Modell owned Browns for 35 years before announcing during 1995 season he'd move them to Baltimore. Plain Dealer's Nov. 7, 1995 report on planned move included in this report.
Art Modell in Baltimore in Nov., 1995, when he announced he was moving the Browns from Cleveland to Baltimore. Canton, Ohio -- Art Modell, who owned the Cleveland Browns from 1961 until he moved them to Baltimore following the 1995 season, is among 26 semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's 2011 class.
Modell, 85, was the Baltimore Ravens' principal owner from 1996-2004.
The following Associated Press report on the HOF semifinalists is followed by The Plain Dealer's Nov. 7, 1995 story on Modell's plans to move the Browns.
From the Associated Press report:
Curtis Martin, Jerome Bettis and Marshall Faulk, three of the top 10 rushers in NFL history, are among the semifinalists.
Two other star running backs, Terrell Davis and Roger Craig, are on the list released Sunday.
Martin retired from the New York Jets as the No. 4 overall rusher with 14,101 yards in 11 seasons. One of the most consistent backs of his era, he ran for 1,000 yards in 10 straight seasons.
Bettis ranks fifth at 13,662 yards in 13 seasons, three for the Rams and a decade with the Steelers, with whom he won the 2006 Super Bowl in his final game.
Faulk is 10th in rushing with 12,279 yards for the Colts and Rams and won the 2000 Super Bowl with St. Louis. A a prime receiver out of the backfield, Faulk was the 2000 NFL MVP.
Davis also was a league MVP, in 1998 with Denver, and won two Super Bowls with the Broncos. Craig won Super Bowls with San Francisco in 1985, 89 and '90.
Cornerback Deion Sanders also is on the list and, like Martin, Bettis and Faulk, is in his first year of eligibility. Sanders scored nine times on interceptions, also played offense at times, and is a former major league baseball player. He won the 1995 Super Bowl with San Francisco and the 1996 game with Dallas.
Top receivers Cris Carter, Tim Brown and Andre Reed are among the semifinalists, along with tight end Shannon Sharpe; offensive linemen Willie Roaf and Dermontti Dawson; defensive linemen/linebackers Charles Haley, Chris Doleman and Kevin Greene; defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy; defensive end Richard Dent; cornerbacks Aeneas Williams and Lester Hayes; punter Ray Guy; former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue; former 49ers owner Ed DeBartolo Jr.; former Giants general manager George Young; former Cardinals and Chargers coach Don Coryell; and NFL Films originator Ed Sabol.
The list will be cut to 17, including senior committee nominees Chris Hanburger, a Redskins linebacker from 1965-78, and Les Richter, a Rams linebacker from 1954-62. Between four and seven enshrinees -- no more than five modern-day nominees can make it -- will be announced Feb. 5, the day before the Super Bowl.
The actual enshrinement will be in August.
The following story was published in the Nov. 7, 1995 edition of The Plain Dealer.
Browns Bolt
Modell warned mayor, governor a month ago
Deal announced in Baltimore
Nov. 7, 1995
By Plain Dealer reporters Timothy Heider, Tom Diemer and Evelyn Theiss
Plain Dealer reporter Tony Grossi contributed to this article. Plain Dealer reporter Michael McIntyre compiled the reports.
Cleveland, Ohio -- Art Modell finally ran the play he has been drawing up in secret for the Browns all season.
He executed an end-around that could sweep professional football out of Cleveland despite a defensive blitz called by Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White.
Modell was introduced by the Maryland governor as the "owner of the Baltimore Browns" during a news conference in Baltimore to announce that the 49-year-old franchise had agreed to play in Memorial Stadium next season. The Browns will move into a tailor-made, 70,000-seat stadium at Camden Yards, next to Oriole Park, by 1998.
"We are going to fight this fight," White said. "I can't say we're not going to lose, but when it's over, the other side's going to know they've been in a fight."
Parris Glendening (left), then Maryland's governor, and Art Modell at the announcement Modell was moving the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore.White also called on Cuyahoga County voters to go to the polls today and approve Issue 5, an extension of the tax on cigarettes and alcohol to fund Stadium renovations. The sin tax, White said, is the last piece of the financing package to fix up the Stadium. With that in hand, he reasoned, Cleveland can argue in court and to the NFL that the Browns have no good reason to leave.
What is at stake is a proud franchise, an economic engine and a team that has been part of the city's fabric for half a century.
Modell, the team's majority owner, is leaving for money.
"The fans have supported the Browns for years, but frankly, it came down to a simple proposition. I had no choice," he said.
Modell said he had been losing millions in Cleveland in recent years. Now, he will be getting one of the richest stadium deals be- stowed on a National Football League team. His agreement with Baltimore, he said, was "far beyond the capacity" of Cleveland to match.
White said the city never was given the chance. In a Baltimore news conference hours after the move was announced, he expressed anger at Modell for taking the team to Baltimore "like a thief in the night ... before we had a chance to make an offer."
Some estimates have Modell making $30 million a year in Camden Yards.
Baltimore agreed to build a modern, $200 million stadium, financed with bonds backed by a sports lottery. The Browns will play there rent-free and reap profits from all concessions, parking and signage.
In addition, the Browns will get millions each year from the sale of 108 luxury boxes and 7,500 club seats. And they will get up to $75 million for expenses that include a new training facility from the sale of approximately 50,000 permanent seat licenses - one-time fees that give fans the right to buy season tickets.
The Browns will have to market the seats themselves, so Modell is betting that fan demand is high in Baltimore. Last spring, he adamantly rejected seat licensing as a way to fund renovations of the Stadium in Cleveland.
He expressed sorrow at leaving. Modell said he would leave a "good part of my soul" in Cleveland, his home for more than three decades. "I can never forget the kindness of the people of Cleveland," he said.
While those people were cheering the Indians in their first World Series in 41 years, they lost the Browns.
The deal was struck Oct. 27 at 8 a.m. during a meeting in a secluded corner of Baltimore-Washington International Airport in a corporate jet owned by Modell's partner, former Maryland banker Alfred Lerner. Modell, his son David, and Lerner flew in for the signing and left immediately afterward.
An official announcement was planned for the Monday after the Browns' last regular-season game on Dec. 17. But Modell moved it up, he said, because word was leaking out, and in doing so, he avoided protracted negotiations with Cleveland officials.
"I was not going to put myself in the position of demanding something, and then being accused time and time again of being an extortionist, shakedown artist and what-have-you," he said in answer to a question.
John A. Moag, chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, which will build the Browns' new stadium, said he first contacted the Browns in March but didn't enter serious negotiations until mid-September.
Since the start of summer training camp, Modell had refused to discuss Stadium issues, but he broke that silence Friday to confirm that a deal was in the works.
White said Modell had been duplicitous in his dealing with the city and had used the people of Cuyahoga County as a "doormat to cut a better deal."
He said the city would pursue legal action because Modell has a binding obligation to play in Cleveland.
"We have not been dealt with fairly; we have not been dealt with honestly. And we are not going to go away," White said. "We have been wronged. I did not come here to go through the motions. We are going to do what it takes. The principle of how we've been treated is worth fighting for."
If the city can prove Modell was untruthful, White said, then "someone owes us redress, either Art or the NFL."
White and the city laid the groundwork yesterday for its court fight in winning an injunction in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court that bars the team from leaving before a Nov. 20 hearing. The Browns don't intend to leave until after the season anyway, and expressed confidence that the team owners would prevail in court.
Modell and White will be in Dallas today for a meeting of NFL owners. The move is subject to approval by at least 23 of the 30 owners, and many already have expressed displeasure with it. But even if the owners don't approve, a move is difficult to block.
The NFL failed twice this year to stop team moves. The Los Angeles Raiders returned to Oakland and still are in legal battles with the league. And when the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis, the NFL dropped its objections only after the Rams shared some of the money St. Louis was offering.
Modell arrived at the announcement yesterday in a five-car motorcade surrounded by motorcycle police, to the hosannas of about 200 fans chanting "Art! Art! Art!" One former Clevelander, Kevin McCarthy, held a placard saying "$hame," while a handful of other people protested the state's eagerness to please a pro football team as social programs go unfunded.
Tom Griffith, a lifelong Browns fan, and Gary Laurer, head of the Cleveland Browns backers club in Baltimore, said rooting for the team would never be the same.
"It's hard to be happy when we get someone else's team, particularly a team from Cleveland, which has supported their team for so many years," Laurer said.
"But this is what's become of the NFL," Griffith said. "It's not a fan's game anymore. It's for the owners."
In his remarks, Modell noted the irony: Baltimore luring someone else's football team after losing its own in 1984.
"I know what you went through 11 years ago, because that is exactly what is happening in Cleveland right now," Modell said softly. "I am deeply, deeply sorry from the bottom of my heart."
He declined to say whether he would attend any more Browns home games or even if he would return to his Waite Hill home.
"This has been a very, very tough road for my family and me," Modell said of the weeks and months of uncertainty over the Browns' future.