The Browns are one of the NFL’s pillar franchises. Years of
modern-era losing haven’t changed that.
Yes, the Browns entered the NFL in 1950, 30 years after its
inception. Yes, the Browns played their first four seasons in another league.
Yes, Cleveland had a handful of other NFL franchises prior to the Browns – most
notably the Rams from 1933 to 1945.
And yes, the current Browns aren’t even the original Browns.
We don’t need to pick that that scab right now.
But with four NFL titles and 11 NFL Championship Game
appearances prior to the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, in addition to a clean sweep
of All-America Football Conference championships in all four years the league
existed, the Browns are held in the same historical esteem as franchises such
as the Packers, Bears and Giants, all of whom entered the league in the 1920s
and are, essentially, among the league’s founding franchises.
The idea of the Packers ever playing home games in a dome is
ludicrous. The Bears may play in a renovated Soldier Field that looks something
like a UFO landing on the Parthenon, but the Monsters of the Midway still play
in the elements.
The Giants? Same story. New stadium, still outdoors, and
will likely always be outdoors. The NFL didn’t make a dome a condition when
they awarded Super Bowl XLVIII to the New York market. MetLife Stadium, the
home of the Giants and Jets, will host the game on Feb. 2, 2014.
So why do the Browns need a dome?
This week, incoming Browns owner Jimmy Haslam met with
Cleveland city council members to, among other things, open the door for
discussion on ways to improve Cleveland Browns Stadium as a revenue-generating
venue for the region. Among the topics Haslam broached was the possibility of
placing a retractable roof on the stadium, allowing year-round use of the
facility, and possibly making Cleveland a more attractive destination for
large-scale events that need the space provided by a domed stadium.
It’s a touchy subject in Cleveland, a city that prides
itself on an old-school football ethos. Tough players and tougher fans braving
the late-season elements in our wind-whipped lakefront freezer box. It’s how
we’ve enjoyed (and not enjoyed) football since football was first played in
front of an audience in this town.
But that viewpoint is at odds with the pragmatic need to get
more dollars out of a facility that sits essentially vacant for well over 300
days a year. Cleveland Browns Stadium has the potential to become a much more
prolific money maker for the region, but its lakefront location and exposure to
the elements severely limit the breadth of its usefulness.
As it is, Cleveland doesn’t have a lot in the way of prime
exposition and event space. That outlook will certainly improve once the new
convention center opens, but the city will still lack a venue to attract major
spectator events that need a controlled environment and more seating capacity
than the 20,562 seats that Quicken Loans Arena can offer.
That’s where a domed Cleveland Browns Stadium would fit into
the picture. These are among the events a dome would allow Cleveland to pursue:
The Super Bowl. Obviously, this would be the king crab to catch.
It’s the premier single-day sporting event in the world, and brings with it two
weeks of related activities and events for the host city. In the event
Cleveland could land a Super Bowl, it would likely be a one-off event, like it
was for cities such as Detroit and Jacksonville. But for the only NFL city to
neither have hosted a Super Bowl nor have had a team play in a Super Bowl, it’s
time for a football town like Cleveland to take a long-overdue turn reaping
some benefits from the NFL’s title game.
The Final Four. Much like the Super Bowl, it brings with it a
slew of related events. In addition, Final Four cities often host a regional
final bracket the year before, as a dry run for the following year. So landing
a Final Four could bring two Marches’ worth of events to Cleveland.
A minor college bowl game. If Detroit can host the Little
Caesars Bowl, why couldn’t Cleveland attempt to launch something similar? It
wouldn’t attract marquee programs, but for a 3 p.m. time slot on ESPN2 a few
days after Christmas, you could attract a six-win Big Ten or Big 12 school to
face off against a school from the MAC or Conference USA. If there is one thing
we’ve learned over the past decade or so, it’s that you can never have too many
bowl games.
The Big Ten Championship Game. Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis
will host the game through 2015. After that, if Cleveland wanted to take a turn
hosting it every few years, it would likely need a dome. Given the size of the
Ohio State fan base in Northeast Ohio, and the frequency with which OSU figures
to play in the Big Ten title game over the years, it would be a logical fit to
have Cleveland in any rotation for the game.
The MAC Championship Game. Detroit hosts it right now
because Detroit has the facility to host it. Cleveland is the home of the MAC’s
headquarters and has hosted the MAC basketball tournaments since 2000. It would
seem that if Cleveland had a facility capable of hosting the MAC football title
game, the conference could make a fairly airtight case for moving the game
here.
Cleveland State football. It’s a subject that gets bounced
around in assorted forums from time to time. Could and should Cleveland State
take the necessary steps to alter its charter and field a football program for
the first time since the school was formed in 1964? If Cleveland had an indoor
venue with an artificial surface that could stand up to the wear and tear of
back-to-back Saturday-Sunday football weekends without turning into a mud pit,
the city would have an ideal stage on which to launch CSU football.
Other local rivalry games. The annual John Carroll-Baldwin
Wallace game? The St. Ignatius-St. Edward Holy War? Playing them under the
bright, covered lights at Cleveland Browns Stadium could add some spotlight
appeal to the regions other big games.
A spectrum of other events. A covered stadium could also put
Cleveland in the running for political conventions in presidential election
years, stadium concert tours (for the few bands that still have them), stadium
rodeo tours, WrestleMania and other events.
In reality, the movement to put a dome on Cleveland Browns
Stadium has very little to do with the Browns. Whether they put a good or bad
product on the field, they’ll be good or bad whether they play in the open air,
under a dome, on grass, on artificial turf or in a parking lot.
This has everything to do with acknowledging that while the
Browns might be the primary tenant of their stadium, their games are, or should
be, only one category in a catalog of events that could, take place at the
stadium.
Cleveland isn’t Green Bay, or Chicago, or New York, or
Philadelphia. What we need out of our stadium is different from those cities.
We’re a post-industrial rust belt town with a shrinking population and negative
national reputation. We’re fighting an uphill battle against more attractive
destinations for revenue-generating and profile-enhancing events. Our civic
leaders need to fashion better tools to make that happen. A domed stadium is
one such tool.
Making it happen will certainly cost money – possibly
between $100 million and $400 million. The sin tax that built the stadium and
still pays for its upkeep expires in 2015, so financing the project could mean
another appeal to voters. However, since Haslam is taking the lead on this, at
least in the idea phase, perhaps there is a chance that he’ll front some of the
cost. We can hope. We can dream.
If the dome ends up becoming a reality, we’ll all miss the
snowy, windy late-season games on the lakefront. It’s part of our football
heritage. But times have changed, and poetic vision of frozen turf and
snowflakes dancing around the heads of 70,000 fans steaming the frigid air with
their collective breath has to give way to the dollars and cents of the matter.
Cleveland needs money. A domed stadium can generate more
money than a stadium without a dome. It’s more spreadsheet than Shakespeare.
But that’s where we are. And that’s why we, as a region, should find it in our
best interest to put down our scarves and hats, and support a move indoors.
