DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Modell WAS Offered Stadium Deal in Cleveland

Art Modell was offered a stadium for the Cleveland Browns and passed: Mark Naymik
Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012, 8:00 PM Updated: Thursday, September 13, 2012, 8:09 PM
The Plain Dealer By Mark Naymik, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- What you think you know about Art Modell's decision to take the Browns out of Cleveland for a shiny new stadium in Baltimore is legend.

Today, the consciences of a couple of old-guard Cleveland politicians give us a long-hidden fact about Modell's departure. Specifically, when Modell claimed he would have stayed if city leaders had offered to build him a stadium, he was lying.

He was offered a new stadium.

At the Gateway sports complex.

He rejected the offer, years before leaving.

Since the former Browns and Ravens team owner died last week, we have rehashed the famous narrative that Modell left town out of frustration with political leaders who stuck him with the dumpy, history-rich Municipal Stadium, which lacked the revenue-generating luxury suites and other amenities of newer stadiums.

Modell was particularly upset that leaders here bent over backward for Dick Jacobs and Gordon Gund, the former owners of the Indians and the Cavaliers, respectively, who were getting new homes -- courtesy of the taxpayers, at the Gateway sports complex completed in 1994 just north of the Inner Belt downtown.

Thinking about the Browns' departure, do you believe ...
Art Modell was telling the truth when he said Cleveland never offered him a stadiumGeorge Forbes and Tim Hagan did suggest a stadiumNobody will ever know exactly what happened
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The story of the stadium snub for years has left us asking: Why didn't city leaders just offer to build Modell a new stadium along with the others?

After leaving town in 1996, Modell reinforced the snub story in interviews with news outlets, though he was not speaking at the time to The Plain Dealer, which he saw as part of the conspiracy against him.

"My major regret is that I should not have acceded to their request to stay on the side on Gateway," Modell told Cleveland Magazine in August 1996. He told the magazine he should have forced a football stadium into the Gateway conversation.

"I should have made my demands known at that time. Then we wouldn't be here now. . . . Had they even mumbled the word 'new stadium' I would have said, 'Let's talk.' "

It turns out that officials at the time tried to talk with him. Modell wouldn't listen.

George Forbes, who was Cleveland's council president during the late 1980s and a key player in negotiations with team owners during planning for Gateway, said he and others asked Modell to be a part of the project.

Forbes said leaders proposed building a third Gateway sports facility for the Browns, just south of the Inner Belt a couple of blocks from what is now Progressive Field.

Forbes' memory for detail is hazy. But he said then-Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan, Jacobs and lawyers familiar with the financing options were present with Modell at a meeting when the offer was made.

"Tim and I were saying, 'While we are doing this, we might as well clear up the whole damn thing and build all three stadiums,' " Forbes told me. "This way we don't have to go back, and future councilmen and commissioners won't have to deal with the issue. Let's clear it up once and for all, was our thinking."

Jacobs died in 2009.

Forbes said he remained quiet for decades out of respect for Modell, whom he considered a friend.

"Art was my friend and a good man, and I didn't want to get into it," Forbes said. "I didn't want to pour hot water on a scalding dog."

But Forbes said he's long been bothered by the narrative that government failed Modell.

"I have thought about this meeting every time it was written or televised that no one made an offer to build a stadium," he said. "My words are to set the record straight about the governmental institutions and our involvement."

I called Hagan, who championed the Gateway complex and suffered great criticism about its costs to taxpayers. He confirmed Forbes' account. He described the offer as informal but honest.

"There is no question we made an effort," Hagan said.

Exactly why Modell didn't pursue the discussion remains a mystery.

Forbes recalled that Modell said he just wanted to stay in Municipal Stadium. Hagan couldn't add much more detail, nor would he speculate on why Modell didn't look harder at Gateway.

The timing of the Forbes and Hagan offer is critical to sorting out the legend. When Gateway planning was just starting, Modell was told to stay away. City leaders were concerned about appeasing Jacobs, who did not want to share a stadium with the football team and was threatening to move the Indians to a new city.

David Hopcraft, a longtime spokesman for Modell, said leaders planning Gateway were adamant that the Browns owner wait.

"They told him they would take care of him later," Hopcraft told me. Hopcraft also noted that Modell was one of the biggest contributors to the public campaign to persuade taxpayers to support the tax on alcohol and tobacco that paid for Gateway.

But Forbes said that after Jacobs was satisfied with plans for the new baseball stadium, the time was ripe to bring Modell into Gateway. So Forbes and Hagan made their offer.

Years later, politicians had cooled to the idea to asking taxpayers for more money for a football stadium. Modell no doubt became frustrated by his failure to win political backing for refurbishing Municipal Stadium.

Hagan famously quipped in 1995 about a proposed tax for Municipal Stadium: "We all wish Mother Teresa owned the Browns. It'd be an easier sell."

But timing is everything. And there was a time, long before Modell abandoned Cleveland, when he was offered a new stadium.


Whether or not a Gateway deal could have been struck with Modell -- and ultimately sold to voters -- is immaterial. That leaders offered Modell his own stadium at Gateway changes the storyline that has been central to his excuse for leaving. This fundamentally changes our view of one of the biggest moments in the history of this town.

Maybe Forbes and Hagan were wise to keep the Gateway offer quiet all these years. Modell already was viewed by many as the worst villain Cleveland ever saw. And knowing that Modell was offered a stadium deal and still left would have only further damaged our psyche at the very time the city's football fans needed to move on.

I know the latest revelation may revive some fans' anger toward Modell, but I'm glad the record is clear, so we can move on.

We need to focus on the team's history on the field, not off.

Hopefully, this history won't be as painful. link

I still remember the site they had picked out. Modell didnt want to go. I still think the first plans as I remember them were both of them to be in the same stadium and modell rejected that saying he wouldnt leave.
Memory may be foggy but I was telling someone last week we had a spot picked out just south of gateway for the Browns. That I do remember.

This is kinda old news really., I remember the reports of Modell pitching a fit about a new stadium and Mayor White saying they'd like it to be part of the entire gateway project. There was even talk at the time of a Dome.. Modell didn't want to be in the gateway complex. Not sure why. don't remember the reason for sure, but I think it's because he wouldn't have had control of the new facility as he did Muny and eventually had in Baltimore.

Bottom line on all of this, a billionaire would have been able to take the hit while a deal was worked out, Modell didn't have the money.

And even after he got the deal of a lifetime in Baltimore, he squandered it and needed bailed out.

So, in the end, Art just didn't have the net worth to own a team anymore.

I have the same recollection.........that a couple years before the gateway project he had gained total control. parking, concessions, everything. So when gateway was proposed he thought he had a better deal on the Muni. So he opted out. I have no doubt that after it was built and he was complaining about Muni that White or someone promised "to take care of him". He never gave anyone the chance. Modell knew if he had given the ultimatum publically "build me a new stadium now by vote or I move", there would have been a new stadium. I think oddly enough he was worried that it would make him look bad as if he were holding us hostage. I have a feeling he (for some reason that I've never been able to grasp) thought no one would be that upset with moving, but was worried to publically demand his stadium. I think he also just wanted that 50 million buyoff.

the facts are there he had total control of the muni and thought the voters would never approve gateway. Once it happened he was out of the loop so to speak. Then he wanted a new stadium and we did approve it which is how CBS came into being.
We were going to build a dome and he wanted no part of it because he controlled all aspects of the money at Muni then when the Indians left he found out he lost his biggest gamble and as said wasnt making bo-Ku bucks on the indians backs.

Water under the bridge at this point.

Modell didn't want to be part of the Gateway project because he was the landlord on the lakefront. He could rent out the old stadium for concerts and such as he liked, and pocket the money. ........ and somehow, despite the NFL being a pure money making venture, Modell needed money, because he was broke.

Modell's biggest fear was that there would be a brand new stadium in place for the Browns to move into.

The whole matter is linked to the fact that Model owned municipal stadium. The Indians were a tenant for baseball season, and he was losing that lease and revenue.

The way I remember it Modell wanted to retain ownership of the stadium that was to be built with public funds instead of leasing the stadium.

Municipal stadium was a mess, and costly to maintain, but cheaper than a lease.

Anyone else think this the timing of this article stinks like last weeks fish?

I'm not buying it, and I don't care for Modell...

The timing might "stink", but it is absolutely true that Gateway was originally going to be a side by side, joint football/baseball facility, and that it had the funding plans in place and ready to go when Modell said that he didn't want to leave the lakefront. This left Gateway to scramble and redo their plans to instead include the Cavaliers. Modell scuttled the plans to include the Browns in Gateway, not anyone else.

I lived through this crap. Modell could have agreed to move into the new Gateway stadium that was to be built for him, but he would have lost out on rental income (from concerts, shows, conventions, and so on) and such at old Municipal Stadium, where he was the landlord, and he didn't want to do that.

You can put a dress and lipstick on a pig, but in the end, it's still a pig. Modell was a pig, no matter how much postmortem lipstick some people try to apply.

I think the article is truthfilled but I just dont care... what happened, happened... I don't like Modell...never will... I'm hoping with Haslam coming in and Modell passing this year that the Cleveland Browns can start a new era of football and return to glory... winning will help a lot of fans heal... doesn't look like there will be a lot of healing this year but there is hope.

Modell originally said that the reason he "had to" move the team was so that he could keep the team in his family for generations to some. He got his bag of gold for betraying a loyal fanbase.

Then he was forced to sell the team shortly after moving to Baltimore anyway.

Quote:

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toad...good to see a Modell supporter on the board...really, they are very rare in this part of the country.

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*shrug*

If it were anyone else besides you I'd be offended...

I'm not going to validate anything by reposting what I'd said. I just know the timing of that article is fishy at best.

Ok, Modell was offered a stadium deal in Cleveland.

He rejected the offer and took the better one that was available in Baltimore. The article did not go into why the offer was rejected, but it does not take Albert to figure out the math.

He wanted a new stadium and a favorable lease arrangement to make money.

He will always be discredited in NFL circles, and by Cleveland fans.

You can try and whitewash it with an article written with his passing. It does not matter. His legacy was set when he moved.

When Modell died, Goodall wanted all the home teams to honor his death. Does anyone know how the Browns fans reacted to this. I was wondering if it got booed or not.

What exactly did the Brwons do to honor his death?

Which was the best course of action all the way around IMO.

I agree 100%...