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Sunday, January 21
Ravens' Modell both loved and hated
By John Clayton
ESPN.com
OWINGS MILLS, Md. -- Confetti spread as much as the emotions. Here was Art Modell, standing on a podium at Network Associates Coliseum. His 40-year football
career as an NFL owner flashed in front of him. Finally, a chance at the
Super Bowl. Modell pondered who to thank.
|  | | Ravens owner Art Modell finally has a team driving to a Super Bowl title. |
As he rattled through his thoughts, he also thanked Cleveland. How
could he not? This Super Bowl trip belongs to the Baltimore fans, but he
felt he had to say something about Cleveland, a hurt city that responded
angrily to his reference. After all, Modell stole their beloved Browns
after, they felt, years of failing to deliver on a championship.
"It's not calculated, it's not caught up emotionally, it's
something I wanted to say," Modell said. "I felt I would be remiss if I
didn't single out Cleveland as the birthplace of my football career. It's
unfortunate it caused a storm. It shouldn't have caused a storm."
It's fitting that Modell's biggest victory to date came on Al Davis'
field, two guys who have feuded through the years. Davis and Modell are the
same in that they are competitive and hated for the passion to win. Davis
moved his Raiders back and forth between Oakland and Los Angeles. Modell had
his version on the East Coast by announcing his move to Baltimore during the
1995 season.
Modell comes to Tampa with the full support of Baltimore and the
entire city of Cleveland rooting against him. Certainly, it wasn't the fans
that caused the move. It was politics and economics, two words that don't
translate in the football vocabulary. As much as sports is a passion, it's
also a business -- a tough, at times, ruthless business.
The NFL was founded by business people who were sportsmen.
Television enhanced the popularity of the game and sent franchise prices
soaring. Big television contracts spawned higher priced players, and owners
like Modell who had to overextend his line of credit to keep pace and stay
competitive annually scrambled for new streams of revenue.
Then comes the ugly side of sports. The loyalist fans are held
hostage in a tug of war between owners seeking a new stadium and politicians
trying to invest public dollars in other activities. As Modell looks back,
he felt he had no chance of surviving in Cleveland without a new stadium.
But his cold, hard business decision to leave left him unable to return to a
city he cared about for so many years.
The Browns fans who detest him are right. He did take their beloved
Browns. Modell is both a sympathetic figure and a villain at the same time.
He's like the old surveys of Howard Cosell during his days on ABC Monday
Night Football. He's the most loved and hated person at this Super Bowl.
If he wins this Super Bowl, longtime NFL observers will flash back
to the days when Art Rooney Sr., for years a beloved owner, finally got his
first Super Bowl trophy after decades of mediocre to poor football with the Steelers. They'll flash back to Wellington Mara's two Super Bowl runs with the Giants. Mara and Rooney were the stalwarts who helped build this league.
Modell had his role in the league's growth by negotiating many of
those television contracts that sent franchise values soaring. He ran a
model franchise in Cleveland. It was organizationally sound and always tried
to compete for championships. Then came offers from Baltimore. Negotiations
were stalled with the city over a new stadium.
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What was lacking there (in Cleveland) was the means and wherewithal to compete. You've got to compete. When owners say they've got to have a
new stadium, they say it so they can compete. They are telling the truth.' ” |
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— Art Modell, Ravens owner |
Years of threats that went unheard were met with deadening silence
when Modell flew to Baltimore and announced he was moving the team.
"What was lacking there was the means and wherewithal to compete,"
Modell said. "You've got to compete. When owners say they've got to have a
new stadium, they say it so they can compete. They are telling the truth."
Modell relates how tough it was to stay competitive in old Cleveland
Stadium. To call anything in the stadium a luxury suite was a joke. The
grand, old, steel-frame, lakeside stadium outlived its usefulness. Other than
good football, there weren't many luxuries in Cleveland Stadium. Ask the
players.
"I had a corner locker in the stadium since my rookie year that had
this huge pipe drilling above me that always leaked," defensive end Rob Burnett said. "I couldn't keep anything there. You knew money was being
spent in the downtown area. Hundreds of millions of dollars were going into
a new baseball stadium, a new basketball arena, a Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Our stadium was built in the Twenties. It wasn't fair because the
whole city belonged to the Browns. They should have been taken care of
first."
Modell made one point clear this week. He made the move for the
football franchise not the Modell family. In fact, the debt incurred in
finishing Baltimore's gorgeous new downtown stadium and those carried over
from the Cleveland days will cost Modell his legacy. Last March, Modell sold
49 percent of the Ravens to Stephen Bisciotti for $275 million.
Included in that deal is an option to buy the remaining 51 percent
in 2004 for $325 million. Cleveland knows that in three years they won't
have Art Modell to kick around in the league anymore.
"Every nickel we've drawn from this new stadium here has been put
back into the draft or put back into free agency," Modell said. "We put
the money back into signing the Jonathan Ogdens, Rob Burnetts, Tony Siragusas
and Ray Lewis'. It's put back in and stays in."
Modell flashed back to his Cleveland days and remembers
"splurging" on wide receiver Andre Rison. He gave Rison a $5 million signing bonus. Modell had to borrow the money to fund it.
"To have the economic means to compete is essential," Modell said.
In Tampa, Modell will have his moment in the sun. He'll entertain
reporters with his quotes and stories. This week, he joked to Mara, his best friend, about applying for a forfeit, which would officially go
down as a 1-0. "That will help my defensive stats," Modell joked.
The irony of this game is that Modell is also one of the Giants' biggest
season ticket holders. He has 67 season tickets, a number that has grown
since his days of going to the old Polo Grounds to watch football, the sport
he loves. Does that means extra Super Bowl tickets?
"No, I lost the lottery," he said.
John Clayton is the senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.
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