Litigation ensued as soon as the Cleveland Browns announced their intention to build a new stadium in the Cleveland suburbs, adding to the list of controversial sports stadiums.[1]
Huntington Bank Field, the current stadium of the Browns, opened in 1999 with a 30-year lease due to expire at the end of the 2028 season. The Browns owners announced that they had explored options, including renovating the existing stadium or building a new, domed stadium in nearby Brook Park. Ultimately, they had chosen to build a new stadium.[2]
The current stadium is open-air and can only host a limited number of non-football events due to the weather. One reason given for selecting the new stadium is that building a domed stadium will allow year-round use for community events.[3] However, the true motivation may be the financial benefit to the team’s owners. The owners also are planning for privately funded development of office, hotel, retail, and entertainment projects adjacent to the stadium.[4]
Although it is not feasible to put a dome on the current stadium, the city offered significant financial incentives of $461 million towards renovating the existing stadium. Most of the money would have been paid for by fans, including through stadium parking revenue and taxes on tickets.[5] In addition, the mayor offered to eliminate rent payments if the Browns assumed insurance and property tax payments.[6]
In response to the announcement of the planned relocation, the city threatened that it would enforce Ohio’s “Art Modell Law.” This law is named after the former Browns owner who moved the team from Cleveland in 1995 to become the Baltimore Ravens. Ohio passed a law to prevent teams using a tax-supported facility and then unfairly leaving the public entity with an empty stadium. The law requires team owners either to obtain permission to relocate the team or to provide six months’ notice and an opportunity for local government and local investors to purchase the team.[7]
The law has never been tested, and the Browns have filed for declaratory judgment that the law is unconstitutional.[8] The Browns argue that the statute violates due process due to extreme ambiguity in the statutory language, violates the dormant commerce clause and the privileges and immunities clause because it gives advantage to in-state buyers to the disadvantage of other states’ residents, and violates the contract clause because it conflicts with the NFL franchise agreement that permits relocation with NFL approval.[9]
The most compelling argument is that the law does not even apply. The purpose of the law is to prevent teams from walking away from obligations to a taxpayer funded stadium, but the Browns are planning to relocate after the expiration of the current 30-year lease.
If the Browns are successful in their legal fight to relocate (or reach a settlement), the city still must contend with several questions. The existing stadium was the focal point for lakefront development that is still being built, so the city will need to either demolish the stadium or repurpose it. In addition to paying off the remaining $46 million owed on the stadium, the city is going to incur more than $50 million of maintenance costs in the last few years of the lease.[10] The city council is right to be worried about spending nearly $100 million with seemingly little return on that investment if the team already has one foot out the stadium door. And shouldn’t taxpayers start questioning the sensibility of using more than $1.2 billion of public taxpayer funding towards the new stadium for a privately-owned franchise?[11]
[1] https://ublawsportsforum.com/2024/10/22/jacksonville-jaguars-billion-dollar-stadium-renovations-cause-controversy-amongst-organization1/
[2] https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/browns-to-focus-stadium-efforts-on-dome-in-brook-park
[3] https://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/browns-to-focus-stadium-efforts-on-dome-in-brook-park
[4] https://www.news5cleveland.com/sports/browns/cleveland-browns-release-first-renderings-details-of-brook-park-stadium-proposal
[5] https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/sports/pro/browns/2024/08/11/cuyahoga-county-officials-browns-stadium-issue-brook-park-plan/74761573007/
[6] https://www.news5cleveland.com/sports/browns/cleveland-browns-release-first-renderings-details-of-brook-park-stadium-proposal
[7] https://www.news5cleveland.com/sports/browns/battle-over-new-browns-stadium-could-play-out-in-court
[8] Complaint, Cleveland Browns Football Company LLC v. City of Cleveland, No. 1:24-cv-01857 (N.D. Ohio Oct. 24, 2024), ECF No. 1.
[9] Id.
[10] https://fox8.com/news/i-team/taxpayer-money-going-into-browns-stadium-up-until-team-leaves-cleveland-i-team/
[11] https://www.ideastream.org/sports/2024-05-03/if-the-browns-go-to-brook-park-what-does-cleveland-do-with-the-lakefront-stadium
Christopher Atwood (Class of 2025) is pursuing his J.D. at the University at Buffalo School of Law, with a concentration in Intellectual Property.
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