Browns Need to Know: First Energy Stadium Situation
The Cleveland Browns have to lose somewhere, right? Not funny? Well, the team has a situation with the home stadium, First Energy Stadium and it’s truly starting to loom as we move closer and closer to the start of the season this fall…
The Browns have a lease at the current lakefront facility that expires in 2028.
This via 92.3 the fan: “In 2015 the Browns completed a two-year, $120 million renovation of FirstEnergy Stadium, including modifying the seating bowl on the east and west ends of the stadium, club and suite renovations as well as audio and video board replacement but new stadiums have since opened in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Las Vegas with amenities Cleveland’s current stadium is incapable of housing.”
The biggest issue with the upcoming idea of a new stadium has to be the idea of a retractable roof. Now, that sounds like a great idea for the idea of football games (duh), but it could also allow the stadium to host various events such as concerts and other sporting events.
Now, that all sounds great.
However, everything costs money and the building of a retractable roof on the current stadium or an entirely new stadium, in general, would cost millions in tax-payer-dollars. Additionally, ticket prices would soar and that would make it much harder for fans to enjoy the team they love.
Want to know how much it would cost? Well, this is also via 92.3:
“The starting price tag for a new open-air stadium surpasses $1 billion easily. A domed stadium’s price tag starts north of $2 billion. A retractable roof facility would cost another $750 million to $1 billion more on top of that.”
Wow. If only I could pull that out of my back pocket and give it to the Haslam Family to use and resolve this situation before it becomes a huge problem in the coming years.
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I didn’t want to bring up this name but there was a former Browns owner that many say moved the team to Baltimore because Cleveland would not give him the funds to build a new stadium back in the ’90s. In doing some research, this is very foggy and there are some that say the city was willing to talk and others that say Modell was in the right because of the stadium issue.
Here’s an idea.
Let’s not have another stadium issue with Jimmy Haslam and our beloved Browns. We still have some time. The lease doesn’t expire until ’28. Maybe I’ll have a girlfriend by that time.
Speaking of girlfriends. I know an easy way to solve this dome solution.
Sorry, I just had to…
Anyway, let’s hope the Haslam Family, the City of Cleveland and all others involved are able to resolve this situation before it becomes a huge issue in the future.
We want our Browns to play, even if they lose. Let’s give them a great stadium to do it in.
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