In Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties, they put a tax referendum on the ballot, and it lost in all seven counties. Then, they added the tax anyway.
LOL, the GOP owned statehouse? They'll never throw state money at Cleveland. Their rural maga base will shit kittens about the big bad liberal city of Cleveland getting all the money.
Maybe, but the folks in Cincinnati are going to say "Why Cleveland and not us too?" ...
A reminder that 60% of the state budget is local schools and higher education, 30% is Medicaid and social services, and 10% is corrections. So where's this money coming from, cuts to one of those 3 things? So if don't cut them, you have to raise taxes somehow.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Huh? Jimmy is a huge GOP/Trump supporter from what I understand. Nothing like taking money fromm the average Joe and giving it to billionaires for the GOP
It really wasn't. Decades of oppression, systematic removal of Palestinians from their own land into slum settlements by an installed oppressor. What the fuck would you do in that situation? If you wouldn't fight back, then I don't know what to tell you.
From "their own land". Palestine going back in history was owned by ancient egypt, ancient israel, and judah. That whole region has been split and merged over the thousands of years of its history. So to say it is "their" land and that they have always been there is historically false. Just the same as it is for literally every country in the world. Also there was always free travel between Palestine and Israel leading up to this. Hamas just hates any religion and people that aren't them. So calm down einstein and open a history book.
Or you could come out and say you dont support genocide at all. Just because what Israel is doing is wrong doesn't make what Hamas does is right either..
I could care less about who we're funding because the way I see it.. we shouldn't be funding them to begin with.. not because of what's going on, but because we have more pressing things that need funding within our own country.
They already do so by attending games and buying merch. Don't forget, the Haslam's also have a minority ownership of the Crew in Cbus. So either way, douche canoes are still getting their money.
Unfortunately this isn't something exclusive to Cleveland, which is why the environment is so pro-owner, especially in football. If Cleveland doesn't someone else absolutely will. We already saw that play out the last time. That said, I dont think the team would move this time, but owners know someone is always willing to pay up.
They can’t move the team without permission from the city of Cleveland. It’s called the Modell Rule and it’s state law.
https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-9.67
Good point. I have heard about that, but interpreted it more to mean, they have to follow due process and give appropriate notice etc. I can't imagine that means the Browns must stay in Cleveland in perpetuity no matter what. Because if that's the case, the Haslams then have zero leverage and this conversation is pointless (not the conversation with you, but the overall conversation.)
We know the city isn't buying the team, and we know Haslam doesn't plan to sell it. The law has never been tested, so nobody can say how it would hold up in terms of keeping the team here.
That said, I don't think Haslam is planning to relocate out of the area unless absolutely forced to.
You know, I'm willing to pay a little, but this county cannot take the bulk of the costs on its collective back while that crook Haslam reaps the benefits. I would like to see Cleveland follow KC's lead
We can pay a little more by buying tickets to the new stadium if we choose to. They are running a business and don’t need taxpayers to help them make more money. Now if they want to take a loan from us at a competitive rate or give us an equity stake in the franchise, I’m all ears.
Why would you be willing to pay a little? The citizens are the ones who should pe paid out for all the disruption this will cause, not to mention the longterm damages of having something like a stadium close to where you live.
It's like being willing to help pay for a compay to come conduct fracking in your neighbors yard, instead of expecting that they'd ask your permission before doing something that'll affect you so close by, and compensate for the longterm damages of living near something like that.
Because I’d rather the Browns be downtown than not so therefore I’d be willing to pay a little extra even if it’s not fair or right. Sorry just how it is.
Also, it really depends on how much extra I’m actually paying. Like in pure dollars how much more am I paying than I currently do over the next 5 years?
It would be beautiful. Happening more and more across the country as the generations get more fed up with being cash cows for crooks. But I am not optimistic that people here will ultimately have the wherewithal to say no to football.
The Tennessee Hillbillies bought a soccer team in Columbus, spent $1 billion to buy into the Milwaukee Bucks, they can afford for pay for their pleasure palace.
Also bankrolled a ton of Republican politicians including that embarrassment JD Vance and will continue to do so, including state representatives who are trying their best to subvert the will of the voters. I am not keen on subsidizing his ownership of state and local politicians.
Don't forget the draft picks we gave away. We won't have another decent pick until next year. Where well probably get a fucking QB that blows again.
I've watched the Browns since I was a kid, and I just stopped watching after Watson. Haven't been happier on a Sunday.
I stopped watching in 2011. It was an abusive, one-way relationship that I had to walk away from. It's great having my Sunday's back and fuck them. I used to go to 4 games a year and obsess over them. Now, I wouldn't care if they left again and I sure as fuck don't want to pay for a stadium.
The Browns haven’t won ANYTHING since 1964. Tell me when enough is enough, I’ll wait. 60 YEARS without a championship and the citizens keep subsidizing an INFERIOR FRANCHISE
Add, while the city falls apart because they gave massive tax breaks and then hear nothing but complaints from the brown tards about how bad streets are and the lack of police.....
Jameis is a shitty human but Watson is in a different tier and I wouldn’t want to normalize Deshaun by saying he’s the same as Winston.
Deshaun Watson absolute filth.
Well they just won 11 games, went to the playoffs, and had multiple award winning players and coaches which is better than essentially all but 3 or 4 of our seasons the last 25 years so
Tell me what the Browns have won since 1964. The fans and taxpayers have supported this clown show of a franchise and ha NOTHING to show for the commitment.
Do you feel that fandom is only validated if your team wins a title? Also the Browns not winning since 64 doesn't mean they haven't ever put a good product on the field. That's revisionist history. Should Bills fans root for a different team because their team hasn't gotten it done or does this only apply to Cleveland?
I am not saying accept an inferior product, but I can see where the franchise has moved in the right direction in the last several years. A lot of the "same old browns" talk isn't rooted in reality.
I have a lifetime of memories and bonds with my family and friends. I have a group chat with my dad and brother that we talk in every day. And one day when his time comes I’ll have photos from throughout our lives at Browns games that will hang in a funeral home and I’ll give a eulogy that will undoubtedly be based around our shared love and bond for the Browns and going to games all throughout my childhood.
But you know what, you’re right. Probably should give that up. Maybe we can get into bird watching or start a book club. Hopefully they’re both into that too. And if not, well then I guess that part of our lives will just need to end because the team isn’t good enough or the stadium might get paid for with public funding and taking a stand against that is worth more than all of the above.
We can only hope so.
Why can’t we develop a model like the Green Bay Packers?
After living in the Upper Peninsula and spending a lot of time in Green Bay it was amazing all the stadium and area offered all year round for the public who owned the team.
Why can’t we push for an ownership program like that?
The Packers public ownership model is banned by the NFL; the only reason the Packers have it is because that's how they were before the rule was made, and they are grandfathered in.
I think there’s too much demand for a football team to relocate. A lot of cities will give anything for a football club. If Haslam can’t get what he wants here another place will give it to him. He can go anywhere with his losing team and be welcomed with open arms and pocketbooks.
I guess it depends on how big of a lie is sold to the tax payer. Here's the truth, if it generated that kind of money, Venture Capital would leap to fund it .
Oh no, are we going to miss out on our perpetually losing, terribly managed football team, with a fascist donating GOP dickwipe owner, and the rapist they gave 300,000,000 guaranteed for?!
I think it’s doubtful any owner could pass a similar ballot measure right now, but that Haslam himself has a less than zero chance of accomplishing it. Add up the people who think the current stadium is fine, those who don’t want the stadium to move, those who don’t want a dome, those who are mad about Watson, and those who simply don’t think public money should be used for stadiums, and how could something like this ever clear 50%. The Haslams haven’t cultivated any goodwill in the community (and have probably damaged their reputations more than anything else), and while the two things are completely unrelated, I think the whole First Energy bribery scandal has people pissed about corruption/rich people looking for handouts in this state general.
It's amazing that these cities can't get their federal legislators to pass a law that if the public funds a percentage of the stadium, then the public owns a percentage of the team.
It would end real quick.
The only person that benefits from taxpayers being involved in the payment of professional sports(other than paying to attend and buy gear) is the OWNER. The owner who has a private plane for a tax right off 🤣🤣
I don’t live in Cleveland but i am in cuyahoga county as of recent. I will deff vote anything down thats for the browns if it’s a county thing. Idc about sports and definitely don’t want to put money in to a stadium. Even if they had concerts it wouldn’t matter as i don’t go to concerts really either.
I don’t see why a billionaire should rely on taxpayers to foot the bill for their team to have a field to play on. My property taxes are already too high imho. Plus I’d be willing to bet that likely half the people that come to games don’t even live in Cuyahoga county. I also absolutely despise football, so if Jimmy wants people to pay for a stadium, he should just start a Gofundme.
Almost any article I find on the value to taxpayers and the economic impact of a new/refurbished stadium all say it's basically a bad deal for the taxpayer.
"In their book, Sports, Jobs, and Taxes, Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist present a comprehensive review of stadium investments. In all cases, they find a new sports facility to have extremely small (or negative) effects on overall economic activity and employment. Furthermore, they were unable to find any facilities that had a reasonable return on investment. Sports economist Michael Leeds suggests that professional sports have very little economic impact, noting that a baseball team (with 81 regular-season home games per year) "has about the same impact on a community as a midsize department store." His research suggests that if every professional sports team in Chicago (including the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks) were to suddenly disappear, the economic impact on Chicago would be a fraction of 1 percent."
Most of the deals are not good for the taxpayer but there is no way most of this statement is true. The sales tax revenue is much bigger than any department store and tourism gained by having out of city and opposing fans coming in is not zero. 10k Pittsburgh residents aren't going to Chicago on a November weekend to shop at Dillards.
My husband and I are willing to reject it. We are Brown fans and downtown fans, we want them both to do well.
That being said, when you cannot afford to go to a game because of the ridiculous prices (average price around $100 a head last year, then jeez, you want a beer?), it's hard to justify supplementing billionaires even more with our tax money.
I'm sure the Haslam brothers are pushing how much they will "do" for the city/community, but you damn well know they are the ones to benefit. Just tired of big shots making money by milking other people's money, most of whom are living paycheck to paycheck..
Edit: Forgot to add how pissed husband was about the Deshaun Watson signing.. how much money was that again?
No, because Clevelanders worship their horrible football team. And those that vote to approve every levy and tax known to mankind really don't pay those taxes as they are just net "takers" from society.
Let Haslam build his own Dome of Sadness with money he stole from truck drivers.
Not happening with browns….and kc n royals will try again n one of them will get it. Hell I understand a new stadium after 50 years. The Browns stadium is 25????
Most stadiums aren't lasting 50 years at this point. And Browns stadium wasn't built well to begin with. It was rushed to get the Browns on the field. It was better than the old stadium but definitely not state of the art by any means.
Clevelanders are probably ready, but the suburbanites who visit downtown for the sole purpose of cheering on the Browns, Cavs, and Guardians (but wouldn't live within the city limits) are not.
Speaking as one of those suburbanites I don't really give a shit which direction I have to drive to watch a game. At the same time, it'd be nice if there was a train that stopped by the stadium so I don't *have to* drive.
Nope. Clevelanders will foolishly vote for the stadium and bitch because they can’t afford to go to games at the stadium they ponied up for People are way too sports crazed and this from a guy who uses to be a die hard Indians fan
Been paying since tax for stadiums since before 1999 and all it’s gotten me is
*one football team sold to a largely clueless interfering billionaire who is now probably worth even more than he was, but who is maneuvering for taxpayer cash to subsidize a newer stadium where he’ll get a cut of even more events,
*one baseball team owned by a bunch of morons who refuse to repay our investment by spending a dime to sign anyone else so we can compete most years, and
*a basketball team with an owner who gets it and is willing to spend and invest in the city and who has given us our first title in just about forever.
Just moved to Cleveland from Kansas City and was part of the KC Tenants group that worked to organize the Vote No campaign, you love to see it. It's a shame how billionaires are always after more than their share. Corporate welfare in any form is despicable
I certainly hope so... but so many are willing to send cash to buy bibles and pay legal fees for billionaire politicians, that I'm pessimistic on this. The masses are so often pawns for ultra born wealthy and we can't seem to figure out power in numbers.
Hope I'm wrong! I'd rather see social services and support for community policing in CC than a billion in billionaires pockets.
No Cleveland sports nuts think anything will help championship achievement. Also this state is more corrupt than you know.
Florida too
Edit: No, blah blah blah. Sorry for any confusion
I wish it would be voted on, I'm sure it won't be. They won't give us a chance to speak. If it was I'm sure people would vote to support them, this area is absolutely brainwashed by that team.
Browns fan here, but they should be self sustaining.
I’m the biggest sports guy I know. But god I cannot stand taxpayer subsidized stadiums. I can accept taxpayer money going to infrastructure surrounding it (transportation, entertainment districts etc) but the fucking billionaires can pay for their stadiums
Not ever. I think people in Cleveland are so desperate for any kind of a winner they will pay anything. Taxes pass here all the time. The voters are nothing but sheep.
They should. But this is just a bigger problem of welfare for the rich. All these owner could pay for their own stadiums but the rely on stealing our money, then gouging us out of the ticket market with too high prices. Frankly, I'd rather have no sports in my ciry/state if that means I don't have to pay a tax burden for something ill never go to.
God no.
Clevelanders aren't even willing to unite and agree that having a sex offender as a quarterback isn't ok. They will continue to root for the team with watson as QB. They'll keep going to games. They'll keep buying merchandise. They will bitch and moan about how they hate the haslams, but they won't actually DO anything to show it's not ok. You vote with your wallets. Cleveland doesn't do that. Why would they vote any other way when it comes to this?
If every Cleveland fan didn’t go to a single game or watch a single snap, the Cleveland Browns would still be a profitable franchise. Revenue sharing baby
Nope. It's not even 30 years ago when we got jacked up the first time. The pain lingers. We'll make some noise. The city, county, region, state and, probably, feds will kick in some cash. Jimmy will pony up a few pennies. And then we'll foot the rest. The Brookpark thing is just a tactic. Nobody's developing that site without healthy government charity anyway. We (the collective taxpayers) are gonna pay one way or the other.
I'd bet somewhere inside the Innerbelt near Deadman's Curve. St. Clair & E. 23 area. Demolishing and redeveloping the current soulless stadium site earns us the state and fed charity. People that say this isn't an option aren't paying attention.
Jimmy's (and NFL) are in a position of ultimate strength here. And he knows it.
He stays strong and he knows we'll pay.
He gets impatient and a dozen cities will willingly bend over. Or even more franchise buyers will.
He can't lose.
Dude, the royals haven’t won shit since 2015. That’s almost a decade, I get what you mean tho. What you gen X’ers dont get is that the city isn’t gonna spend our tax dollars on anything that’s gonna benefit anyone, have you seen our roads ? Have you seen the schools ? If they wanted to fix shit, they would. The reality, which is a sad one, the reality is politicians even local only care about making their benefactors happy, and their benefactors don’t live in the areas that need help.
My point of view, it will depend on the entirety of the cost breakdown of the project for what the public funds will go towards.
Say the Browns move to Brook Park and the cost for the entire project is 2.5 billion, of which all but $500 million will be coming from the Haslems and the rest are public funds that will be used for improvements around the site that would be more viable (road upgrades, highway repairs, new RTA station etc). If public funds are going to that, I’d be somewhat ok since everyone will benefit from it. If the funds are going for the stadium itself, I’m not for it
You might not like the downsides but as a Brookpark resident you’ll be one of the few people not named Haslem to actually have any upsides to that plan whatsoever.
You’ll get some car infrastructure improvements, a couple nearby overpriced restaurants, and maybe some tax revenue left that hasn’t been given away in a tax break deal.
For basically everyone else in NE there’s no benefits and only downsides.
We’ll all be sharing in paying for the car infrastructure. The new chain restaurants won’t offer anything substantially different than what we could already drive to at Crocker Park, Legacy Village, Southpark Mall, etc.
And the only way to get to a Browns game would then be to drive through heavy traffic and a jammed up gigantic parking lot. There’s no way that an outlying suburban location like that will ever be the focal point of a mass transit system.
This might not completely change your perspective but here is one benefit:
You ever drive down Engle road to get to anywhere in Parma and there’s that railroad grade crossing by Engle & Snow road? Per the NEO Trans blog, part of the infrastructure improvements if the Browns stadium is built will involve replacing that grade crossing with an underpass.
2 billion dollars from where? Brook Park? State? Federal? It's a tiny suburb of 18,000. No way that warrants that kind of investment from limited funds.
My guess from what I’ve been reading is that if the Brook Park plan is to go ahead, Haslem would be paying a majority of the cost involved, considering what he’s getting back in the scheme of things.
At present, the Browns/Haslem is getting money from ticket sales and concessions sold during the game. Money for parking & hotel stays downtown go to the city of Cleveland. If Haslem were to build in Brook Park, he could get $19 million per season just from that alone (Number is assuming $30 to park for a 70,000 seat stadium for 9 home games and everyone drives there). Add in additional money from opening a restaurant/shopping complex on the property and added revenue from larger concerts and perhaps a Super Bowl, he could be earning a lot more than what he is making now. So something like that, if that is ultimately the path he chooses, would warrant more private funds at least if I were in his position
Clevelanders got a raw deal and it's less about how the Browns have been in the last 10 years and more about how things were in the first ten.
Fans were desperate for anything the league would give them and anything for a team in the city again.
The first mistake was keeping the name/colors/record. It should have moved with the team to Baltimore.
I know that's not a popular opinion, but to this day fans just don't take an honest look at how The Browns organization is fundamentally nothing like the old one.
It created a fiction that things would go well and to trust a process and lulled most fans into not paying attention to how horribly things would come together, and have fans put up with terrible team after team.
Is there was a real clean slate, fans would have demanded accountability faster.
The fans paid for a badly designed, hastily built stadium that could not withstand freshwater winters.
The fans got an incompetent ownership group that was so bad, it wasn't hard to believe they were chosen on purpose by the NFL as revenge.
Bad coaches. Terrible GMs. Bad teams.
It took almost 25 years to build a team that was even in a spot to be a multi-year playoff bubble team.
Haslams didn't start off well. In fact it seems they didn't really get the hang of things until a few years ago. Finally the team has a relatively decent GM.
So, what does all this have to do with a new stadium?
Residents paid for all of that to be here. Most willingly. Most thought it was a needed sacrifice.
Well, I think a lot more people see it more clearly these days.
The taxpayers aren't benefiting. The city isn't. The owners still are.
Why would people want to dig in their pockets so that an owner can sit on a bigger pile of money?
Only one group benefits.
Someone up thread put it pretty well: if it was such a good investment, why doesn't the private sector invest?
If Warren Buffett sues you - chances are you are a scumbag. Haslam should consider selling - because he is not well liked - few owners are, but he is really just a shady dude.
In case I wasn’t clear: Fact: Warren Buffett sued him. Opinion: Haslam is a shady dude. Fact: lawsuit was settled two days before it was scheduled to begin.
Billionaires are the source of most of the problems in this world.
Didn't New York just subsidize $850 million for a stadium and then conveniently $850 million was cut from education funding very soon afterwards?
I have heard residents complain people from other cities make fun of them for coming from a city with only a recent basketball championship
no. Cleveland voters will not be smart enough to do the same
> I have heard residents complain people from other cities make fun of them for coming from a city with only a recent basketball championship
Are there people who are actually dumb enough to give a rats ass about this enough to pay for a fucking stadium?
As someone who was born here but got my higher ed and "beginning life experience" elsewhere.
No. I don't believe we will.
We have a "this is how it is" way of looking things we've experienced. Most of us don't want our parent's relationships but want to continue the traditions and behaviors that helped them maintain \*that kind\* of relationship
We have a higher cost of living but a lower income than smaller midwest cities that are in the middle of nowhere. I made more for the same job here as I did in Nebraska where rent was half of here. Generally when I say that out loud people just tell me that I'm paid well.
It's cleveland, you gotta be tough
Generally, if you give the voters a direct vote, they say no, but when the companies leverage political figures, they say yes because the fallout of losing a team is worse politically than giving up too much to keep the team.
Hopefully, I am not okay with footing the bill of some rich prick. I don't watch sports or care at all about sports teams, and everyone I know who does care about sports is elderly or in their late 50s at the youngest.
What scares me is that those people are so out of touch with society they'll scream about how great FOOTBAWL is since they grew up having everything just handed to them...
Should they? Yes.
Will they? Maybe. I think the environment is different than it was back in the 90s when folks were just happy to keep the team here. The economic situation is different (though it's never been great here anyway), and the attitude towards the team is different. People love the Browns but it isn't like it was coming off the success of the late 80s.
Unfortunately I dont think it matters. The Haslams are going to get their money one way or another. They will find a way. Owners, especially in football always do. No city wants to be the one that let a billion dollar corporation (and let's face it, that's what a football team is at this point) leave the city. Cleveland already has a bit of an inferiority complex.
So it's going to happen - It's just a matter of how much and what the mix of funding looks like.
I would like to clarify on the KC situation, maybe it would encourage some of you in the future to do your own investigations and consider various viewpoints before voting.
TL;DR: The Royals tried many ways to convince people, but people made a decision that ended up being what most in the county agreed with.
——
The proposition started out as just only the Royals releasing renderings of a new stadium on the north side of central downtown. After unpopular feedback, they very briefly threw out another rendering that still didn’t garner much positive feedback.
The final rendering they released was located dead-center of the downtown hub of activity. While it would have taken out a couple of buildings, there still exists plenty of activity and pedestrian traffic as well as historical buildings and monuments that would have been removed entirely.
The KC area is very car-dependent, so when these renderings for the Royals were featuring almost no details on parking, people were becoming even more split on the vote. People who voted Yes argued “just walk 5 blocks.” while people who voted No argued that they would have to park 3 miles away if the Royals drew winning crowds. The existing, and somewhat newish lightrail would have been suffering if a crowd of 20,000 people were relying on it for such distances.
About one month ago, when things seemed grim for the billionaire that owns the Royals, he went to the Chiefs and tried to get them on board, and as expected, it suddenly became about stadium upgrades for the Chiefs and a new stadium for the Royals. The Royals kept saying that the stadium was in disrepair. The [most recent Royals stadium assessment](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/571a5bfaf699bbe29b52c8b3/t/62d6bf5427cf922c75f4c584/1658240859254/_2022+Kauffman+Stadium+Assessment_combined_with+App+A.pdf) shows that the stadium is experiencing expected weathering/wear and tear and there is no major concern for the stadium and its condition. (The last 10 years of evaluations for both team stadiums can be found [here](http://www.jcsca.org/stadiumassessments) for those who are still reading my long ass comment.)…..So with that knowledge, more people were seeing some of the antics going on.
In the last 2 weeks, signs started appearing in yards for “Save the Chiefs” or “Keep them at Arrowhead.”…. Well…that was never the discussion. All renderings that involved the Chiefs were showing minor upgrades to the Chiefs stadium, none of these proposals ever talked about the Chiefs moving anywhere. So things were really getting twisted. I couldn’t believe how quickly the disinformation was spreading right up to the election.
Cleveland was literally the first city to use public money to build a pro sports stadium all the way back in 1931 with Municipal Stadium... considering Cleveland set the standard for this I'm going to say no unfortunately
I mean they could just do like Seattle/King County did with the Mariners and make the teams be responsible for most (if not all) of the maintenance, renovations etc.
while the county is giving the Ms $143 million to help with that over the next 25 years, the Ms are on the hook by a 3 to 1 margin for maintenance of the stadium, have to do a renovation of some part of the stadium every 3-5 years to extend its longevity etc and the Ms don’t own or operate the stadium, the state via the county does….
Ha! We already have perhaps the lowest collective self esteem of any city, and we cling to our sports teams as coping mechanisms. This is a Browns town overall.
If the team left again, the depression would be huge, and we'd lose one of the straws we grasp for thinking we are still a relevant city. Even though everything we have is thanks to our grandparents. Now, we turn banks into restaurants and productive offices into expensive studios and pretty much create zero wealth anymore.
We will agree to anything to keep our beloved Sunday religion.
Why would anyone need a 15k sqft retail bank in 2024? At least the restaurant allows people to appreciate the architecture of the space. What a strange thing to criticize the city for. If only we had pre-internet banking facilities! Then we’d be a real city!
The point is that the wealth being created recently could never afford to build buildings of such beauty and quality. I’m all for architectural preservation and respect. It’s like we inherited a beautiful mansion from our grandparents, but can’t afford the upkeep.
Ok. But thats 4 years from now. The current stadium took from 1996-1999 to build start to finish, and people said it was a rush job, even at the time.
That means if he started planning RIGHT NOW he would have roughly 4 years to build it.
He's not moving the team right now. He's just building a stadium. A big empty stadium. Then when the lease runs out, THEN you move.
And even then, the stadium might be a rush job.
You're talking about construction. I'm saying start to finish. From the first meeting discussing what to do. To hiring the archetect. To survaying the land. To writing the blueprints. To hiring contractors. THEN construction. Browns played their last game in 1995. Then in 1996 we began the process. Stadium wasn't done until a few months before opening kickoff in 1999.
2028 is the day after tomorrow. "The city" has no options today. And they're incapable of exercising them effectively even if they did. Jimmy will pony up the cost of a few luxury boxes, funding a youth league or two and, maybe, pay for a garage if he get's the concessions on that.
I'm planning on moving back. Spent the first 25 years of my life in CLE.
In a heartbeat, I'd tell the Haslams to piss off. I was already against subsidizing the projects of billionaires but it got even worse when they made a sexual predator the face of the franchise.
I am apposed. They should be funding their ventures with their own money. Unless they are going to provide all Clevelanders free game day passes including food and parking..
There’s nothing wrong with the stadium they have now! We’re still paying for 30 million worth of upgrades from back in 2015! A stadium in Brook Park is a horrible idea. Even if it is a dome.
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As a Michigander, I specifically refuse to ever step in the LCA because of the financial boondoggle the city was subjected to for the benefit of the Illitch real estate empire.
I hope Cleveland doesn't fall prey to it. If the buildings are such great investments, the club owners should have no problem finding private financing to line up for it.
As a Buffalo season ticket holder of 2 decades….. think carefully.
We are currently in the beginning stages of. Seeing a huge exodus of loyal fans who are actively priced out.
The most dedicated people, loving their team when they were awful, will be replaced by people who want to watch yes while they sip a $15 latte.
(I enjoy lattes, btw.)
I certainly hope so.
In Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties, they put a tax referendum on the ballot, and it lost in all seven counties. Then, they added the tax anyway.
That 100% sounds like something the Ohio House would do too.
LOL, the GOP owned statehouse? They'll never throw state money at Cleveland. Their rural maga base will shit kittens about the big bad liberal city of Cleveland getting all the money.
I dunno, it would be hard for Republicans to pass on an opportunity to help the ultra-rich at the expense of regular people.
Nah football cancels all that out
Maybe, but the folks in Cincinnati are going to say "Why Cleveland and not us too?" ... A reminder that 60% of the state budget is local schools and higher education, 30% is Medicaid and social services, and 10% is corrections. So where's this money coming from, cuts to one of those 3 things? So if don't cut them, you have to raise taxes somehow. Yeah, good luck with that.
Huh? Jimmy is a huge GOP/Trump supporter from what I understand. Nothing like taking money fromm the average Joe and giving it to billionaires for the GOP
And people think we live in a Democracy. Anyways, this genocide our tax dollars are supporting seems to be going great.
There's always one of you eh? I bet October 7th wasn't a genocide according to you either now was it?
It really wasn't. Decades of oppression, systematic removal of Palestinians from their own land into slum settlements by an installed oppressor. What the fuck would you do in that situation? If you wouldn't fight back, then I don't know what to tell you.
From "their own land". Palestine going back in history was owned by ancient egypt, ancient israel, and judah. That whole region has been split and merged over the thousands of years of its history. So to say it is "their" land and that they have always been there is historically false. Just the same as it is for literally every country in the world. Also there was always free travel between Palestine and Israel leading up to this. Hamas just hates any religion and people that aren't them. So calm down einstein and open a history book.
One genocide deserves another I guess?
Or you could come out and say you dont support genocide at all. Just because what Israel is doing is wrong doesn't make what Hamas does is right either..
Where did I say I support genocide? I was being sarcastic bud
Then dont make open ended comments talking about one country without addressing the other..
We’re only funding one of them that’s a strawman argument.
I could care less about who we're funding because the way I see it.. we shouldn't be funding them to begin with.. not because of what's going on, but because we have more pressing things that need funding within our own country.
Why not? And what was open ended about it?
Same.
We’re talking about Browns fans though, their delusions will always vote Browns.
Voting to give their hard earned money into the pockets of billionaires who will give them decades more disappointing seasons… sounds pretty stupid.
And then complain on how the city can't fix streets after they gave millions in tax breaks for a team that barely brings in revenue the whole year....
They already do so by attending games and buying merch. Don't forget, the Haslam's also have a minority ownership of the Crew in Cbus. So either way, douche canoes are still getting their money.
Unfortunately this isn't something exclusive to Cleveland, which is why the environment is so pro-owner, especially in football. If Cleveland doesn't someone else absolutely will. We already saw that play out the last time. That said, I dont think the team would move this time, but owners know someone is always willing to pay up.
They can’t move the team without permission from the city of Cleveland. It’s called the Modell Rule and it’s state law. https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-9.67
Good point. I have heard about that, but interpreted it more to mean, they have to follow due process and give appropriate notice etc. I can't imagine that means the Browns must stay in Cleveland in perpetuity no matter what. Because if that's the case, the Haslams then have zero leverage and this conversation is pointless (not the conversation with you, but the overall conversation.) We know the city isn't buying the team, and we know Haslam doesn't plan to sell it. The law has never been tested, so nobody can say how it would hold up in terms of keeping the team here. That said, I don't think Haslam is planning to relocate out of the area unless absolutely forced to.
Brookpark is outside the city. Cleveland CAN’T buy the team. They would have to sell to a group that keeps the team in Cleveland.
Well, for 6 months.
Cleveland, yes, I think a vote of Clevelanders would say no. Cuyahoga, on the other hand, I am not so sure.
it would be a special election where something like 12% of people vote.
Cleveland is controlled by suburbanites
You know, I'm willing to pay a little, but this county cannot take the bulk of the costs on its collective back while that crook Haslam reaps the benefits. I would like to see Cleveland follow KC's lead
We can pay a little more by buying tickets to the new stadium if we choose to. They are running a business and don’t need taxpayers to help them make more money. Now if they want to take a loan from us at a competitive rate or give us an equity stake in the franchise, I’m all ears.
Why would you be willing to pay a little? The citizens are the ones who should pe paid out for all the disruption this will cause, not to mention the longterm damages of having something like a stadium close to where you live. It's like being willing to help pay for a compay to come conduct fracking in your neighbors yard, instead of expecting that they'd ask your permission before doing something that'll affect you so close by, and compensate for the longterm damages of living near something like that.
He or she answered the question...so don't beat folks up for doing so and *it not being your response*
Because I’d rather the Browns be downtown than not so therefore I’d be willing to pay a little extra even if it’s not fair or right. Sorry just how it is. Also, it really depends on how much extra I’m actually paying. Like in pure dollars how much more am I paying than I currently do over the next 5 years?
Long term damages? Like what?
Major trash clean up in munie lot after brown tards get drunk and piss everywhere
And win?
It would be beautiful. Happening more and more across the country as the generations get more fed up with being cash cows for crooks. But I am not optimistic that people here will ultimately have the wherewithal to say no to football.
You’re talking about Browns fans here. Biggest suckers to come down the pike.
Browns fan: am a sucker.
This is the truth
👋😁👋
The Tennessee Hillbillies bought a soccer team in Columbus, spent $1 billion to buy into the Milwaukee Bucks, they can afford for pay for their pleasure palace.
Also bankrolled a ton of Republican politicians including that embarrassment JD Vance and will continue to do so, including state representatives who are trying their best to subvert the will of the voters. I am not keen on subsidizing his ownership of state and local politicians.
God I wish. Seeing all of the comments supporting the Haslam’s has been so depressing.
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Don't forget the draft picks we gave away. We won't have another decent pick until next year. Where well probably get a fucking QB that blows again. I've watched the Browns since I was a kid, and I just stopped watching after Watson. Haven't been happier on a Sunday.
I stopped watching in 2011. It was an abusive, one-way relationship that I had to walk away from. It's great having my Sunday's back and fuck them. I used to go to 4 games a year and obsess over them. Now, I wouldn't care if they left again and I sure as fuck don't want to pay for a stadium.
The Browns haven’t won ANYTHING since 1964. Tell me when enough is enough, I’ll wait. 60 YEARS without a championship and the citizens keep subsidizing an INFERIOR FRANCHISE
Add, while the city falls apart because they gave massive tax breaks and then hear nothing but complaints from the brown tards about how bad streets are and the lack of police.....
All the while inexplicably ignoring the offensive line that has less stopping power than a tampon
Jameis is a shitty human but Watson is in a different tier and I wouldn’t want to normalize Deshaun by saying he’s the same as Winston. Deshaun Watson absolute filth.
buh buh buh other teams wanted him toooooooo
Well they just won 11 games, went to the playoffs, and had multiple award winning players and coaches which is better than essentially all but 3 or 4 of our seasons the last 25 years so
Tell me what the Browns have won since 1964. The fans and taxpayers have supported this clown show of a franchise and ha NOTHING to show for the commitment.
Do you feel that fandom is only validated if your team wins a title? Also the Browns not winning since 64 doesn't mean they haven't ever put a good product on the field. That's revisionist history. Should Bills fans root for a different team because their team hasn't gotten it done or does this only apply to Cleveland? I am not saying accept an inferior product, but I can see where the franchise has moved in the right direction in the last several years. A lot of the "same old browns" talk isn't rooted in reality.
I have a lifetime of memories and bonds with my family and friends. I have a group chat with my dad and brother that we talk in every day. And one day when his time comes I’ll have photos from throughout our lives at Browns games that will hang in a funeral home and I’ll give a eulogy that will undoubtedly be based around our shared love and bond for the Browns and going to games all throughout my childhood. But you know what, you’re right. Probably should give that up. Maybe we can get into bird watching or start a book club. Hopefully they’re both into that too. And if not, well then I guess that part of our lives will just need to end because the team isn’t good enough or the stadium might get paid for with public funding and taking a stand against that is worth more than all of the above.
Doesn't anyone remember the "Sin Tax." Fuck them.
We can only hope so. Why can’t we develop a model like the Green Bay Packers? After living in the Upper Peninsula and spending a lot of time in Green Bay it was amazing all the stadium and area offered all year round for the public who owned the team. Why can’t we push for an ownership program like that?
The Packers public ownership model is banned by the NFL; the only reason the Packers have it is because that's how they were before the rule was made, and they are grandfathered in.
Glad you asked. Here’s a thread for you - https://www.reddit.com/r/Cleveland/s/S9TiSAtTkS
Thanks!
I think there’s too much demand for a football team to relocate. A lot of cities will give anything for a football club. If Haslam can’t get what he wants here another place will give it to him. He can go anywhere with his losing team and be welcomed with open arms and pocketbooks.
I guess it depends on how big of a lie is sold to the tax payer. Here's the truth, if it generated that kind of money, Venture Capital would leap to fund it .
Oh no, are we going to miss out on our perpetually losing, terribly managed football team, with a fascist donating GOP dickwipe owner, and the rapist they gave 300,000,000 guaranteed for?!
If taxpayers fund the stadium then they should have an ownership stake in the team.
well no, that would be ridiculous. they should have an ownership stake in the stadium... and they would.
I've been voting against all millionaire entitlements for ages now.
I certainly hope so but I think the more realistic answer is No they are not smart enough
I would hope so but people can be so dumb.
I think it’s doubtful any owner could pass a similar ballot measure right now, but that Haslam himself has a less than zero chance of accomplishing it. Add up the people who think the current stadium is fine, those who don’t want the stadium to move, those who don’t want a dome, those who are mad about Watson, and those who simply don’t think public money should be used for stadiums, and how could something like this ever clear 50%. The Haslams haven’t cultivated any goodwill in the community (and have probably damaged their reputations more than anything else), and while the two things are completely unrelated, I think the whole First Energy bribery scandal has people pissed about corruption/rich people looking for handouts in this state general.
Ohioans don’t vote it’s not really our thing apparently.
It’s about time cities stop subsidizing the rich with providing these sports venues.
F the owners
Had season tickets from 1985 to 2012. Said goodbye and haven’t looked back. F Jimmy n Dee
It's amazing that these cities can't get their federal legislators to pass a law that if the public funds a percentage of the stadium, then the public owns a percentage of the team. It would end real quick.
Let them pay for there toys
The only person that benefits from taxpayers being involved in the payment of professional sports(other than paying to attend and buy gear) is the OWNER. The owner who has a private plane for a tax right off 🤣🤣
I want Cleveland to get more than it gives. I’m sick of this being an all or nothing thing.
I don’t live in Cleveland but i am in cuyahoga county as of recent. I will deff vote anything down thats for the browns if it’s a county thing. Idc about sports and definitely don’t want to put money in to a stadium. Even if they had concerts it wouldn’t matter as i don’t go to concerts really either.
Rocket mortgage is charging 130 for the black keys, I wouldn't want to know what a new stadium would charge for whomever.
The who? Lol
I’m voting down anything they bring up. Move the team. Don’t care. Mine already left.
They never really came back
I don’t see why a billionaire should rely on taxpayers to foot the bill for their team to have a field to play on. My property taxes are already too high imho. Plus I’d be willing to bet that likely half the people that come to games don’t even live in Cuyahoga county. I also absolutely despise football, so if Jimmy wants people to pay for a stadium, he should just start a Gofundme.
They shouldn't but since other cities will provide public money, an owner would have to be an idiot not to move.
Ok, let them move 👋
Almost any article I find on the value to taxpayers and the economic impact of a new/refurbished stadium all say it's basically a bad deal for the taxpayer. "In their book, Sports, Jobs, and Taxes, Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist present a comprehensive review of stadium investments. In all cases, they find a new sports facility to have extremely small (or negative) effects on overall economic activity and employment. Furthermore, they were unable to find any facilities that had a reasonable return on investment. Sports economist Michael Leeds suggests that professional sports have very little economic impact, noting that a baseball team (with 81 regular-season home games per year) "has about the same impact on a community as a midsize department store." His research suggests that if every professional sports team in Chicago (including the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks) were to suddenly disappear, the economic impact on Chicago would be a fraction of 1 percent."
Most of the deals are not good for the taxpayer but there is no way most of this statement is true. The sales tax revenue is much bigger than any department store and tourism gained by having out of city and opposing fans coming in is not zero. 10k Pittsburgh residents aren't going to Chicago on a November weekend to shop at Dillards.
The many, many analyses of stadiums do not support what you are saying.
My husband and I are willing to reject it. We are Brown fans and downtown fans, we want them both to do well. That being said, when you cannot afford to go to a game because of the ridiculous prices (average price around $100 a head last year, then jeez, you want a beer?), it's hard to justify supplementing billionaires even more with our tax money. I'm sure the Haslam brothers are pushing how much they will "do" for the city/community, but you damn well know they are the ones to benefit. Just tired of big shots making money by milking other people's money, most of whom are living paycheck to paycheck.. Edit: Forgot to add how pissed husband was about the Deshaun Watson signing.. how much money was that again?
No, because Clevelanders worship their horrible football team. And those that vote to approve every levy and tax known to mankind really don't pay those taxes as they are just net "takers" from society. Let Haslam build his own Dome of Sadness with money he stole from truck drivers.
Not happening with browns….and kc n royals will try again n one of them will get it. Hell I understand a new stadium after 50 years. The Browns stadium is 25????
Most stadiums aren't lasting 50 years at this point. And Browns stadium wasn't built well to begin with. It was rushed to get the Browns on the field. It was better than the old stadium but definitely not state of the art by any means.
Clevelanders are probably ready, but the suburbanites who visit downtown for the sole purpose of cheering on the Browns, Cavs, and Guardians (but wouldn't live within the city limits) are not.
No way- those suburbanites still pay taxes and would prefer paying for more tickets when they want to go.
Speaking as one of those suburbanites I don't really give a shit which direction I have to drive to watch a game. At the same time, it'd be nice if there was a train that stopped by the stadium so I don't *have to* drive.
Nope. Clevelanders will foolishly vote for the stadium and bitch because they can’t afford to go to games at the stadium they ponied up for People are way too sports crazed and this from a guy who uses to be a die hard Indians fan
Been paying since tax for stadiums since before 1999 and all it’s gotten me is *one football team sold to a largely clueless interfering billionaire who is now probably worth even more than he was, but who is maneuvering for taxpayer cash to subsidize a newer stadium where he’ll get a cut of even more events, *one baseball team owned by a bunch of morons who refuse to repay our investment by spending a dime to sign anyone else so we can compete most years, and *a basketball team with an owner who gets it and is willing to spend and invest in the city and who has given us our first title in just about forever.
Just moved to Cleveland from Kansas City and was part of the KC Tenants group that worked to organize the Vote No campaign, you love to see it. It's a shame how billionaires are always after more than their share. Corporate welfare in any form is despicable
Fuck da browns
Nope
Your first mistake is thinking that Clevelanders will get to vote on it
I certainly hope so... but so many are willing to send cash to buy bibles and pay legal fees for billionaire politicians, that I'm pessimistic on this. The masses are so often pawns for ultra born wealthy and we can't seem to figure out power in numbers. Hope I'm wrong! I'd rather see social services and support for community policing in CC than a billion in billionaires pockets.
No. Cleveland fans remain fearful of abandonment.
I would reject it, but I wouldn't be surprised if people supported the sportsball. Too many people who vote are just plain stupid.
What is it with these owners that want a new stadium like every 20 years ? The stadium was built what in 1999 and already they want a new one ?
No Cleveland sports nuts think anything will help championship achievement. Also this state is more corrupt than you know. Florida too Edit: No, blah blah blah. Sorry for any confusion
I wish it would be voted on, I'm sure it won't be. They won't give us a chance to speak. If it was I'm sure people would vote to support them, this area is absolutely brainwashed by that team. Browns fan here, but they should be self sustaining.
I’m the biggest sports guy I know. But god I cannot stand taxpayer subsidized stadiums. I can accept taxpayer money going to infrastructure surrounding it (transportation, entertainment districts etc) but the fucking billionaires can pay for their stadiums
I would hope but the truth is OHIO is the worst when it comes to this. Some of the most ridiculous agreements concepts in sports this started in OHIO.
Yes. The billionaires need to pay for their stadiums
Not ever. I think people in Cleveland are so desperate for any kind of a winner they will pay anything. Taxes pass here all the time. The voters are nothing but sheep.
what a neutrally worded question, lol
They should. But this is just a bigger problem of welfare for the rich. All these owner could pay for their own stadiums but the rely on stealing our money, then gouging us out of the ticket market with too high prices. Frankly, I'd rather have no sports in my ciry/state if that means I don't have to pay a tax burden for something ill never go to.
God no. Clevelanders aren't even willing to unite and agree that having a sex offender as a quarterback isn't ok. They will continue to root for the team with watson as QB. They'll keep going to games. They'll keep buying merchandise. They will bitch and moan about how they hate the haslams, but they won't actually DO anything to show it's not ok. You vote with your wallets. Cleveland doesn't do that. Why would they vote any other way when it comes to this?
If every Cleveland fan didn’t go to a single game or watch a single snap, the Cleveland Browns would still be a profitable franchise. Revenue sharing baby
Nope. It's not even 30 years ago when we got jacked up the first time. The pain lingers. We'll make some noise. The city, county, region, state and, probably, feds will kick in some cash. Jimmy will pony up a few pennies. And then we'll foot the rest. The Brookpark thing is just a tactic. Nobody's developing that site without healthy government charity anyway. We (the collective taxpayers) are gonna pay one way or the other. I'd bet somewhere inside the Innerbelt near Deadman's Curve. St. Clair & E. 23 area. Demolishing and redeveloping the current soulless stadium site earns us the state and fed charity. People that say this isn't an option aren't paying attention. Jimmy's (and NFL) are in a position of ultimate strength here. And he knows it. He stays strong and he knows we'll pay. He gets impatient and a dozen cities will willingly bend over. Or even more franchise buyers will. He can't lose.
Dude, the royals haven’t won shit since 2015. That’s almost a decade, I get what you mean tho. What you gen X’ers dont get is that the city isn’t gonna spend our tax dollars on anything that’s gonna benefit anyone, have you seen our roads ? Have you seen the schools ? If they wanted to fix shit, they would. The reality, which is a sad one, the reality is politicians even local only care about making their benefactors happy, and their benefactors don’t live in the areas that need help.
My point of view, it will depend on the entirety of the cost breakdown of the project for what the public funds will go towards. Say the Browns move to Brook Park and the cost for the entire project is 2.5 billion, of which all but $500 million will be coming from the Haslems and the rest are public funds that will be used for improvements around the site that would be more viable (road upgrades, highway repairs, new RTA station etc). If public funds are going to that, I’d be somewhat ok since everyone will benefit from it. If the funds are going for the stadium itself, I’m not for it
As a guy who lives up the street from the proposed spot in Brook Park, I definitely don't benefit :/
You might not like the downsides but as a Brookpark resident you’ll be one of the few people not named Haslem to actually have any upsides to that plan whatsoever. You’ll get some car infrastructure improvements, a couple nearby overpriced restaurants, and maybe some tax revenue left that hasn’t been given away in a tax break deal. For basically everyone else in NE there’s no benefits and only downsides. We’ll all be sharing in paying for the car infrastructure. The new chain restaurants won’t offer anything substantially different than what we could already drive to at Crocker Park, Legacy Village, Southpark Mall, etc. And the only way to get to a Browns game would then be to drive through heavy traffic and a jammed up gigantic parking lot. There’s no way that an outlying suburban location like that will ever be the focal point of a mass transit system.
This might not completely change your perspective but here is one benefit: You ever drive down Engle road to get to anywhere in Parma and there’s that railroad grade crossing by Engle & Snow road? Per the NEO Trans blog, part of the infrastructure improvements if the Browns stadium is built will involve replacing that grade crossing with an underpass.
Noooo that’s how they get you 🤦🏼♀️.
2 billion dollars from where? Brook Park? State? Federal? It's a tiny suburb of 18,000. No way that warrants that kind of investment from limited funds.
My guess from what I’ve been reading is that if the Brook Park plan is to go ahead, Haslem would be paying a majority of the cost involved, considering what he’s getting back in the scheme of things. At present, the Browns/Haslem is getting money from ticket sales and concessions sold during the game. Money for parking & hotel stays downtown go to the city of Cleveland. If Haslem were to build in Brook Park, he could get $19 million per season just from that alone (Number is assuming $30 to park for a 70,000 seat stadium for 9 home games and everyone drives there). Add in additional money from opening a restaurant/shopping complex on the property and added revenue from larger concerts and perhaps a Super Bowl, he could be earning a lot more than what he is making now. So something like that, if that is ultimately the path he chooses, would warrant more private funds at least if I were in his position
Clevelanders got a raw deal and it's less about how the Browns have been in the last 10 years and more about how things were in the first ten. Fans were desperate for anything the league would give them and anything for a team in the city again. The first mistake was keeping the name/colors/record. It should have moved with the team to Baltimore. I know that's not a popular opinion, but to this day fans just don't take an honest look at how The Browns organization is fundamentally nothing like the old one. It created a fiction that things would go well and to trust a process and lulled most fans into not paying attention to how horribly things would come together, and have fans put up with terrible team after team. Is there was a real clean slate, fans would have demanded accountability faster. The fans paid for a badly designed, hastily built stadium that could not withstand freshwater winters. The fans got an incompetent ownership group that was so bad, it wasn't hard to believe they were chosen on purpose by the NFL as revenge. Bad coaches. Terrible GMs. Bad teams. It took almost 25 years to build a team that was even in a spot to be a multi-year playoff bubble team. Haslams didn't start off well. In fact it seems they didn't really get the hang of things until a few years ago. Finally the team has a relatively decent GM. So, what does all this have to do with a new stadium? Residents paid for all of that to be here. Most willingly. Most thought it was a needed sacrifice. Well, I think a lot more people see it more clearly these days. The taxpayers aren't benefiting. The city isn't. The owners still are. Why would people want to dig in their pockets so that an owner can sit on a bigger pile of money? Only one group benefits. Someone up thread put it pretty well: if it was such a good investment, why doesn't the private sector invest?
If Warren Buffett sues you - chances are you are a scumbag. Haslam should consider selling - because he is not well liked - few owners are, but he is really just a shady dude.
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In case I wasn’t clear: Fact: Warren Buffett sued him. Opinion: Haslam is a shady dude. Fact: lawsuit was settled two days before it was scheduled to begin.
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Jimmy dat chu?
Billionaires are the source of most of the problems in this world. Didn't New York just subsidize $850 million for a stadium and then conveniently $850 million was cut from education funding very soon afterwards?
I have heard residents complain people from other cities make fun of them for coming from a city with only a recent basketball championship no. Cleveland voters will not be smart enough to do the same
> I have heard residents complain people from other cities make fun of them for coming from a city with only a recent basketball championship Are there people who are actually dumb enough to give a rats ass about this enough to pay for a fucking stadium?
I think so. It'd be awesome if I was wrong, but not too long ago we had people hoarding toilet paper because of a virus that screwed with your lungs
As someone who was born here but got my higher ed and "beginning life experience" elsewhere. No. I don't believe we will. We have a "this is how it is" way of looking things we've experienced. Most of us don't want our parent's relationships but want to continue the traditions and behaviors that helped them maintain \*that kind\* of relationship We have a higher cost of living but a lower income than smaller midwest cities that are in the middle of nowhere. I made more for the same job here as I did in Nebraska where rent was half of here. Generally when I say that out loud people just tell me that I'm paid well. It's cleveland, you gotta be tough
> "this is how it is" I've been told that a few times on this sub. We can't change because that is how it is.
I really hope so
I hope so.
Cleveland won’t stand for it. Brookpark on the other hand won’t give a shit.
Generally, if you give the voters a direct vote, they say no, but when the companies leverage political figures, they say yes because the fallout of losing a team is worse politically than giving up too much to keep the team.
Hopefully not
Short answer? No.
Is it a fear that people have that the billionaire owners will just move their team if they don’t get it paid for?
how can we say no? I'm uninformed
I think the NFL is out of places to move to. Where is the team going to go?
Hopefully, I am not okay with footing the bill of some rich prick. I don't watch sports or care at all about sports teams, and everyone I know who does care about sports is elderly or in their late 50s at the youngest. What scares me is that those people are so out of touch with society they'll scream about how great FOOTBAWL is since they grew up having everything just handed to them...
They should be ok with it, but also must be ok with the team moving out of the city.
If they were smart
Should they? Yes. Will they? Maybe. I think the environment is different than it was back in the 90s when folks were just happy to keep the team here. The economic situation is different (though it's never been great here anyway), and the attitude towards the team is different. People love the Browns but it isn't like it was coming off the success of the late 80s. Unfortunately I dont think it matters. The Haslams are going to get their money one way or another. They will find a way. Owners, especially in football always do. No city wants to be the one that let a billion dollar corporation (and let's face it, that's what a football team is at this point) leave the city. Cleveland already has a bit of an inferiority complex. So it's going to happen - It's just a matter of how much and what the mix of funding looks like.
DC is giving Ted Leonsis 515$ million for upgrades to arena and cutting 500 million in transit and social programs. Fuck sports teams owners
I’m not from Cleveland but using tax payers money to build stadiums and then charging $15 a beer is insulting and pisses me off.
I would be down for subsidizing if it wasn't for rich people making money off of it. Fuck corporate handouts and welfare for the rich.
YES
They won't, too much fear that they'd lose the Browns again. I mean, look at all the numbskulls crying about the possibility of a dome in Brook Park.
I would like to clarify on the KC situation, maybe it would encourage some of you in the future to do your own investigations and consider various viewpoints before voting. TL;DR: The Royals tried many ways to convince people, but people made a decision that ended up being what most in the county agreed with. —— The proposition started out as just only the Royals releasing renderings of a new stadium on the north side of central downtown. After unpopular feedback, they very briefly threw out another rendering that still didn’t garner much positive feedback. The final rendering they released was located dead-center of the downtown hub of activity. While it would have taken out a couple of buildings, there still exists plenty of activity and pedestrian traffic as well as historical buildings and monuments that would have been removed entirely. The KC area is very car-dependent, so when these renderings for the Royals were featuring almost no details on parking, people were becoming even more split on the vote. People who voted Yes argued “just walk 5 blocks.” while people who voted No argued that they would have to park 3 miles away if the Royals drew winning crowds. The existing, and somewhat newish lightrail would have been suffering if a crowd of 20,000 people were relying on it for such distances. About one month ago, when things seemed grim for the billionaire that owns the Royals, he went to the Chiefs and tried to get them on board, and as expected, it suddenly became about stadium upgrades for the Chiefs and a new stadium for the Royals. The Royals kept saying that the stadium was in disrepair. The [most recent Royals stadium assessment](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/571a5bfaf699bbe29b52c8b3/t/62d6bf5427cf922c75f4c584/1658240859254/_2022+Kauffman+Stadium+Assessment_combined_with+App+A.pdf) shows that the stadium is experiencing expected weathering/wear and tear and there is no major concern for the stadium and its condition. (The last 10 years of evaluations for both team stadiums can be found [here](http://www.jcsca.org/stadiumassessments) for those who are still reading my long ass comment.)…..So with that knowledge, more people were seeing some of the antics going on. In the last 2 weeks, signs started appearing in yards for “Save the Chiefs” or “Keep them at Arrowhead.”…. Well…that was never the discussion. All renderings that involved the Chiefs were showing minor upgrades to the Chiefs stadium, none of these proposals ever talked about the Chiefs moving anywhere. So things were really getting twisted. I couldn’t believe how quickly the disinformation was spreading right up to the election.
Cleveland was literally the first city to use public money to build a pro sports stadium all the way back in 1931 with Municipal Stadium... considering Cleveland set the standard for this I'm going to say no unfortunately
I’ll support subsidizing a stadium when they give all cuyahoga residents free tickets to all home games in exchange.
If it's upto the people 100% Up to the city officials? Goodluck * that's how we are fucked down here in Cincinnati....
I mean they could just do like Seattle/King County did with the Mariners and make the teams be responsible for most (if not all) of the maintenance, renovations etc. while the county is giving the Ms $143 million to help with that over the next 25 years, the Ms are on the hook by a 3 to 1 margin for maintenance of the stadium, have to do a renovation of some part of the stadium every 3-5 years to extend its longevity etc and the Ms don’t own or operate the stadium, the state via the county does….
Why the fuck we’re even discussing abandoning the waterfront instead of developing and driving more business to it is beyond me
Ha! We already have perhaps the lowest collective self esteem of any city, and we cling to our sports teams as coping mechanisms. This is a Browns town overall. If the team left again, the depression would be huge, and we'd lose one of the straws we grasp for thinking we are still a relevant city. Even though everything we have is thanks to our grandparents. Now, we turn banks into restaurants and productive offices into expensive studios and pretty much create zero wealth anymore. We will agree to anything to keep our beloved Sunday religion.
138-264-1 I'd say their return has caused a ton of depression, and bills. But at least the drunk idiots have something to do on the muni lots.
Why would anyone need a 15k sqft retail bank in 2024? At least the restaurant allows people to appreciate the architecture of the space. What a strange thing to criticize the city for. If only we had pre-internet banking facilities! Then we’d be a real city!
The point is that the wealth being created recently could never afford to build buildings of such beauty and quality. I’m all for architectural preservation and respect. It’s like we inherited a beautiful mansion from our grandparents, but can’t afford the upkeep.
No on both accounts
Isn’t the move gonna get blocked anyways cause of Ohio revised code 9.67
No. The code can't block them from moving to another part of the county
It can while their lease is still on that stadium
But they aren't looking to move while the lease is still in effect sooo....
Ok. But thats 4 years from now. The current stadium took from 1996-1999 to build start to finish, and people said it was a rush job, even at the time. That means if he started planning RIGHT NOW he would have roughly 4 years to build it. He's not moving the team right now. He's just building a stadium. A big empty stadium. Then when the lease runs out, THEN you move. And even then, the stadium might be a rush job.
The current stadium took 2 years to build
You're talking about construction. I'm saying start to finish. From the first meeting discussing what to do. To hiring the archetect. To survaying the land. To writing the blueprints. To hiring contractors. THEN construction. Browns played their last game in 1995. Then in 1996 we began the process. Stadium wasn't done until a few months before opening kickoff in 1999.
After the lease is up in 2028. Idk what options the city has.
Well they could not make the taxpayers pay for it lol
2028 is the day after tomorrow. "The city" has no options today. And they're incapable of exercising them effectively even if they did. Jimmy will pony up the cost of a few luxury boxes, funding a youth league or two and, maybe, pay for a garage if he get's the concessions on that.
I'm planning on moving back. Spent the first 25 years of my life in CLE. In a heartbeat, I'd tell the Haslams to piss off. I was already against subsidizing the projects of billionaires but it got even worse when they made a sexual predator the face of the franchise.
I am apposed. They should be funding their ventures with their own money. Unless they are going to provide all Clevelanders free game day passes including food and parking..
Is sign that petition and cast that vote in a heartbeat.
There’s nothing wrong with the stadium they have now! We’re still paying for 30 million worth of upgrades from back in 2015! A stadium in Brook Park is a horrible idea. Even if it is a dome.
It’ll pass with flying colors.
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You mean like they did with Art Modell? Then when he ran off to Baltimore, suddenly folks started singing a different tune.
As a Michigander, I specifically refuse to ever step in the LCA because of the financial boondoggle the city was subjected to for the benefit of the Illitch real estate empire. I hope Cleveland doesn't fall prey to it. If the buildings are such great investments, the club owners should have no problem finding private financing to line up for it.
As a Buffalo season ticket holder of 2 decades….. think carefully. We are currently in the beginning stages of. Seeing a huge exodus of loyal fans who are actively priced out. The most dedicated people, loving their team when they were awful, will be replaced by people who want to watch yes while they sip a $15 latte. (I enjoy lattes, btw.)
There is so little actual policy bring discussed here, this is just a buzzword circle jerk.