How the Browns Became the Ravens?

On November sixth, nineteen ninety four, Cleveland Brown's owner Art Model, stood in front of Camden Yard and announced what is now known as the Move that the Cleveland Browns, the team that he owned, was going to leave Cleveland and moved to the football hungary city of Baltimore in the following season, making him a hero in Baltimore in a villain in Cleveland. Today, we're going to dive into how this all happened and how the Cleveland Browns, despite moving to Baltimore, are still in the league today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question to listen out for is who was the coach of the Browns when they moved from Cleveland to Baltimore. Now, the Cleveland Browns have been around for a long time. They were founded in nineteen forty four by the coach Paul Brown and a businessman named Arthur McBride and became a charter member of the All American Football Conference in nineteen forty six, and they dominated that conference, winning four straight titles, and after that conference folded, they would later join the NFL in nineteen fifty, where they immediately showed their dominance, winning the nineteen fifty NFL Championship and would win four more by nineteen sixty four, but that was their last NFL championship, and a main reason being largely due to their owner See McBride, who founded the team with Paul Brown and decided to sell the team in nineteen fifty three for six hundred thousand dollars which was a record at the time, which due to inflation, would be around seven million dollars today, and they would sell them to a group led by New York ad executive Art Model, who wasn't a rich man but was a hard worker. But because he did not have the money, he had to find friends and finance a lot of it, and this was the downfall of the team because at this time teams needed money to back football was the NFL was an up starting league. It was growing year over year, but it still required a lot of capital to keep things going. And before Art Modell even moved and within ten years, Art Model was a villain to a lot of the Cleveland faithful as he fired Paul Brown, founder of the team, who the team is named after due to questionable decisions such as trading for Ernie Davis, who was a running back from Syracuse who was first Black Heisman Trophy winner when they already had Jim Brown and unfortunately this happened just before Ernie found out he had leukemia and would later pass away, never playing a down for the Browns. But even after firing him, the Browns would go on to win the nineteen sixty four championship and reach the title game the following year. But as the seasons went on and they merged with the AFL and Paul Browns, who started a new team in Cincinnati for the AFL called the Cincinnati Bengals, who after the merger between the AFL and NFL, became a rival of the Browns. But because of this merger in nineteen seventy, money kept going up. The AFL really pushed the NFL to pay players more, and it costs the NFL owners a lot more now some of them had money to pay for it. Had great financial situations, but Art Modell was leveraged as much as he could be, and he was moving around money. He started a corporation called the Stadium Corporation that was looking for other sites as the munipicipal stadium that they had been playing in needed renovations and it cost three hundred thousand dollars a year to operate, so they looked for a new site. And they were okay for a while because they were sharing this facility with the Cleveland Indians who were helping split the rent for Art Modell. But this stadium corporation would buy land, buy location, sell it back to the Browns, or sell it back to the corporation, basically moving money around, making it look like there was money when there really wasn't. It was financially basically a house of cars that were waiting to fall down, and it was coming due as the Cleveland Indians were going to build their own park and were leaving Municipal Stadium, meaning the Browns would have to pay for the whole bill and the stadium needed renovations. There were multiple complexes, multiple options that went to vote, looking for public to help split the bill, but each time it was denied. By nineteen ninety four, after losing reported over twenty million dollars in the last couple of years, Art either had to sell the team or move and in December of nineteen ninety four, Modell told the board of the Browns that he did not believe that any money would come back in to help pay for the stadium, and he would move the Browns. And entering the nineteen ninety five seasons, the Browns had a young, upstart coach Bill Belichick, coming off a playoff season where they finished eleven and five and advanced the second round of the playoffs. They were looking good three and one, but behind the scenes, arm Odell was looking for locations to move and the top location was Baltimore, who had lost a team previously in the Colts, who in nineteen eighty three moved in the middle of the night to Indianapolis. We covered this in a previous episode if and will put a link into the description for you to hear all about that. And they promised them a new stadium and they would split the bill for them, helping art Modell out financially, and it became easier as the Browns started to crumble in the season started out three and one and now they were four and five and on November sixth, nineteen ninety five, and from the Camden Yard, art Modell announced he signed a deal to move the Browns to the to Baltimore for the nineteen ninety six season, where they would play at the former home of the Colts, Memorial Stadium, while a new stadium would be built. Modell said he did not feel like the city of Cleveland was helping enough to build a first class stadium that the Browns desperately needed. And quickly after this decision, Art Modell became public enemy number one, and many filed lawsuits and injunctions versus him and the Cleveland Browns to stop them from moving, but none of them came to fruition. And after all of this, the NFL got involved, as many had requested it by the Browns so they could stay in Cleveland because they were a staple of the league, and the NFL decided, you know, we're gonna let them move as a team. They're going to keep their team. They're going to change their name, which they decided to change their name to the Ravens after Edgar Allen Poe who wrote The raven who was who wrote the story while he lived in Baltimore. And then three years later they would give a new team to the Browns and they would keep all the continuity of the Browns, so all their banners, all their championships, all the previous initiations of the Browns were basically reactivated in nineteen ninety nine, essentially giving Ar Modell an expansion team in Baltimore, where a new team started in Browns Now. Unfortunately for the Browns, the Ravens have gone on to win two titles since the move, where the Browns have not won since. In two thousand and four, Modell was forced to sell the team due to financial hardships, as he sold it to minority owner Steve for six hundred million dollars and he would pass away in twenty twelve, and the Ravens would wear an Art patch on their uniform for the rest of the season and everyone in the league would hold a moment in silence for Art Model during the next week's games, all except the Cleveland Browns, based off the wishes of Art's son, saying he didn't want to upset Cleveland anymore than that his father already had. It was a challenging time, but it allowed the league to turn Baltimore has become a staple of the league, and the Browns are still a staple, although although they have struggled even in their second iteration. Ever since letting go of Paul Brown, they have never been able to reach the success they once had. And if you want to learn more about the Baltimore Ravens, check out Ravens Talk, where host Sam Nujoku analyzes Baltimore on and off the field, giving you a unique perspective from the media and a fan. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please Liken subscribe wherever you're at and come back tomorrow for more. And come back tomorrow for more daily sports history and the answer to today's trivia question, who was a coach of the Browns when they moved from Cleveland to Baltimore. It was legendary coach Bill Belichick.