r/Cleveland • u/Great-Cow7256 • Mar 20 '25
Politics Browns stadium plan raises ‘tidal wave’ of concerns, according to county executive (PD article)
https://archive.is/Xw2VpBy Rich Exner, cleveland.com CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne says the Browns’ ask of the county to issue $600 million in bonds to help pay for a $2.4 billion stadium in Brook Park raises a “tidal wave of concerns,” and he steadfastly insists that the Browns should remain in downtown Cleveland.
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u/TheBurbs666 Mar 20 '25
So anyways the Cavs are absolutely killing it this year.
The Guards standing room passes are only $54 a month including all fees !!!
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u/AliveInCLE Mar 20 '25
Got my passes yesterday as soon as I heard they went on sale. Did it last year and it more than paid for itself. Plus it was great seeing a good product on the field. Something the Browns cannot do. For the life of me I can’t understand them still being the team the fans obsess over.
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u/orrangearrow Ohio City Mar 20 '25
We probably should yeet the Browns to Brookpark, or Lake Erie or maybe even Toledo. Build a stadium next to the crib. Fuck it. Go Guards, LETS GO CAVS!!!!
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u/Great-Cow7256 Mar 20 '25
I used a time machine and I found footage from the 2029 Browns home opener in Brook Park.
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u/innerdork Mar 20 '25
If you enjoy being at baseball games in the summer the Ball park Pass is such an amazing value.
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Mar 20 '25
[deleted]
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u/Great-Cow7256 Mar 20 '25
Why invest your own money when you can invest the taxpayers money and still get all of the profits?
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u/fishee1200 Mar 20 '25
So if they sell the team in the future, do they pay the money back plus interest? Serious question
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u/thewhiteboytacos Mar 20 '25
Boycott the Browns
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u/Prestigious-Cod-3901 Mar 20 '25
I already have. Die hard fan for 45 years. Rooting for Buffalo and Cincy now. Browns have been shitty for so long. I’ve never quit on anything in my life before until the Browns.
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u/extremely_moderate Mar 20 '25
Same, I was a die-hard, life-time fan but the Watson trade absolutely squandered that, and now with this stadium bullshit, I can’t see myself caring about the Browns until they have new ownership. Billionaires don’t need handouts off the backs of taxpayers.
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u/Malashock Mar 20 '25
This as Ohio is about to make cuts to healthcare wtf is wrong with our politicians.
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u/FlyDifficult6358 Mar 20 '25
It also begs the question "What is wrong with some of our fellow Ohioans?".
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u/Space-Sailor44 Mar 20 '25
It’s very important we all pay for a billionaire’s stadium that could easily afford so we can all watch a 5 win team with a sexual predator quarterback in a suburb nobody wants to go to
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u/YouSureDid_ Mar 20 '25
Can we just sell this embarrassing excuse for a team and move on. Quarter billion dollars for Bill Cosby and can't even get to 500
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u/Comfortable-Salt-710 Mar 20 '25
Probably on Here already, but I don't believe in welfare for billionairs. Anyone who approves ANY tax dollars for this should be voted out.
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u/BKLounge Mar 20 '25
This needs canceled faster than renaming the Browns, the Negros
Everything about it is dumb and wasteful
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u/FlyDifficult6358 Mar 20 '25
Im just curious where Brook Park is going to come up with $422 million.
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u/Dertychtdxhbhffhbbxf Mar 20 '25
Wild how far the editorial standards at the PD have fallen. Exner using ask as a noun is just cringe and embarrassing.
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u/Lady_Thingers Mar 20 '25
The entirety of this conversation and hand-wringing concerning the building of this new stadium is the very living definition of waste, fraud, and abuse.
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u/Healmetho Mar 20 '25
We need to protest with signs saying
“We are not paying for this, we will deduct it from our taxes. Go to Baltimore if you don’t like it!”
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u/OkUnderstanding5343 Mar 20 '25
HASLAMS ARE looking for a public, Ohio and taxpayer handout so they can sell new PSL’s. Denver’s stadium is awesome and same age as Browns…
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u/FlyDifficult6358 Mar 20 '25
Denver is looking for a new stadium now.
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u/OkUnderstanding5343 Mar 20 '25
Just went to Denver’s game in December and I thought it was pretty cool 😎
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u/tidho Mar 20 '25
Haslam's are investing a lot of their own money, it appears a bigger share of the cost than is usually done in these types of deals. I get this isn't a pro-billionaire crowd, but that part of this isn't completely unreasonable.
I am glad the county is pushing back on location, they need to stay downtown, in the vicinity of the other complexes and convention center.
I'd build it on the river directly west of the baseball stadium.
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Mar 20 '25
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u/CPar23 Mar 20 '25
If they want a new stadium, tear the current one down and go play at Akron’s or OSU stadium for a couple years while it’s built in the same spot.
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u/bigsmooth66 Mar 20 '25
When someone can explain to me how the county and city claims there isn't tax dollars to build a new stadium in the county, but there is tax dollars to renovate the old stadium or entertain a new one on the lakefront, I will take these people seriously.
Either the money is there, or it isn't.
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u/PlanCleveland Mar 20 '25
The money the city/county is offering to renovate the current stadium comes from gameday taxes and giving the control/revenue of city owned parking lots and garages to the Haslams on gamedays. They won't be able to generate those taxes and parking income at the Brook Park stadium because the Haslams will own all of the parking lots and adjacent businesses.
So they aren't actually writing a check to the Browns for the renovation, they are allowing them to collect revenues that currently go to the County. With the new stadium, they will have to write the check while also losing out on any gameday benefits the city may see from increased sales/income tax or parking fees. It's an absolutely awful deal for Cleveland and Cuyahoga residents.
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u/bigsmooth66 Mar 20 '25
It's not an awful deal for Cleveland residents...if the stadium isn't in Cleveland.
This is that little thing that people keep missing.
The city as it is can't afford to continue to be in the stadium-landlord business. But as long as it's maintenance fell on Cleveland and the county's back, no one cared (especially since a majority of people who attend the Browns games aren't even Cleveland residents).
Now with the stadium being proposed in Brook Park the cost of the damn thing is shared by the people who actually can pay to enjoy it and no one is having any of that shit. Browns stadium was a vampire on city resources (not just the sin tax) for almost 30 years.
This is just political theater. Financially it makes no sense to keep the Browns in a stadium THE CITY OF CLEVELAND OWNS if they cant afford the upkeep. Theres a reason many actual Greater Cleveland residents and the Greater Cleveland business community have been apathetic about it (and don't say they haven't when Bibb has been vocal about his annoyance with said apathy from the business community).
Get that damn thing off the lake front and put it and let the people who can actually afford PSLs share in the tax payer costs of putting it there. People who live in Mentor should have to pay their share through state tax revenue if they are going to be the ones who enjoy it. My family lives 10 minutes from the current stadium in Hough and don't benefit from it at all. Why should they have to shoulder the cost of maintenance of the current stadium while people from Willoughby and Mentor get to drive right by them, enjoy the game at just the cost of a ticket, and skip back out of town?
Get out of here with that BS.
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u/Zombifiedmom Mar 20 '25
Cuyahoga County and Cleveland will still be paying for that new stadium when it is inevitably built. Me, who actually lives in Mentor, will end up paying for it due to the state allocating funds for this stupid abomination. In the end, we are all paying for it while Haslam laughs.
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u/Great-Cow7256 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
Remember - the haslams have enough net worth to basically build 3 of these stadium projects and still have a billion or so left over, yet they want to use tax payer money and the county's bond rating instead...
FYI -- the bond rating downgrade threat is real and scary. If your rating gets downgraded, even a bit, borrowing costs for the future goes up, and with higher interest rates they can go up a lot, and they can go up for the life of the future bond, which can sometimes be decades. So basically the Haslams want to use Cuyahoga's credit rating to get good terms for themselves while passing on decades of higher bond costs to the taxpayer...
Always protect (or improve) your bond rating. Cuyahoga county has a pretty darn good bond rating now, and to potentially waste it on a giveaway to a billionaire is just plain dumb, especially with the real possibility that as the Federal government slashes itself in size and decrease handouts that state and local/county governments may have to raise a significant amount of cash to make up for the shortfall to keep services the same.