A Cleveland City Councilman Says He Will Invoke The "Art Modell Law" To Make Sure The Browns Can't Leave Cleveland

So the Browns and the city are in a little Tug-of-War battle because Jimmy Haslem mentioned he was interested in building a potential new stadium, with a dome, in Brookpark when the stadium lease following the 2028 season. Let's be clear.....that's about 15 minutes from where the current stadium is. So for this guy to stand up and announce that he's invoking the "Art Modell Law" like the Haslam's are planning on moving the Browns somewhere other than Cleveland is ridiculous. Here's what he said: 

"What this basically does, ladies and gentleman, is ensures that the Cleveland Browns have to go through the legal process of leaving the city of Cleveland," said Kazy. "Whether they want to move the team to Timbuktu, or whether they want to move them to Brook Park or to Lakewood or to any other state, they have to go before the city, Cleveland City council, ask for permission to move the team. Or they have to give us six months notice and offer to put the team up for sale.

Is this the city's big "gotcha" plan? Seems weak, if you ask me. I mean, yeah, I like the rule if they were trying to move us out of state, but that's not what Jimmy Haslam said? Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore. This guy is saying he would consider moving the team 15 minutes down the road where he can build a dome and have better parking options. The two are not the same. And besides, Cleveland doesn't seem to be willing to cough up the funds needed to make repairs to the stadium anyways. 

“We have kids going to school just to get a meal. We have homes with two or three families living there,” Conwell said. “We have to figure out how to balance and how to take care of the people of the city too.”

Okay? I get it….life isn't easy. But if you want Jimmy Haslam to pay for his own stadium, then let him pay $2 Billion of his own money to build us a state of the art dome. In a place where he can actually monetize from what's around it. Or else find a way to raise enough money to get them to stay where they're at. I don't like this mentality of crying poor and then also invoking a law that won't let Haslam make our situation better. Shit or get off the pot here, city of Cleveland. Don't try and strong arm the guy into doing exactly what you want.

* One funny thing here is that the Haslams benefitted from the same law a few years back, when the Columbus Crew owner tried to move them to Texas, and the Haslams ended up buying them (and winning an MLS Cup). I'm interested to see how this whole thing plays out, but someone needs to rewrite the law to make it for taking a team out of Ohio, not down the street. Two completely different things.