Is there a solid case to be made for his inclusion?
Based on this (somewhat bitter) article his accomplishments don’t seem all that great.
No. What did he do in his career? He took over what was one of the most winning franchises in sports history, maybe the winningest, and he dared the greatest player ever to play the game to retire - which he did, and he fired the most innovative NFL coach ever.
He managed to run a franchise into bankruptcy which not only was consistently top 5 in merchandise sales, had decades-long lists for season tickets, and even had a gift-wrapped stadium lease for $1 per year which not only paid for the stadium and all the upkeep, but he was also allowed to take the proceeds from charging the Indians rent from playing in that stadium.
Somehow, through all of that, he managed to actually be so incompetant at being an NFL owner that he continued to bleed money and required a bailout from a shithole of a city to stay afloat.
He has a track record of nothing but failure. What’s the case for putting him in the Hall? Because he was a shitty owner for a long enough time?
Fuck him. He shouldn’t be in the hall, he should have his corpse exhumed so that people can piss on it in the dumpster behind the hall. I’m glad to see he was rejected this year, which was his best chance since people always love to whitewash the reality of someone when they die.
To add, the only case that can be made for him is that he was involved in the NFL with some TV contracts and growing the game. Big fucking deal. First, you’re patting a guy on the back for being good for the the owners, not good for the game or good for the fans, which is not hall of fame worthy. Secondly, crediting him for the great expansion of the nfl is fucking ridiculous, like the NFL would be some backwater minor sport without him.
SenorBeef covered it. The ill will outside of Baltimore for Modell is immense.
EDIT: What a whitewash that article was! Who wrote it? checks A Baltimore writer? Figures. The claims in that article are absurd. He “left the colors”? Please, he had to be sued. They were going to be the Baltimore Browns. And that’s the best of his claims.
He didn’t even do that well, either. His contract with CBS landed the NFL $14M right before the AFL concluded a similar deal with NBC that netted $36M for their inferior product.
Hear, hear! Fuck that guy. What he did to Paul Brown alone was reprehensible enough, let alone everything else he left in his greedy wake.
I’m not from Cleveland, and have no particular animosity toward Art Modell.
I’d vote no, NOT because he moved his team away from loyal fans, but because, in my opinion, VERY few owners in ANY sport belong in any Hall of Fame.
I’m a Giants fan who LIKED Wellington Mara, but still can’t see any reason he should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. To me, the only owners who deserve Hall of Fame consideration are those who:
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Helped create and build their leagues (the Charlie Comiskeys and Clark Griffiths), or
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Those who acted as their own coaches or General Managers and built dynasties (George Halas, Connie Mack).
Otherwise, I see no reason to induct ANY owner, even the owners of immensely successful teams- not Clint Murchison, not Dan Topping or Del Webb, not Robert Kraft, and not Art Modell.
Most owners who are already in their sport’s Hall of Fame are undeserving (Tom Yawkey??? Are you KIDDING me???).
To address a few points in that article:
The NFL used the potential of moving another team like Jacksonville or others to Cleveland as a way to extort their cities into paying for the new stadiums for them. The NFL kept up this bluff as long as possible to get at more public money. As a result, the expansion franchise wasn’t started and granted ownership until a few months before the season began. They had to hire staff, scouting departments, build facilities, scout players, construct an entire franchise in the span of a few short months due to the NFL’s greed. The NFL also altered the rules of the expansion draft to be less favorable after they were embarassed that the Carolina panthers made it deep into the playoffs in their second year of existance. And, probably, because they fucking hate Cleveland for forcing them to give them a franchise again.
So the “Browns still in Cleveland” is something, but it’s not something Modell or the NFL did out of the goodness of their fucking hearts. The city had to fight tooth and nail for that shit, and when they won, the NFL still gave them a big fuck you by starting them off on the wrong foot, ensuring that at least the first few years would be futile.
As far as the stadium goes - the city of Cleveland was already going to build Modell a nice new modern stadium, gift wrapped in a $1 per year lease. You see, Modell was such a greedy fucking asshole that that wasn’t good enough. The problem was - Cleveland was also planning to build a new baseball stadium too. The new baseball stadium meant that the teams wouldn’t share the stadium as they did, and Modell wouldn’t get rent money from the baseball team using “his” (built by the city, paid for by the city) stadium.
Oh, yeah, your failed expansion effort. You know who was one of the key players in blocking your failed expansion effort, Baltimore? Your beloved Asshole Modell. He wanted to keep the threat of moving the team to your STD-infested drug den of a city as leverage to have the city build him a new stadium and give him a new sweetheart deal, so he was one of the prime movers that kept your team from getting an expansion team.
The colors were never dragged through another city because Cleveland fans fought harder than any city has before or since to retain that. Hundreds of thousands of people marched, people made legal cases, people forced congressional hearings on the issue. It was no gift. It was the only thing our passionate dedication could salvage from the civic rape you committed.
The fact that Ravens fans still lament the loss of the Colts is fucking disgusting. First off - I don’t like when a team moves, but if any team move is justified, the Colts were. Their attendance was less than half the stadium capacity. They were some fair weather fans that weren’t supporting their team through rough times.
The Browns had been one of the NFL’s most financially supported franchises for decades despite the relatively small market size and lack of affluency in Cleveland. They were certainly the most financially supportive per market size in the league. The city of Cleveland paid for the stadium Modell used for his team, paid for the upkeep too, and even gave him millions per year to allow the Cleveland baseball team to his “his” stadium. You could not ask for a fucking easier job to make a profit in the corporate world than owning a fucking NFL franchise that essentially cost nothing and had the greatest fan support in the league, and yet Modell managed to fuck that up.
The Colts moved when their fanbase stopped supporting them. The Browns moved when what must be the most fucking incompetant business owner of all time managed to lose money in a position where it’s just about impossible to lose money, despite the Browns having as good of fan support as any team in the history of sports.
And worst is the fucking lack of moral character from a bunch of hypocrite asshole fucks who supported this. I’ve heard Ravens fans - actively supporting the Ravens - who lament the horrible loss of the Colts. So really, you’d gone through all that and you think it was devastating to you, and you’re okay with inflicting that on someone else? Anyone who was a butthurt Colts fan who became a Ravens fan is not only an asshole but needs to be hit in the face with a medieval warhammer.
If only you were stil around somewhere, knowing how much you were hated and would be hated for decades to come.
You had choices like, well, take the fucking deal that Cleveland was offering you to build you a new stadium and pay the operating costs, instead of taking the bribe and cashout deal that Crackmore was offering you. Or you could’ve sold the team to another Cleveland owner. The eventual owner of the expansion franchise, Al Lerner, was Modell’s friend and made a generous offer to buy up the team. If you were that much of a wildly fucking incompetant owner, you could’ve taken a buyout and lived the rest of your days in luxury. But no, you had to take the fucking buyout that fucking Crackden USA was offering instead, because that way you could feed your greedy little incompetant face while still having the power trip of owning a football franchise.
In conclusion, I call for Modell’s corpse to be exhumed and put on public display with no protection on a park bench in the city of Cleveland and for the city of Baltimore to be hit with the full yield of a LGM-30 Minuteman III ICBM. And I don’t mean those pussy ass post-START treaty limited ones, I mean load that fucker up.
Is anyone aware how Senor Beef feels about Art Modell?
Well, I don’t think he’s rooting for the Ravens in the Superbowl.
If anything, Senor Beef is understating the case against Modell.
Modell expected forgiveness from Cleveland, but he never offered any atonement to them. I’d say to hell with him, but I’m hoping that a just God has sent him there already.
As far as the Colts go, there’s no comparison. Hyman Pressman, Baltimore’s comptroller, sabotaged any effort to get so much as a renovation to Memorial Stadium AND pushed through a ballot initiative that completely killed any possibility of a new stadium in Baltimore.
Further, the state legislature was going to claim the team by imminent domain, something totally unprecedented. First they screwed the team, then they tried to steal it from the owners. I despise the Irsays as much as anyone else, but anybody could see that they had no choice except Baltimorons, who continue to deny reality to this day when the subject is the Colts or the Browns. Incidentally, Memorial Stadium was renovated almost immediately after the Colts’ departure. Amazing how they found the money, isn’t it? It’s almost like they were trying to play hardball and lost. Contrast that with Cleveland who offered Modell everything he wanted except unearned rent money from the Indians.
Obviously Brown was one of the most important figures in NFL history. But wasn’t the team kind of treading water near the end of his tenure? The Giants had surpassed them as the power in the Eastern Conference. Brown had ignored the Louisville coach who advised him to sign one of his former QBs that was just waived by Pittsburgh. Fella by the name of Johnny Unitas. The Browns did win a championship under Brown’s replacement Blanton Collier. Maybe they would have if Brown was there. But there are a number of top coaches and managers who kind of stagnate their last few years: Tom Landry, Joe McCarthy, Dick Irvin Sr, John McGraw