Cleveland Browns Relocation Controversy - Aftermath

Aftermath

The return of the NFL to Baltimore effectively killed the professional football team already in Baltimore at the time, the Grey Cup champion Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League. Realizing he would be unable to compete with the NFL, Stallions owner Jim Speros moved the team to Montreal for the 1996 season and sold it to Bob Wetenhall in 1997. The former Stallions ended up as the revived Montreal Alouettes.

Focus groups, a telephone survey, and a fan contest were all held to help select a new name for Modell's relocated club. Starting with a list of over 100 possible names, the team's management reduced it to 17. From there, focus groups of a total of 200 Baltimore area residents reduced the list of names to six, and then a phone survey of 1000 people trimmed it down to three, Marauders, Americans, and Ravens. Finally, a fan contest drawing 33,288 voters picked "Ravens", a name that alludes to the famous poem, "The Raven", by Edgar Allan Poe, who spent the latter part of his life in Baltimore, and is also buried there. The team also adopted purple and black as their team colors, a stark contrast of the brown and orange colors of the Browns. Ex-Baltimore Colts such as Art Donovan and Johnny Unitas disowned the Colts after their move to Indianapolis and are claimed in the Ravens' history. The former Colts Marching Band, which remained in Baltimore after the Colts moved, was subsequently renamed the Baltimore's Marching Ravens. Along with the Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins, the Ravens are one of only three NFL teams with an official marching band.

Modell's move to Baltimore came at the height of NFL teams relocating. The move also fueled a proliferation of 12 new stadiums throughout the NFL. Several NFL franchises used the threat of relocation to coerce their respective cities to build new stadiums with public funds. Such franchises include the Seahawks, Buccaneers, Bengals, Lions, Cardinals, and Bears. In the three-year period from 1995–1997, four NFL teams moved. In addition to Modell's move, Los Angeles lost both of its teams for the 1995 season as the Raiders moved back to Oakland and the Rams moved east to St. Louis. The fourth and final move saw the Houston Oilers leave Texas to move to Memphis in 1997 and become known as the Tennessee Oilers; the team would move again to Nashville in 1998 and would be renamed the Tennessee Titans in 1999.

After several NFL teams used Cleveland as a relocation threat to become the reactivated Browns (most notably the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), the NFL decided in 1998 to make the reactivated Browns an expansion team, which while it temporarily gave the league an odd number of teams (causing at least one team to be off in each of the 17 weeks of the NFL season from 1999–2001), it also eliminated any possibility of an existing franchise giving up its own identity for the Browns and thus prevented more lawsuits. In a somewhat ironic twist, Al Lerner—who helped Modell move to Baltimore—was granted ownership of the reactivated Browns; his son Randy took over ownership after Al's death in 2002 before selling the team to Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam in 2012. The Houston Texans were created as the 32nd team to replace the Oilers in Houston, Texas for the 2002 NFL season to give the league once again an even number of teams.

The reactivated Browns have had only two winning seasons since returning to the NFL in 1999: a 9–7 finish in 2002 which also saw the team clinch a wild card spot in the playoffs, and a 10–6 finish in 2007 while barely missing the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Ravens have been more successful, reaching the playoffs eight times since 2000 and winning Super Bowl XXXV and Super Bowl XLVII, often to the dismay of Browns fans. Longtime placekicker Matt Stover was the last remaining Raven that was with Modell's franchise during the move, having departed the team following the 2008 season when the team chose not to re-sign him. General manager and former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome (who was in a front-office role with Modell by the time of the move) remains with the Modell franchise.

Because of continual financial hardships, the NFL directed Modell to initiate the sale of his franchise. On March 27, 2000, NFL owners approved the sale of 49% of the Ravens to Steve Bisciotti. In the deal, Bisciotti had an option to purchase the remaining 51% for $325 million in 2004 from Art Modell. On April 8, 2004, the NFL approved Steve Bisciotti's purchase of the majority stake in the club. Although Modell later retired and had relinquished control of the Ravens, he is still hated in Cleveland, which had been angry at him long before the move when he fired legendary head coach Paul Brown in 1963. Some considered the Browns' relocation and subsequent lawsuits costing Modell a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which is located in Canton, Ohio, just 60 miles south of Cleveland and is both part of the Cleveland television market and part of the Browns' territorial rights.

The move would also have an effect in Pittsburgh as well. Steelers owner Dan Rooney was one of two owners to oppose Modell's move to Baltimore because of a mutual respect for the team and the fans. Because of the move, the Browns–Steelers rivalry, arguably one of the most heated rivalries in the NFL, has somewhat cooled in Pittsburgh. The Steelers–Ravens rivalry is considered the spiritual successor by a small number of fans in Pittsburgh and is one of the most heated current rivalries in the NFL. Although the rivalry is not as intense in Pittsburgh, Browns fans still consider it their top rivalry despite the Browns' recent struggles against the Steelers. Since returning to the NFL, the Browns and Steelers rivalry has been one-sided in favor of the Steelers, with the Browns losing twelve straight games to the Steelers from 2003 until 2009.