Cleveland Browns Move to Baltimore Revisited
Each week here at the Cleveland Leader we have spotlighted Cleveland Browns' history. Today we will look at something that will most likely ruffle some feathers. Art Modell, who transcended the National Football League into the television behemoth that it is today, deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It is shameful that he has been shunned. One of the main culprits that has Modell on the outside looking in to the Hall of Fame doors is the Cleveland media, which have been blatantly unfair in how they represented the facts of the Browns franchise move to Baltimore.
In these parts, Art Modell is regarded somewhere between Saddam Hussein and the Devil himself. The truth of the matter is that it wasn't Modell who single-handedly blindsided the city of Cleveland and abruptly moved, as revisionist history would make you believe. The Browns were in desperate financial trouble and Modell clearly stated the facts before he announced his departure to Baltimore.
I worked for the Cleveland Browns in the 1995 season and will never forget an interview that Modell gave to Cleveland media. I was standing about 5 feet away, when Modell clearly stated that "all options were on the table" regarding the Browns. Everyone there knew what he meant. He was saying, in a public forum, that the Browns move could be imminent. In the interview he also stated his displeasure with then-Mayor Michael White and stated that he wasn't being offered a fair deal considering the city had built a stadium for the Cleveland Indians and an arena for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The next day I picked up the Plain Dealer to see what they would say about Modell's interview. Nothing was mentioned. Zip, Zero, Zilch.
Another thing startled me in the 1995 campaign. A new advertising agency from Baltimore had been hired by the Browns to do marketing for the club. I knew this in a very low level job with the franchise. Why didn't the media who covered the Browns start to say, "What's going on here"?
Modell was clearly laying out his cards on the table. The problem was, the media and the politicians thought that he was bluffing. He was not. It should not have come as a shock when he announced that the team was moving. Isn't it the job of the media to keep the public informed of the happenings in a city? The Plain Dealer was caught with their pants down.
The thing that is really odd about the whole Browns move is how Al Lerner has been made some kind of hero by the local media. Wasn't it his plane that took him to Baltimore to sign the deal? But he is regarded as a hero nowadays. This was a headline in the Akron Beacon Journal on November 19th, 1995: "LERNER IS SAID TO BE AIDING, ABETTING MODELL MINORITY OWNER: MAY BE PROVIDING ART WITH CASH TO BUY OUT GRIES' SHARES." How quickly we forget these "minor" details of the move.
What about Robert Gries who owned 43% of the club? Couldn't he have wielded some of his business interest to block the proposed move? He was let off the hook by the Plain Dealer. When they asked about the move in 1995, which he could have probably brought a lawsuit to stop the relocation, he stated, "It would've been far more profitable for me to stay in for a few years and sell my interest after the stadium was built," he said. "But I could not be a part of the relocation of the Browns. I could never have lived with myself."
I heard a first hand report of what actually happened. Overhearing a conversation between a Browns official discussing why Gries sold his shares with one of the Browns lawyers, when Gries heard the buyout number and pretty much said, "Where do I sign?".
Professional sports are a big business. If people cannot get over that simple truth in 2007, then they have a hard time seeing reality. Modell might not have done what was popular but he did what he had to do for the best interest of his investment. Working one year for the man I can say that he was about as generous as you could ask for (his son David Modell left a lot to be desired). The city gave sweetheart stadium deals to both the Cavaliers and Indians and left Modell, who had Cleveland's most popular and successful franchise at the time, with a sub-standard offer.
Modell helped make NFL football what it is today, securing lucrative television contracts which brought the league to "Primetime" with Monday Night Football. There were a lot of guilty parties in the Cleveland Browns move: Michael White, Al Lerner, Robert Gries, the Cleveland media, and of course Art Modell. The others have been forgiven or forgotten. Isn't time to do the same with Modell?
Comments
Ignoring Modell's move to Baltimore, the only justification you cite for his enshrinement in the HOF is:
"Modell helped make NFL football what it is today, securing lucrative television contracts which brought the league to "Primetime" with Monday Night Football".
Now I have no idea what Modell's actual "contribution" was to the MNF process. He was chairman of the league's television committee so most likely he had some involvement but it is generally credited to ABC (insert Roon Arledge here). Although Modell had television contacts from his advertising days in NYC, it is likely almost any of the owners or league executives could have stepped in and done as good or better than Modell, who never demonstrated much capacity for sound business decisions or creative marketing.
In any case his work on the television committee seems a rather bogus reason for HOF consideration. What else did he do in pro football. He was not a player or a coach. He bought a team in 1961 and took an active role in managing it. Unfortunately he was hopelessly inept. He took over the Browns about the same time as Bill Bidwell took over the Cardinals and their ownership spanned about the same period. From 1966 (once Paul Brown's players had begun to move on) the two franchises enjoyed about the same low level of success on field. The problem for Modell was that he sincerely (I think) was trying to win games while Bidwell was just trying to make a lot more money.
In 1967, five black players refused to report to training camp. Modell, hardly a progressive owner, simply traded or released them. He only kept Leroy Kelly, who played out his option but could not realistically leave because of the restrictive nature of free agency. Kelly was one of Modell few personnel success stories, it is unlikely that any franchise had a worse overall drafting record under a long-term owner in the history of the league. The 33 Cleveland drafts (1963 to 1995) under "active" owner Modell produced only two Hall of Fame caliber players, Kelly and Ozzie Newsome. If you figure that five players make the hall every year and there were 24-32 teams during this period, even average teams drafted 5-6 HOF players.
In the late 1980's, Modell was finally able to get the Browns back to a point where they were competitive with most teams in the league. But he did not do it on a level playing field, he got a couple of breaks. The USFL folded and he scooped up some players and then Bernie Kosar became available in the supplemental draft and wanted to play for his hometown team.
Modell's head coach selections and firings during his ownership of the Browns are a topic unto themselves but suffice it to say that his bad coaches stayed too long and he forced out any good coaches too early (pretty much without exception).
Bottom line, Modell was grossly incompetent as an owner. His financial mismanagement forced him to abandon a city where every game was sold out despite years of fielding a team that was little better than that of an owner who was not even trying to be successful on the playing field. New owners would benefit from studying him as an example of how NOT to operate a franchise. I would only support his HOF enshrinement if he is admitted because he achieved an unprecedented and unlikely to be duplicated level of active ownership ineptitude.
Seems to me that in the act of submitting the forgotten facts you seem to have, well, forgotten some. Are you perhaps not mentioning Modell refusing to be part of the Gateway project because it doesn't support the point of your story? Are you perhaps leaving out that Modell himself claimed the reason for the move was that if not for the cash his son couldn't have afforded the inheritence tax he would suffer for the club when Modell passed?
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?
Really, this is at best a shoddy attempt at getting press. If you want to offer the compelte story and state your opinion is that he should be voted in then while I don't agree with you, that is your right. But to present only the points that support your personal opinion in hopes that those of us that suffered thru the times would give way to young folks that would believe your misinformation is a pitiful excuse for print media.
Two questions: wasn't Modell in a financial squeeze BECAUSE he bought out the minority shareholders IN ORDER TO MOVE? Wasn't there a proposition on thde ballot already scheduled for a vote to build him a new stadium, and didn't he announce the move a few weeks BEFORE the election which could have given him a new stadium? OK, a third question: How come, with the sweetheart deal he got from Baltimore, and with the benefits of underhanded "seat licenses" (a slimey procedure now commonplace)and the like, he STILL had to sell the team. Financial wizard? Give me a break. Why couldn't the bastard sell the team while it was still in Cleveland? The maybe he would deserve mention for the Hall of Fame.
Why else would you write such a ridiculous article?
There is only one thing, in my mind, that can be added to what everyone has commented on already. While I can believe that there were other factors (players)involved in the loss of our team, the one thing that has stood out for me from the very beginning is that Art Modell lied to me. He said, publicly, that there would be a moratorium on discussions about the stadium until AFTER the season. Excuse my sarcasm, but the end of the season is when the final whistles blows at the end of the Championship game, not in November. It's ancient history in my mind, and while I do not believe he deserves to be in the HOF based on what others have already shared, Art Modell lied to me, and for that I can never respect him.
The author suggests that Modell "laid all his cards on the table," and that the city and media were supposed to somehow magically infer that this meant he was having conversations with Baltimore. This only makes sense in an alternative universe.
Modell lied to the fans and the media and explicitly said he was not negotiating to move the team. A class-action lawsuit filed by season tickets holders successfully won millions of dollars of damages because of his blatant misrepresentation. You can look it up if you choose to do some actual research.
Furthermore, it was revealed after the move that Modell convinced other owners to not award Baltimore and expansion franchise for 1995, despite them initially being favored to receive one of the two new franchises. This denial of Baltimore resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in Modell's pockets. It appears that Modell's plan was in place well ahead of its actual execution.
Was is it a good business move? Quite possibly. But did he blantantly lie and deceive in order to execute this move? Beyond any doubt whatsoever. If you wish to praise him for screwing his city over and his workers over in order to add to his millions, fine. But don't be a lackey who insists he was upright and honest throughout this process. Nothing could be further from the truth. The law agrees with me, as does anyone not wearing "I love Art" blinders.
15 July 2006
10 hours 38 min
I was one of the people who lost my job and I by being around the training camp first hand saw that the the beloved PD wasn't reporting that Modell, 3 months before the move, told them the franchise was walking a tightrope and could be moved. The PD and other outlets failed to do there duty and report it. It was very surreal to say the least.
And as for all these other negative comments....
If you are so bitter with Mr Modell, where is your bitterness towards Al Lerner? Why does he get a free pass. It was his money who bought out Griess for heavens sakes and fly Modell to Baltimore. He was Modell's right hand man in all of these but was treated with kid gloves.
As for the people who comment "there was a stadium deal on the ballot at the time". That is true but Modell never publicly backed it. Mayor White thought that he somehow owned the team and screwed up big time. Maybe he was busy counting the money that the $ Gund and Jacobs gave him in kickbacks.
Since you're dealing in facts, do you care to support the accusation you just made that Mayor White received kickbacks from the Gunds and Dick Jacobs? That's a bold statement from someone who's claiming the press didn't do their duty.
I'm not in the camp that White/Lerner/Gries don't deserve any blame --- they certainly do. The majority of the blame lies with Modell, however, as was the one orchestrating the deal, had obvious conflicts of interest on the Expansion Committee, and lied about many issues, the moratorium on stadium discsussions simply being one of the most blatant. To get back to the supposed point of your article, Modell is the only one trying to get into the HOF, and if the Cleveland public and media had been just as critical of the other players in this mess, it wouldn't make Modell any more deserving to be enshrined.
Art never once came out in public, in a public forum, and said in plain english "if I cannot get a new stadium and a deal like Gateway I am going to have to move the team". He had to have known back in 1994 that his finances were a mess. Then paying out the wazzoo for Andre Rison, the $5 million decoy receiver who was never a very integral part of the offense anyway, Modell was fiscally irresponsible. But if he had gone public a year before spelling everything out, residents of Cuyahoga County would have run to the voting booths with bells on to approve a new deal if it meant either that or we loose the team. If we did it to keep the Indians, I guarantee you we would have done it to keep the Browns. But Modell never said anything like that. It was just hints and allegations. He never led on for us to believe things were as bad as they were for him, or that he was as upset with the Cleveland political scene at the time, and therefore Modell is ultimately the blame for everything. He would have gotten anything and everything he wanted if he would have just asked. I am convinced there are more Browns fans in Cuyahoga County than people who wouldn't care, so any kind of tax to build or rennovate the old Stadium would have been passed with flying colors. I mean, he even had a plan to rennovate Municipal 1994 (I remember seeing the model of it on TV) and then he himself told everyone it's off the table, don't worry, I don't need it.
WTF ART!!!! You knew THEN that you did, and told us to forget about it!!!!!! So we thought everything was just hunky doory.
Whatever he did for the NFL, he will always, fairly or not, be remembered for moving the Browns. And as a team owner, your first responsability is to your comunity, and THEN to the rest of the league. He failed misserably as an owner. Maybe he got bad financial advice. Maybe he had incompetent people working for him. But there is no way anyone with a half decent knowledge of finances could have been loosing money on the Browns.
Modell had his chances to join the same group that was responsible for the Jake. He chose to stay in Municipal Stadium.
"What about Robert Gries who owned 43% of the club? Couldn't he have wielded some of his business interest to block the proposed move? He was let off the hook by the Plain Dealer."
I'm sorry, you lost all credibility there. Art Modell owned and controlled 51% of the shares. 51% > 50%, or a majority vote. Gries could do nothing, no matter what the plain dealer did, or any kind of "business interest" you think he could have wielded.
Gries had as much chance of blocking Modell's actions with a 43% interest as McCain could have of staking a claim on the presidency in spite of Obama's majority victory.
Wow. I just realized this was posted by the author:
"Maybe he was busy counting the money that the $ Gund and Jacobs gave him in kickbacks."
Being that you're a journalist, I'm sure The Cleveland Leader has proof of this that you can make such a statement, right?
What a joke of a piece this is.
After reading all these comments, there is not much left for me to say. The forum seems to have decided. From my part, I think that we should listen to the both sides of the story before making a decision.
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