Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Art Modell was a no angel. He leveraged the Browns into getting a new franchise and screwed the fans in Cleveland 100 times worse than LeBron ever did. He doesn't deserve to be in the HOF because he was a terrible owner. He had financial problems in Cleveland, thought he could do better in Baltimore and what do you know, he had more financial problems. Its wasn't the cities, Art.
Kinda strange (or telling) you are a fan of two franchises whose owners have royally screwed their original cities.
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Modell did not screw over the fans in Cleveland, it was the politicians who built new facilities for the Indians and Cavaliers before dealing with the Browns. Go back to 1993 or so when this all started, and tell me which of the teams in Cleveland had the highest profile in the city. He had the foresight to see where the league was going, how much salaries were going to increase, and how badly he was going to need a better stadium to generate revenue. He was basically told to be the guy to stick it out and lose money for a few more years.
Once he left the civic politicians in Cleveland were pretty quick to get a new stadium built. They're the ones who dropped the ball in this matter. While in Cleveland Modell did a lot of positive things for the city and was pretty generous with charities there too. Of all the owners who relocated teams Modell is the one who probably wanted to stay put more than anyone else. But like anyone he was running a business and without money, you can't do that. Moving the team was his best chance to keep the business that was the Browns going.