The Cleveland Browns motioned U.S. District Judge David A. Ruiz on Tuesday for leave to amend the team’s complaint against the city of Cleveland over its attempt to block a domed stadium project in Brook Park, Ohio.
The amended complaint elaborates on the Browns’ economic arguments—including that the stadium project marks “the largest per capita private sports facility investment in U.S. history”—and builds on the Browns’ central point that it has the right to play games in Brook Park, which is located less than a mile from the Cleveland city line and next to Hopkins International Airport.
The Browns sued Cleveland last October in an Ohio federal district court seeking a declaration that the Art Modell Law (Ohio Revised Code 9.67), which Cleveland asserts prevents the team from moving to Brook Park, violates the U.S. Constitution. A few months later, Cleveland sued the Browns in a Cuyahoga County, Ohio, trial court for allegedly violating the Modell Law and breach of contract. The legal dispute is therefore playing out in federal and state courts.
Sportico has detailed the dueling legal arguments, which include Cleveland insisting that a plain reading of the Modell Law bars the Browns from relocating unless the team undertakes several steps. Those steps include providing six months’ notice and offering the team for sale to the city and local buyers. In contrast, the Browns contend that a literal reading is nonsensical given the historical context of the Modell Law, which was created in the aftermath of the Browns moving to another state (Maryland) in the mid-90s, and given that this move would be intracounty to a suburb bordering Cleveland. The Browns also assert imposition of the Modell Law would trigger violations of the Due Process Clause, the Commerce Clause, the Contract Clause and the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
In an amended complaint authored by Anthony C. White and other attorneys from Thompson Hine and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the Browns maintain the situation bears no resemblance to the one Cleveland experienced in the mid-1990s. Back then, Browns owner Art Modell moved the franchise to Baltimore, where it became the Ravens. That occurred three years before the team’s lease to play in the city’s Municipal Stadium was set to expire. This time around the Browns are owned by Jimmy and Dee Haslam, whom the amended complaint maintains have longstanding ties to the city. The Browns will also fulfill their lease obligation with the publicly owned Huntington Bank Field, where they are bound to play through the 2028 NFL season.
Only after the 2028 season would the Browns relocate to a “world-class domed stadium, the first in Ohio” and “at zero cost” to Cleveland. The Browns argue the domed stadium would be a major upgrade over HBF. Unlike HBF, the dome could be used “year-round for dozens of major events.” The team says the revenue generated by a regular, year-round schedule not subject to weather concerns would greatly boost revenue, including for restaurants, shops and hotels. This revenue boost, the Browns assert, would increase economic impact—including more jobs for Cleveland and area residents—boost tax revenues and “make private financing cheaper and easier to attract.”
The Browns also emphasize that playing in a stadium next to the team’s home city is consistent with NFL rules and other NFL teams’ stadium arrangement. The amended complaint references that the NFL defines a team’s home territory, which carries important legal significance, as encompassing a 75-mile radius beyond the franchise city.
Brook Park is also “less than a mile from Cleveland” and “plenty of NFL teams have their home stadium in suburbs of their home city.” To evidence that point, the amended complaint references the Dallas Cowboys playing in Arlington, Texas, the San Francisco 49ers playing in Santa Clara, Calif., the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers playing in Inglewood, Calif., and the Buffalo Bills playing in Orchard Park, N.Y. Additionally, the Washington Commanders play home games not in Washington, D.C., but instead in Landover, Md., while the New York Giants and New York Jets “don’t even play in New York State,” instead suiting up in Rutherford, N.J.
“No one is confused,” the complaint asserts, “about which city any of these teams call home.” The Browns also add that the domed stadium would rest “in the heart of the Greater Cleveland metropolitan area” and that 85% of home game attendees live outside city limits.
The Browns also insist they made years of good-faith efforts to engage the city in renovations to HBF. While the team says it engaged in constructive discussions with then-Mayor Frank Jackson in the late 2010s and in 2021 unveiled a plan to add a land bridge that would connect the lakefront to downtown (among other features), the Browns allege the city became less engaged as a partner over the last four years. Mayor Justin Bibb, who has led Cleveland’s effort to prevent the Browns from leaving the city, has served as mayor since 2022.
In addition, the Browns maintain that the city’s current plans for refurbishing HBF are inadequate and insufficient. Those plans, the team asserts, would “cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars” for an open-air stadium that “sits idle most of the year.” Adding a dome to HBF is also a non-starter, the Browns insist, since proximity to Burke Lakefront Airport means Federal Aviation Authority height restrictions kick in and would block a dome.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the Browns say today’s filing affirms the team “is reinforcing its commitment and increasing its investment in the region in an unprecedented way.” The statement goes on to state that Haslam Sports Group and its development partners have committed to invest more than $2 billion in private capital, with at least $1.2 billion coming from HSG and the Haslam family, in the project.
