I‘m not a Rams fan. This is because I do not respect football teams that play indoors, a practice (rightly) mocked by my people: Cleveland Browns fans. Not that we have much to brag about other than our terrible weather.
Still, I never hated the Rams. Having lived in St. Louis, where I attended college, and now happily married into a family of die-hard Rams fans, the recent news of the Rams’ departure to Los Angeles has brought dark days. When casually explaining my views on domed teams to my (then future) brother-in-law, I was on the verge of signing my own death warrant, so far as relationship futures were concerned. The Edward Jones Dome is a Cathedral to Rams faithful and here I was insulting it when meeting my wife’s brother for the first time.
As a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan, I can offer empathy, but I cannot offer hope. Even casual observers of sports remember when, in 1994, we lost our team to Baltimore: We were pissed. We still are pissed, and some of us are pissing on Art Modell’s grave and getting arrested for it. Through a legally dubious lawsuit, we got to keep our team: and by that, I mean our name, records, etc. We did not get a team for a few years until 1999. I use the term “team” loosely… The best player in the new Browns history, unquestionably, is Phil Dawson, our kicker from 1999 to 2012.
Unlike the Rams, the Browns were/are a storied franchise with a history rooted in the city. The Rams moved to St. Louis from Los Angeles, after the long-mediocre Cardinals moved to Arizona. St. Louis is a great sports town and immediately embraced the Rams, where they quickly became “the greatest show on turf” and won the Superbowl. But in the last ten years, like the Browns, the Rams have battled for the distinction of worst NFL franchise of the decade. Attendance declined and stayed stagnant: In the past decade, the Rams have never ranked better than 23rd in attendance, while the Browns got as high as seventh.
Attendance Rank, 2006-2016
What’s interesting about this statistic is that the Browns and Rams had a pretty similar record of performance, in that they’ve both been spectacularly bad. That’s a positive thing about St. Louisans, I suppose, they’re less inclined to support a bad team. The Browns are a civic religion, it’s said, but I think the reality is that we suffer from some mental defect that causes us to waste our time, sanity, and money on a consistent loser. Sort of like going to a casino every week and betting your whole pot of cash on Keno, or, worse, actually betting on the Browns.
St. Louis, on the other hand, has the Cardinals — the most successful baseball franchise in National League History — and the Blues, who lack a Stanley Cup, but who are typically pretty good. Cleveland has the Indians and Cavaliers, who haven’t won it all since 1948. The Cleveland Crunch indoor soccer team is our most successful legacy, and even they are gone. Cleveland has cornered the market in disappointment.
Before the Browns left, taxpayers sin-taxed themselves to give the two inferior teams beautiful new stadiums, and Modell, landlord of the city-owned Municipal Stadium, lost a major client, the Indians. Accounts differ as to whether or why, but Modell did not get a new stadium. Civic leaders decided his sweetheart lease (something like $1 a year) on an aging 64 year old facility was enough. After leaving, Clevelanders refused to (and still do) admit any culpability in the team’s departure.
Taxpayer funded stadiums are generally a stupid enterprise, but Cleveland wasn’t standing on principle here. For whatever reason, the Browns didn’t get in on the “Gateway Project” and Modell made a rational decision in leaving. I still hate the guy for a variety of reasons as any Browns fan should, but moving wasn’t an irrational decision. (Sacking Bernie Kosar on the other hand…)
St. Louis is the other side of the coin: They jumped through every hoop to show Stan Kroenke that they would pay for a beautiful new stadium. And how did he respond? He poked them in the eye when pleading with NFL owners to move his team. Putting lamb’s blood on the lintel apparently wasn’t enough for the NFL’s angel of death to pass over.
In 2002, St. Louis and Missouri also did, in the interest of consistency, shell out taxpayer cash for the hometown-favorite Cardinals beautiful new stadium. As a freshman at Saint Louis University, I remember the down state anger at the deal, with billboards along the highway reading: “If Cardinals build highways, we’ll build stadiums.” (They’ve won two World Series since then, I might add.)
Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s report to the NFL, which put the city’s image in the national eye, drew cries from the populace. Yet, there are some elements of truth there: St. Louis is not doing particularly well. Elected officials, as is expected, defended the city. The long-time mayor, Francis Slay, penned a “hey, it’s not as bad as he says” letter to the NFL comparing St. Louis to a handful of like cities, including… Cleveland.
Yes, that Cleveland. Comeback city since… it’s been so long I can’t remember. But like St. Louis, I love it so. Part of Slay’s argument, seriously, is “we have one of the country’s best symphonies and best art museums.” Which is weird because this is the exact argument Cleveland boosters have used for some time. No offense to St. Louis, but Cleveland’s museums and orchestra (and hospitals) are all better, and Cleveland is also not doing so hot. We’re also losing population, have bad infrastructure, suffering schools, archaic tax and regulatory regimes . . . but housing is affordable!
A two page rah-rah letter from a Mayor is a PR gesture, not a persuasive argument. Professional sports teams don’t relocate or form in cities because of museums and orchestras, just as young families don’t move places because their zoo is free.
There’s a tribalism aspect to losing a team that only dawned on me as I got older — I was in fourth grade when the Browns left — and later, when I left Cleveland for good. It’s easier to say “Art Modell was bad and he was wrong to move the team.” Today, I see it from my college friends on Facebook and Twitter about Stan Kroenke. It’s harder to say “Art Modell was bad and a jerk, and while I think what he did was wrong, there have to be reasons other than spite.” And reason there is: profit.
The NFL is an increasingly watchable, yet increasingly disgusting enterprise. Modell was among the last of the millionaire owners: they’re pretty much all billionaires now. It’s fine to hate Stan Kroenke, but everything he said, even if he was a jerk about it, can’t be false. Introspection is a tough task, perhaps tougher than putting together a winning football team.
It’d be nice if, as Browns fans have long pondered, our team, or a new St. Louis franchise, could be just like the Packers. One assumes the NFL would never let that happen again.
While St. Louis is a great sports town, replacing a beloved franchise is never the same. In their short 20 year span, the Rams achieved more success than the (now Arizona) Cardinals did. But they also sputtered their way out of town. St. Louis may very well get another team, and I hope it works out for them better than it did for us. Like Drew Carey, I’ve gotten to the point where the Browns are unwatchable.
Professional football might be dead in my house, and for my in-laws, but hold your head high Saint Louisans: In a month or so, you’ll have baseball back. And boy, are you guys good at baseball.
