The National Football League's Cleveland Browns recently met with state legislators in Ohio to discuss plans including a new $2.4 billion domed stadium in Brook Park — about 14 miles southwest of Cleveland — for which the team wants public funding.
"We know that there are two proposals being floated, but they certainly have not reached the stage where there's a formal request," said Dan Tierney, press secretary for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. "It's very early stages."
Tierney said DeWine is generally in favor of public investments in sports stadiums, but "from the governor's perspective, the first thing that needs to happen is that the team and the community [need to] come to an agreement about what it is they want."
State Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, D-District 16, who was part of the legislative delegation that met with team representatives last month, declined to comment. A Browns spokesperson did not respond to requests to comment.
The franchise's 30-year lease on Cleveland Browns Stadium in Cleveland expires in 2028.
In 2022, the team
Then, early this year, a
"We appreciate the collaborative process with the City of Cleveland and the leadership of Mayor Bibb in analyzing the landbridge and renovating the current stadium. At the same time, as part of our comprehensive planning efforts, we are also studying other potential stadium options in Northeast Ohio at various additional sites," Haslam Sports Group spokesperson Peter John-Baptiste
The landbridge refers to plans to build a pedestrian connection over railroad tracks and a highway to link downtown with the Lake Erie lakefront, including the stadium.
The Browns are reportedly now seeking $1.2 billion total, $600 million from the state and $600 million from local governments, toward the costs of the new Brook Park stadium. That's nearly triple all the state assistance to build other sports stadiums, combined, over the past 27 years, according to a
The state
The Browns' stadium complaints — and demands to taxpayers — may trigger memories of the departure of the first version of the Cleveland Browns.
After the 1995 season that franchise departed
An expansion version of the Browns debuted in 1999 in the new bond-financed stadium, which has the distinction of being the only one of the NFL's 31 venues
Local taxes and bonds have also in recent years subsidized the venues of the NBA
Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens told the
"I don't see a difference in terms of incentives for future funding of stadiums," said Robert Baumann, economics professor at College of the Holy Cross and co-author of a recent study on stadium developments. "Either way, this is still on the taxpayer."
Baumann added that it is a common tactic in situations like that for stadium advocates to claim that the supposed economic benefits from the stadium will cover the borrowing costs and no new taxes will be necessary.
"At least with direct spending the municipality could say there are more pressing budgetary needs, like education, police or transportation," he said.
Cuyahoga County
According to Tierney, the Browns' new $2.4 billion proposal would involve not just a stadium but a mixed-use entertainment district surrounding it.
"The governor is open to doing the project a little differently if it's a different type of project," he said. "At the very least, the proposal regarding Brook Park is a different type of proposal in that it also serves as a seed for economic development around the property."
Economists have found that stadium projects generally do not result in positive fiscal returns to local governments or a statistically significant uptick in development. Even two decades ago, a
A
"There is a mountain of evidence that stadium subsidies do not provide a positive return on investment. In my mind, there isn't a stadium subsidy for taxpayers that is 'a good deal,'" Baumann said. "For the Browns specifically, that stadium is about 25 years old, has an enormous footprint on the waterfront, and hosts about 12 to 15 events per year. People seem to forget that not much happens in and around an NFL stadium most of the year, and they also require a ring of parking lots to satisfy game days. Unless they are in remote or unused areas, stadiums are pretty bad economic drivers because they are closed most of the time."
And
"Justifications for public funding for new stadiums [have] shifted away from economic impact generated by teams and towards economic (re)development generated directly or indirectly by venues," researchers Nola Agher and Dan Rascher wrote. "The purpose of this paper is to test for the economic redevelopment effects through net changes in businesses and net changes in employment… Overall, we find no substantial evidence that entry of a new team or stadium is associated with any net gains related to economic development."
But Tierney said DeWine thinks about the economic impact of stadiums more broadly, in terms of creating a draw for employers to relocate to his state. He said the governor has had "specific conversations" with CEOs that included questions about activities for their employees' families.
"The governor believes that professional sports help contribute to quality of life; these are the types of things that he knows that employers look at when they consider relocating to Ohio," Tierney said. "They're going to ask, 'What is there for my employees?' … Sports are not the only thing. Ohio's got a great parks system; they're going to look at our schools… but professional sports is certainly part of the mix."
He added that it's important to understand that professional sports have been part of the fabric of the state "since right after the Civil War," with the Cincinnati Reds among the longest-operating sports teams and the NFL having been founded in Canton, Ohio, around 1920.
Today, he said, Ohioans who want to catch a game are no more than an hour or two away from a stadium. But many of the state's stadiums were built in the 1990s, and "the governor notes that these stadiums and arenas generally have a useful life of 30 years," Tierney said.
"You certainly have to have amenities to compete in the economic development game these days," Tierney said. "We want to show that Ohio is competitive with other parts of the country."
Baumann said the Browns' franchise value has "skyrocketed" since the Haslam family bought it in 2012, and the team's owners should face more pressure to pay for a renovation or a new stadium themselves. But, as a native Ohioan, he acknowledged that losing the Browns to Baltimore left a psychic scar on Cleveland.
"I suspect that is the nerve the Haslams are trying to tap," he said.
