The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a great piece on Saturday (where almost nobody would see it, but let’s not be picky) running down the details of the Cleveland Browns lease, which some local officials see as a giveaway, but which Browns officials say is actually pretty generous to the public. Here’s what Cleveland rakes in each year, it turns out:
- $250,000 in rent
- $570,000 in revenues from three city-owned parking lots
- $3.5-4 million in ticket taxes on Browns tickets
The Browns keep everything else: ticket sales, ad revenue, concession sales, and the $6 million a year from naming rights to the city-owned building. The city, meanwhile, needs to pay for police overtime to patrol Browns games (cost not given), plus $850,000 a year in capital improvements to the stadium, a figure that will rise to $5 million a year in 2023. Plus, if the latest Browns renovation plan goes through, an additional $2 million a year for more stadium improvements.
The city, meanwhile, is paying for the entire $296.3 million construction cost of the stadium that opened in 1999. And I need to correct myself: I’d written that the stadium will have been paid off by 2015, when the city’s “sin tax” on cigarettes and alcohol that was passed to cover stadium costs expires — but no, it turns out the city has only paid off $68 million of that debt, and is going to have around $200 million left to go when the sin tax expires. So either Cleveland will need to dip into its general fund to the tune of about $10 million a year, or it will need to extend the sin tax — and which point the Browns, Indians, and Cavaliers have promised to seek even more money for stadium improvements. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Good citizens of Cleveland, us NFL billionaires salute you. You give ’til it hurts and that touches our collective heart which, though we can’t locate it right now, does exist somewhere according to our statisticians, archivists, and the butler at NFL h.q. whose 5 dollar 2012 Christmas bonus caused him to proclaim, “Thank YOU, Mister Mor-ti-mer.”
Like cities all across the land, you sacrifice education, police and fire protection, parks, libraries, whatever it takes to keep us swimming in publicly subsidized football gold! I love you, man.
We might have to ban Cleveland Plain Dealer reporters from our locker rooms, however. I don’t care for all this criticism they keep leveling at us. Rich monopoly football vendors gotta eat too, fellas! No more free buffets at the game for you guys unless you shape up and get with the program, capiche? Now come, keep the puff pieces coming and by all means, belly up to the shrimp bar. We’re playing Jacksonville this week… exciting!
Well, yeah, but FOOTBALL! How can you put a price on that?