snakebite

1.2bn from Haslam/Browns, another 600m let's say from private equity possibly so they'd need another 600m from the State. Maybe they squeeze the NFL for another 1-200m and not sure the Browns figure would include the NFL contribution anyway. Given the amount of money being requested I think it's in the public transparency that we see the alternative renderings. This is far beyond confidential mickey mouse back room s**t now.

Am I reading this correctly? Feel dirty even reading this s**t but as Ruiter is clearly a Haslam mouthpiece his info seems as close as any currently. The article states that the Brook Park dome would cost 2.4bn and a dome on Burke would cost 3.3bn!? Are they adding in the inevitable either way closure of Burke into this to suit their costing argument or am I missing something that adds an extra 900m? https://www.audacy.com/923thefan/sports/cleveland-browns/city-of-cleveland-plans-to-sue-to-keep-browns?utm_campaign=sharebutton&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=WKRKFM

https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/nfl/browns/cleveland-city-council-fights-back-browns-propose-new-stadium-brook-park/95-f0c62102-225d-4fdb-aae1-91f91bb876fb "Meanwhile, a source within City Hall tells 3News the Haslams met with several big name business leaders Monday night, and while we don't know all the details, they were presenting their case for the Browns' future in Brook Park and their vision for the stadium." The tenant leaching process is underway.

Btw, it would have been nice to view the current stadium renovation renderings which the Mayor and County Exec have seen. Would be a shame if that was ever somehow leaked into the public domain....

I don't think it would come directly from him or the Browns as such but it's very possible from other sources, I.e using journalists. The Bills did it with Austin when they were going through their recent stadium stuff. It just needs to be out there to make some people panic.

I can't see them relocating but they are going to use it as a bargaining chip for sure. I don't think the NFL is too enamored just now with more instability. The recent moves were a real mess.

I think it's only a matter of time before the Austin, San Antonio, OKC, SLC insert random city relocation threats emerge. Maybe I'm blinkered since they gave us a team back before but I think the NFL does value the NEO market and the passion of the fanbase. I suspect markets like St. Louis where the NFL played second fiddle to baseball and Oakland where the stadium was a toilet and they were basically a secondary tenant they were happy to leave, but I just don't think the NFL would happily let Jimmy move out of here. Call it a gut feeling.

I get the impression Ronayne might fold somewhat and concede at least the potential continuation of the sin tax as opposed to sacks of cash, he was non committal in his comments I felt not to wash his hands of this altogether. As for the city, if a viable Lakefront masterplan can emerge including the priority of repurposing Burke and they can reiterate their commitment to the other two teams and their desire to develop Downtown, I think they can survive this but that's a lot of ifs. I think the stadium gets done by hook or crook now but the surrounding development I'm less convinced of. My main concern is the continued disinvestment and drip effect of ditching Downtown for the suburbs and any wins are just stemming the tide. It makes us look every bit the backwards stagnant rust belt market we get stereotyped as. The current stadium should be demolished the second the lease is up IMO, I don't want us to end up like St. Louis with a white elephant scarring the landscape and if it leaves them scrambling and playing in Columbus for a year or two I couldn't give a shiney s**te given the way they've acted. It's not the end of the world, but there is definitely concern for me that this is part of a domino effect to come. The area around Brook Park is bleak. An airport, industrial units, railyards, highway overpasses, ratty looking titty bars. Yeah I think a stadium used 10 times a year fits the rather desolate run down vibe of the area. Expensive apartments, upscale restaurants and class A office space is a much harder sell for me. Wouldn't even be surprised if they eventually say f**k it due to costs, lack of interest in the development aspect and they just build it bare bones even without a roof and they sit content with the extra parking revenue.

I think this is futile but I am all for the whole affair becoming a total s**t show in every which way and being as difficult for Jimmy Haslam as possible.

I hope there is still urgency to get working on closing the airport. That particular pocket where the stadium currently sits I don't think in isolation is especially attractive. It's the wider Lakefront with the airport included that's the karat IMO.

Not long now until "The Cleveland Browns/Haslam Sports Group are delighted to welcome KeyBank, Cliffs etc etc as it's premier anchor office tenant to Brook Park".

There will be little infrastructure work in the surrounding area beyond perhaps some highway ramps IMO. Jimmy Haslam does not want sidewalks or street lighting or anything pedestrian friendly on Snow or Engle Rd which could bleed attendees to adjacent cheaper parking lots, bars etc, he will know for instance that there is a ton of nearby airport parking that can eat into his bottom line if it is more accessible and people can avoid traffic jams. He wants his walled off world and thats that.

😂 1970s/80's suburban movement in full swing in Cleveland. My only hope now is the county don't cave into their blackmail and give them any cash or incentives.

And that's why I also think just resetting and drafting a rookie QB doesn't tie in with where the rest of the team is at. Probably going to need to find a seasoned QB to stop the bleeding, stabilize the circus and to make what we have of the quality in other areas of the field. Also there are so many other teams with glaring holes or weaker talent than the Browns that are also competitive and that's why I'm growing very tired of Stefanski, no matter what's going on around him like Watson, Haslam etc. The Broncos have three wins and I'd argue a fraction of our talent. The Giants just went to Seattle without their best offensive player and won convincingly. The Commanders who just tore us to shreds have transformed overnight, Arizona just went to San Fran and won. There's only so much bitching I am prepared to hear about injuries. Everyone has some level of adversity in this league, deal with it and adapt.

Social media rife today after the latest humiliating loss with demands of no cash for Jimmy's stadium until the team can be competitive. Fans are really that fickle and it is that easy. Haslam has absolutely no momentum for this. No city or county cash, a state that isn't going to fork out considerably more than what the Bengals are going to get and now a dumpster fire of a team led by one of the least likeable players in the whole league.

I just think sadly its the wider American mentality, at least if you aren't in the big coastal markets. Look at all the companies recently who have moved out or want out of Downtown. I know some will also come from the 'burbs and move in but at best it just feels like an ongoing battle to replace the lost or combat those who actively want out or might consider their options when their lease expires. The goal for not all of course but many from my own experience is still to own a McMansion in a good school district in the suburbs and drive a big car like an F150, theres a stigma that cities by and large are dirty, unsafe and riddled with congestion (which particularly is so ironic for me) and suburbs are a world of safety and convenience. There isn't as many young people I see and hear with my own eyes and ears of living in middle of the road Midwestern cities who once graduating from college want to move to an urban area. I feel people naively think that all young people want out of their cookie cutter suburbs and into cities. I'm just not seeing that, and I want it as much as anyone on here. At least not in Cleveland or Kansas City. Its a constant battle against the suburbs. I wish this s**t was back in the 80s where it belongs but it isn't.

I noticed that last week too. Last week the angle I was sitting I watched him wildly miss a wide open back in the flat. It was a pass I'd expect a high school quarterback to make. He's not the QB he once was and he's not working back to that. He's done.

I used the red line to and from the game yesterday, from Brook Park ironically enough. Went in about 3 1/2 hours prior and left an hour after the end of the game. The red line to/from the west had decent ridership especially on the further away stations, I even got chatting to a guy from Mansfield who leaves his car at Brook Park. The eastbound looked dead though on the way back. Definitely agree with above that there should be a bigger push of the RTA and stronger enforcement of the drunk drivers. It was refreshing to use transit to a sports event, way cheaper, way less stress and hassle than navigating expensive parking and traffic. Even squeezed in a beer and a slice of pizza waiting on things to die down. It's fun seeing all the foot traffic and vibrancy around the stadiums on game day, it even felt like an all weekend event to me with lots of visiting fans and out of towners I seen both Downtown and in Ohio City on Saturday. ETA: The weekend also reminded me being back in the area how dreary and industrialised Brook Park is. No point repeating all the reasons why but I mean, it's seen much better days.

The fact it still loses money despite not even being in the commercial aviation game which is the most expensive operation of all to run out of an airport with a passenger terminal and all the associated costs that come with that is very telling to me. The sooner it's closes the better.

Whilst you are completely correct I think this particular simplistic line of thinking especially amongst older people has value. I don't like to take too much of a sample size from social media but for example the boomers used the Royals poor record in recent years as a reason against giving them funds to build a Downtown Stadium. Facebook was littered with the "why give them a damn penny when they went won't spend anything on out a competitive team!!". The stadium vote ultimately was heavily voted down. It's only one part of public perception but its definitely one that exists I think and not just amongst a tiny minority. Some people are fickle enough to base their acceptance of stadium public funds on win/loss records. It's just one more thing that will work against them in their campaign to obtain tax payer cash if they can't turn things around.

Almost certainly buys them the financing work on the new digs too.

I know back in June they said a study regarding the long term viability of Burke was completed and they were going over the draft. Looks like the airport lost $600k last year. It's days are numbered IMO and I wonder if the timing of that correlates with this.

Very few are actually directly in Downtown areas, you are correct. Major European cities have scales of urbanism far above anything in middle ranking American cities like Cleveland and therefore there are lots of transit strong neighborhoods outside of the Downtown areas. They have levels of vibrancy and a lack of vacant land which means it's just not worthwhile to build a stadium in a Downtown like in Manchester or Liverpool - many of these stadium locations have stood the same since the 1800s or early 19s and the tradition is valued highly. There isn't a rush to build 70k stadiums on suburban brownfields next to highways to get parking revenue from 20,000 spaces or to build a soulless adjacent bar malls, even when a new build is considered. No other site in Cleveland except Downtown has a combination of walkable streets, multiple train lines, rapid bus routes, various municipal bus routes, Amtrak. We did have buses to other parts of Ohio and the country but apparently that's better in Brook Park now moving forward.... All of those stadiums are also significantly closer to their urban cores than Brook Park is, they have far less on site parking spaces, there is much more frequent bus and train service, they are walkable and in some cases bikeable - large parts immediately surrounding the Brook Park site don't even have sidewalks ffs! Dortmund for instance has a seating capacity of over 80k and there only 10k parking spaces but Cleveland needs 20k for probably somewhere around 15,000 less seats. Manchester City only has 2k spaces on site. There are some "suburban" major stadiums in Europe, of course not every single stadium is close to a CBD or in an urban area....in the case of Atletico Madrid versus Brook Park it's about half the distance from their city centre, in a metro about three times the size of Cleveland, with a far more robust public transit network. That stadium even has a purpose built cycle path running parallel to the stadium! Engle and Snow Road would just like a sidewalk. Jimmy Haslam could not care less what the area on the outside looks like. He wants a contained walled off development and infact any outside infrastructure might just encourage people to park in cheaper spots or drink or stay somewhere on the outskirts.

I look at major soccer stadiums all over Europe, take your pick. Liverpool, Manchester, Paris, Madrid, Milan, Dortmund so on and so forth and Downtown or it's periphery really is our only hope in the region of having a stadium in a walkable transit rich neighborhood IMO because we have and keep trying to pillage our cities and send assets out the suburbs. It actually feels at times to me that we are actively trying to encourage people to be more reliant on cars despite all the research on why auto centric culture and development is so problematic. If they want 20k parking spaces at their new stadium and aren't prepared to compromise then they should bare the full responsibility of that in my view. I am not naive enough to think a day will come where 65k spectators will use public transit to come to a game in Downtown Cleveland, that's just not realistic as wishful as it is, but it's not like there is a dearth of options in terms of places to park either. If people weren't so fcking lazy and would walk an extra block or two they wouldn't end up stuck in a traffic jam and then be brainwashed into thinking that Brook Park is the land of milk and honey where they will come and go in 5 minutes. This obviously isn't is your local Starbucks or Target but there is a large number of people who think they should have the same vehicle access and parking amenities at an NFL stadium as they do at these places. It's indicative of how broken our culture is that many Americans think a stadium shouldn't be near the core of a city in the Midwest but nobody sees it as a problem abroad in some of the world's biggest and most iconic cities.

The concerning thing is, despite the push for wealthier owners like Haslam and the desire to drive out old money owners like the Browns in Cincinnati, or the Bidwills in Arizona, the deals are just getting more egregious to reflect the level of wealth coming in to own teams. Teams aren't footing less with richer owners, they are just demanding more. The public is still getting fleeced even with billionaire owners who have legitimate money as opposed to families who bought a team 70 years ago and whose whole wealth is tied up in the value of the teams they own. Mike Brown might just ask for a basic renovation in Cincinnati whilst Haslam will push for a small city.