Is the city of Baltimore no better than the Irsays?

It was Memorial Stadium, fwiw.

 

Yes, my mistake. Built and paid for with public funds in 1952-53 primarily to attract the St. Louis Browns.

 

It didn't have a thing to do with attendance directly. My point was that the lack of attendance made it much easier for Irsay to pull the trigger.

One can argue Irsay was the chicken before the egg in terms of Colts fans abandoning ship from '78 onwards, but that egg rolled away from the chicken pretty damn quick.

No one was holding a gun to Colts fans making them leave Memorial Stadium en masse. Which is why I get pissed when they moan and groan about how they were raped out of their team, especially when they got a fucking team back by the same methodry. Quit bitching already.

And also, who gives a fuck whether the colors/names were kept or not? That's a dodge-move technicality to take the heat off of themselves for their benign Colts neglect guilt.

(I know I just put this badboy in Starman's "all owners are evil bastards" wheelhouse, waiting to see what he does with it.)

 

It is part of the discussion when it comes the ex-Colts fans bitching and moaning about how they were '"raped" out of their franchise. They abandoned their team, bad owner or not, and paid a heavy price.

The way I see it is this: don't bitch if you don't show.

And all of this fails to note the ridiculous chutzpah of it all, given that they stole a team from Cleveland.

I'd respect them more if they were unapologetic about the way they got the Ravens, yet they still whine about losing the Colts.

Just STFU already.

 

So a face-painting, bone-throwing season ticket holder from the Dawg Pound in the late 80s doesn't like the team now because they suck? Be happy, like I am, that Cleveland has a team to be miserable about. Even if they are 0-16, I will watch or listen to every game because I was lost the three years there wasn't a team in Cleveland to follow. You don't sound very loyal.

 

Once again, we get the argument that fans/residents of a metropolitan area have an "obligation" to support incompetent, exploitative, money-sucking billionaire franchise owners, and failure to do so reflects badly on them, and their city.

 

May not reflect badly on them, but it also doesn't help them keep their team.

And the Colts wanted a new stadium in Baltimore 30 years after the old one was built? Hell, by today's standards, that's patience.

 

YES! That's what I'm talking about Starman.

I do find it ironic that the author of the above statement has made it clear he's got at least a link to Honolulu blue territory, where Lions fans probably best embody my loyalty argument.
Fear not, Lions fans, your day will come too! (Once they shitcan Millen in 2020!)

 

They don't have an "obligation," correct. But if an owner has a carrot dangled in front of him like, oh, a new stadium he doesn't have to pay for, and his hometown isn't giving it to him, then you bet that owner will bolt. Just like in any other business -- if your location isn't cutting it, you find a new location. As Irsay himself so eloquently put it in his welcome ceremony in Indianapolis, "It's not the city's team, it's not your team -- it's my team, and I own it."

What fans tend to forget is they're rooting for businesses. It's just like if you have a favorite restaurant that gets a new owner, and the food starts slipping. You might go out of some sense of loyalty for a while, but eventually you'll go somewhere else. Or say the ownership stays the same, but it's in a neighborhood people are fleeing. If enough people don't go, the owner is going to shut down, or move to wherever it is his customers have gone -- even if it's perceived as an institution in the community.

The problem in pro sports, of course, is that there isn't another restaurant to go if your favorite shuts down. So that's rock and a hard place fans get put under -- we can stop going, demand that our city fathers and mothers stop financing this bullshit, but we have to be comfortable with the idea that if we do that, we might not have a team anymore if someone decides to make a sweet deal with the owner.

One other thing: I would argue that the pendulum has swung toward cities NOT looking bad if they tell a team to stuff it. If the Sonics leave Seattle, are people going to change their opinions about the city? If Indianapolis hadn't shelled out (again) to keep the Colts, there might have been some psychic trauma, but there also would have been a recognition that maybe now we can spend the money on, oh, police protection so the city murder rate doesn't keep skyrocketing. In terms of real economic loss, the announcement Indianapolis' Ford plant is shutting down carries far, far more weight than the loss of a football team.

 

Holy sheet, how did i miss this blog entry?? Fkng irsay team returns to balt to play real browns. Right after 20 yr ann of the drive. What a horrible day for clevelanders

 

Chris Redman (then of the Ravens) made the same request.

Denied.

 

After the Colts win, they should all take off their helmets, hold them up en masse, point at the horseshoe logo, then themselves. Then repeat, again and again.