On November 6, 1995, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell made an announcement that shocked both the Forest City and the nation: The Browns were moving to Baltimore.
“This has been a very, very tough road for my family and for me,” Modell said following the announcement of the move. “I can never forget the kindness of the people of Cleveland, the fans that supported the Browns for years, but frankly, it came down to a simple proposition. I had no choice.”
The Browns are a Cleveland institution. Beginning play in 1946, they achieved dominance throughout the 1950s and again the 1980s, winning the AFC Central division five times that decade. With the team backed by a barking fanbase known for their vociferous support, moving this beloved franchise off of Lake Erie’s shores seemed unthinkable.
“Clevelanders probably thought that the Browns [wouldn’t] ever leave,” Andy Linden, a professor at California State University who has studied the Browns’ move, said. “Notre Dame can’t leave South Bend, right? No one ever took anything like that seriously.”
Deindustrialization had left Cleveland, a once-powerful manufacturing hub, in economic, environmental and social distress. The city lost thousands of jobs to automation and outsourcing. Pollution led to the Cuyahoga River famously catching on fire in 1969. Tensions were high in the city, with racial riots erupting in 1966. Between 1950 and 1990, Cleveland lost over 400,000 people — nearly half of its population.
For Browns fans, the loss of their beloved team was inextricably linked to their city’s downward trend.
“I think a lot of people in Cleveland really know that narrative of connecting the city’s economic fortunes to its sports teams because they kind of follow the same trajectory,” Linden said.
By the 1990s, however, Clevelanders had gained hope in their city’s renaissance. In 1990, the former Cleveland Union Terminal reopened as the Tower City Center shopping and entertainment complex. Two years later, the Key Tower opened, which, at 947 feet tall, would become the tallest building between New York City and Chicago.
The Browns’ move threw a wrench in the revitalization narrative that was growing in the minds of many Cleveland residents.
“We thought we were gonna be the comeback city,” Linden said. “Now in the ‘90s … things are looking great, and then all of a sudden, one person walks in and ruins it for everyone.”
The Browns’ move came as a shock at the time, but Modell’s discontent with staying in Cleveland had been building for years. In the early 1990s, Cleveland cleared a large swath of its downtown to build a new baseball stadium and basketball arena, together known as the Gateway Sports and Entertainment Complex. The Browns, however, were left out to dry, remaining at the aging Cleveland Municipal Stadium — a dual-use facility built for the Browns and Indians that was badly outdated in an emerging age of box seats and private suites.
“I think for Modell, he thought that Cleveland was taking advantage of him through knowing how popular the Browns are,” Linden said. “[With] the Browns, who cares? They could be playing [at] a youth football field and still be the most popular team in the city.”
The economics of remaining in Cleveland were becoming more difficult for the Browns organization, and the city government had yet to respond by providing new facilities for the team. With the loss of the Indians to a new ballpark in the Gateway Complex, Modell, also the owner of the Cleveland Municipal Stadium, had lost a crucial stream of revenue for the team.
Baltimore, on the other hand, was still reeling from the Colts’ departure to Indianapolis in 1984, which occurred in the middle of the night without any public announcement. Buoyed by the construction of the groundbreaking Camden Yards (widely considered the first retro-classic ballpark and a hit with fans) Baltimore was eager to attract a football team and earmarked $220 million for a new stadium.
The business case for moving to Baltimore was straightforward for Modell, but confusing for fans, who believed that hometown roots prevailed over financial sense for sports teams.
“People just didn’t know as much about the inner workings of the business of sports at that point,” Linden said. “I still think there’s this sort of wistful idea in the mid-’90s that sports is outside of the business context.”
Politicians immediately responded to the Browns’ move with an all-out push to keep the team in the city. Just a day after Modell’s announcement, Cuyahoga County voters went to the polls to decide whether to extend the county’s “sin tax” on alcohol and cigarettes to fund renovations to the Browns’ stadium. The measure passed by a three-to-one margin.
“No money will be spent until the Browns commit to staying [in Cleveland],” Mayor Michael White told voters in a television advertisement supporting the sin tax extension. “The Browns generate $47 million a year and impact thousands of jobs in Cuyahoga County. The stadium is our history and our future.”
“Because he’s standing up to Modell … he’s kind of using the Browns for political capital,” Linden said. “And that works. He’s very popular in the mid-’90s.”
While city leaders failed to convince Modell to keep the Browns in Cleveland, they did secure a groundbreaking deal with the NFL to give the Browns a new lease on life. While Modell would be allowed to move the team to Baltimore, the Browns franchise — including its name, graphic identity and history — would remain in Cleveland to be taken over by a new expansion franchise no later than 1999.
“It was an unprecedented deal,” Linden said. “It’s the first time that — in the NFL, at least — a team moved, but the legacy stayed.”
The compromise brokered to resolve the controversy was enshrined in state law. Ohio Senate Bill 310 of 1996, commonly known as the “Modell Law,” prohibits a sports team that plays at a taxpayer-supported facility from moving from said facility unless the express permission of the host city is given, local interests are given a chance to purchase the team and six months notice is allowed. Had this law been in place in 1996, Modell could not have abruptly moved the team.
The law was put to the test in 2018 as the Columbus Crew, a professional soccer team in Columbus, considered leaving the city. The legacy of the Browns’ move lives on in Ohio’s state code, in this case preventing another beloved franchise from departing the Buckeye State.
The “new Browns” began to play in 1999 and have since established themselves as one of the worst teams in the league, having failed to win a single conference or divisional championship since their reboot following Modell’s monumental move to the Old Line State.
Cleveland fans’ anger towards Modell has continued into his death. In 2014, a Browns fan posted a video of himself on YouTube urinating on Modell’s grave.
“You know Art, when you … tried to kill the Cleveland [Browns], you didn’t do so good — the Browns fans wouldn’t let you,” the fan, later identified as Paul Serbu of Franklin, Ohio, said in the video.
“I’m going to use the words you used a few years ago. As far as [peeing] on your grave, ‘I had no choice.’”
Decades later, Clevelanders haven’t forgotten about the Browns’ departure from the city, and their enmity for Art Modell remains. But with a new franchise carrying on its legacy, the groundbreaking deal Cleveland struck with the NFL in 1996 has kept the Browns name alive for generations to come.
