an impromptu press conference on Monday afternoon, Cleveland City Councilman Brian Kazy announced he is introducing legislation to ensure that Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam go through the necessary legal channels if they intend to move the team outside of the city.
As Kazy's explained, his planned act is meant to enforce Ohio Revised Code, Section 9.67, which was introduced in 1996 after Art Modell infamously moved the franchise to Baltimore one year prior.
As that section states:
No owner of a professional sports team that uses a tax-supported facility for most of its home games and receives financial assistance from the state or a political subdivision thereof shall cease playing most of its home games at the facility and begin playing most of its home games elsewhere unless the owner either:
(A) Enters into an agreement with the political subdivision permitting the team to play most of its home games elsewhere;
(B) Gives the political subdivision in which the facility is located not less than six months' advance notice of the owner's intention to cease playing most of its home games at the facility and, during the six months after such notice, gives the political subdivision or any individual or group of individuals who reside in the area the opportunity to purchase the team.
Kazy's piece of legislation, which he plans to introduce at a city council meeting on Monday night, aims at making sure Jimmy and Dee Haslam have to follow the aforementioned state law before potentially following through on any potential plans to move the team out of downtown Cleveland.
"What this basically does, ladies and gentleman, is ensures that the Cleveland Browns have to go through the legal process of leaving the city of Cleveland," said Kazy. "Whether they want to move the team to Timbuktu, or whether they want to move them to Brook Park or to Lakewood or to any other state, they have to go before the city, Cleveland City council, ask for permission to move the team. Or they have to give us six months notice and offer to put the team up for sale.
"We're hoping that the latter does not happen, however this is going to ensure that the Cleveland Browns are going to be a part of the legislative process and that Cleveland City Council is going to have a say so in that."
This political move by city council is also meant to keep the team from being move from it's current residence at Browns Stadium prior to the team's lease expiring in 2028. To this point, the Haslams have never suggested they would be leaving the current stadium prior to the expiration date on the lease. In fact, just last week at the NFL's owner meetings the mentioned the possibility of extending the lease by several years if needed, to complete a new facility.
That said, Kazy and city council are clearly being cautious in an effort to avoid history repeating itself. Modell pulled a similar move in the 1970s when intense lease negotiations were unfolding between the team and the city, purchasing 190 acres of land in Strongsville as a negotiating tactic.
The only other time the "Art Modell Law" was enforced was in 2018 when then Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt declared his intentions to move the team to Austin, Texas. Governor Mike Dewine, then serving as state attorney general, invoked the law against the ownership group for not giving the city of Columbus six months notice of their intentions to move the team. Ultimately, Jimmy Haslam swooped in, along with a handul of other local groups, to purchase the team and helped facilitate the building of a new stadium as well.
Dec 28, 2023; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Browns and New York Jets players await at the line of
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The Haslams have made no indication they intend to move the team out of Ohio. As they suggested last week though, they are down to two options: partnering with the city and state for a 50-50 split of a $1 billion renovation to the current facility, or utilizing the land they are close to purchasing in Brook Park to build a new, privately funded stadium.
During a Q and A portion of Monday's press conference Kazy made it clear that his intentions are centered around making sure city council is involved in the process. To this point he said they hadn't been briefed on any potential plans the organization has.
