RIP Art Modell

The Bills aren't going anywhere.
Amazing how often this canard is repeated.
There are already moneyed and influential parties in place to buy the team the moment Ralphie flatlines.
Their checkbooks stand ready, as drunk Jim Irsay says.

 

I moved to Cleveland after the Browns move, but soon enough that a pizza place down the street from my apartment was still selling a mega-meal called the "Bill Belly-Check." I remember the clock in Terminal Tower counting down when the NFL would return, and I remember WTAM (it might have still been WWWE) airing the first-season Ravens games with no sponsors, because either the station couldn't get any, or didn't even want to try. So in Cleveland, you heard ads for restaurants and car dealers in Baltimore.

This also was a time when the Indians were benefiting from the Browns move by selling out game after game. Of course, it helped the team was good, but no doubt local fans passion had to be redirected somewhere, and the Cavs were OK but deadly dull, so the Indians it was.

What I particularly remember about Cleveland is that it struck me as a city with deep scars over all the people, jobs, companies and whatever that had left it -- scars that came for good reason. This is a metro area -- not just a city, but a whole metro area -- that has lost population for 40 years, and has one of the lowest "new arrival" rates (adults moving in who didn't grow up in Cleveland) in the country, a reversal from its early- to mid-20th-century status as a place for immigrants. Cleveland used to be one of the biggest cities in the country, and now its metro area has fallen behind Cincinnati, and in the next census could also be behind Columbus.

So I look at the serious hurt over the Browns, and LeBron James, leaving in that context, and understand why the reaction there is hotter than it is anyplace else. It's not just a franchise or a star player that left. It was someone else, someone very prominent, saying fuck you to a city and metro area that has heard a lot of fuck yous in the last, oh, half-century.

And, I want to be clear, I enjoyed Cleveland very much while I lived there.

 

St. Louis fans did care when the Cardinals left. This one did.

But that was a generation ago. Time closes those wounds. As does a new team, that was spectacularly more successful than Bidwill's version, and delivered a Super Bowl champion. Those in St Louis adopted the Rams as their new toy; those of us who left, found new teams to root for in new locales.

Still doesn't change the fact that Bidwill is a despised and despicable individual. A loser in general in his chosen trade over half a century, who fell into his position in life through nothing more than birthright, and who twice pulled the rug out on entire cities to chase a few more dollars down the street. A loser who deserves every bit of scorn sent his way.

I have always felt owners of sports franchises needed to have a bigger view of their place and their responsibility rather than being strictly driven by dollars and cents. A view for the legacy of a metroplitan area and its history, a consideration for extended family members of hundreds of thousands of fans, and making decisions that factor those important variables into their decision making when faced with relocation. Of course, time and time again has shown this isn't the case--just high society prostitutes in Gucci and Armani suits selling themselves out for the almighty dollar.

So, when the vitriol is unleashed for these fly by night magnates, even at a time like Modell's death; well, sorry boys--you're only getting what you deserve, what in essence you bargained for.

Oh, and in terms of playing personality, the Cardiac Cards of Hart, Metcalf, Gray, Dobler, Dierdorf, were imminently fun to watch. The one bright spot in an otherwise rather mediocre stay in St. Louis for the Cardinals

 

And are these heavyweight parties going to continue to bitch about how inadequate Rich Stadium is (something I don't agree with) so Erie County will use money it doesn't have to build them a new stadium?

 

I realize this is all great fun for a peckerwood like Drew Magary to poke at.
Similar clowns are saying the Bucs will leave.
Never mind the iron-clad lease they have that expires in 2025.
Jim Kelly and his investors will buy the Bills when Ralph croaks.
Mark it.
The Chargers are on shakier ground than the Bills or Jaguars, but no one wants to talk about that.
Because it isn't a decaying Rust Belt city that has been absolutely leveled by a recession.
A lot of rubbing of crystal balls going on - and no backup.

 

Exactly. That's tacky.

And, if you covered the NFL at all, or the team the Browns were playing, you shouldn't have let him pay for your meal.

 

Don't forget Pat Tilley!

On one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand, passion for football in St. Louis is questionable.

I've been around St. Louis a lot since the mid 2000s. Yes, the Greatest Show On Turf team was beloved, but it didn't take long for St. Louis fans to walk away in droves as the dying embers of that team flickered away. The Rams didn't really get terrible until 2007, but the passion began to fade out long before that.

I'll never forget driving through downtown St. Louis during one fall Sunday. It was a Rams game day, but you'd have never known it. No wall-to-wall traffic, no vibe, no nothing. The Edwards Jones Dome, which is pretty soulless, doesn't help, but I just don't think football moves the needle in St. Louis much unless the team is wildly successful.

On the other hand, St. Louis has been cursed with some of the worst NFL ownership of modern times (Bidwell, Frontiere, et al), so it's not as if they've had someone passionate in the top seat to grow loyalty either.

But then again, no St. Louis-based would-be owner has ever filled that void either.

 

You're correct across the board. The attachment to the Rams seems luke warm at best and very fair weather, and if they don't show a more consistent level of support, they might in fact see their second football team leave the city. Not really pleasant to have two teams in a sport close up shop.

Seems to me the passion in the city was stronger for the Big Red. Maybe it was because they were the first. Maybe that's selective memory through 30 years of haze. Or maybe it's an opinion filtered through the lens of an impressionable youth who couldn't see how that could happen back then. But, perhaps unfortunately, understands completely how it could happen now.

 

I disagree. There was nothing unethical about it. The guy showed Cleveland hospitality and brought a group of writers a meal with drinks. And as I said earlier, we had no idea he picked up the tab until we were ready to leave and the waiter gave us the word and permission by Mr. Modell to purchase more drinks. No one took advantage of the situation.
I'm sure in your line of work, there has been an instance where someone has purchased you a McDonald's hamburger or such.

 

Go to a Missouri game as a spectator and tell me that a fun product isn't capable of rousing football interest in that state.
The problem with Missouri (one of them, anyway) is that it was an absolute football wasteland - college and pro - for so many years.
That will kill interest in a sport.

 

Yeah, but did he display Midwest Values?

Missouri fans make me sad because they have so much love and belief for their Tigers, and it is seldom repaid. They make me happy for the same reason.

Chiefs fans and their unrequited love, I don't care as much.

And, on topic: http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/37989194/

 

The Chiefs were quite the short-lived phenomenon in that state, a generation ago.
All that love and passion - for a brand of football that wasn't even particularly entertaining.