Browns Seeking New $1B Stadium

[RealGM Wiretap]

The Cleveland Browns are seeking a new $1 billion stadium as part of a lakefront redevelopment project in the city, according to a report.

The team has called FirstEnergy Stadium home for 23 years.

Ownership wants a covered stadium and are willing to move downtown to get the new building. 

The Browns have yet to confirm or deny the report.

Via Jeff Kerr/CBS Sports

[MagicFan12345]

Why would ownership want a covered stadium?

[Cavsfansince84]

The city should already own the team.

[deeps6x]

Why should the city pay for a stadium in this day and age? Give them tax breaks, nothing more. Fk it, and fk em if they want to leave.

[gflem]

They should have domed the current stadium when it was built. Another case of a lack of foresight by the politicians in the city. Opening up the current stadium site for development should/would be a boon to the city's economy, prime lakefront properties like that and the airport would be excellent areas for another casino, hotels, shopping and all that would go with that kind of development.
The city politicians have been crying for decades about this and the lack of people actually living in the downtown area but have done almost nothing about it. The weather alone there calls for a dome, and for all the old timers (which I qualify as) who want to go with the "football should be played outside", and "its Cleveland, we're tougher than the weather" they need to give that up and join the 21st century. As for how to pay for it, Cuyahoga county is already the highest taxed county in Ohio and trusting the corrupt politicians there to oversee a project like this is another story, which is why things don't actually get done there.

[gflem]

Why would ownership want a covered stadium?

I recently moved to SC from Cleveland, to escape the weather and high taxes. I'll answer your question with a question or two. Have you ever watched a game live with wind chills of -20 to -30 degrees? Do you know what lake effect snow is? Not trying to be harsh, I see you are a Magic fan so I'm not sure you are familiar with things like this but they are very real and can and do prevent many large scale events from taking place there for a large portion of the year. A dome would open up the city to large scale events beyond football year round.

[slicedbread2]

If Haslam wants it, he should build it himself. Quite frankly these cities have bigger issues to deal with such as crumbling infrastructure and social services drying up in the cities. Then again every big city bends back over barrel and accommodates this B.S. and then they'll pull this crap another 30 years later before the bonds owed on financing the stadium are paid off when the money spent on that could've been used to improve other more important stuff.

It doesn't help that there's a potential recession looming so I don't think this will get built anytime soon, but knowing that politicians are more concerned about keeping their jobs, they'll pass this in spite of the proven negative consequences associated with publicly funded stadiums going back over 5 decades where best case scenario you get a slight loss/break even and worse case you get a white elephant that's killing you.

Then again sports owners love stadiums the way they love their cheerleaders: young and supple(Dan Snyder reference for those who may be confused).

[Synciere]

Why should the city pay for a stadium in this day and age? Give them tax breaks, nothing more. Fk it, and fk em if they want to leave.

You just answered your own question in your post. The threat of leaving over a stadium is very real, especially if the lease is coming due. Cities should pay because they benefit also, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars annually. What, they should get tens of millions of dollars for free?