What’s going on with the Cleveland Browns owners’ quest for a new or renovated stadium to replace their 23-year-old one, you ask? While I would love to be able to investigate that myself, this blog has a lot of ground to cover and a limited amount of time, so I have to rely on the good work of other journalistic outlets — and, hey look, Crain’s Cleveland Business has devoted its resources to a long article on the Browns stadium plans, in which they asked the opinions of a dozen, um, oh dear:

To answer that, Crain’s Cleveland Business reached out to a dozen Northeast Ohioans who either have a background in economic development, or a connection to the city’s sports teams.

“Connection to the city’s sports teams” isn’t a great qualification for being asked whether the city should replace or upgrade a stadium to benefit the owner of one of the city’s sports teams. But “background in economic development,” maybe there are some actual economists or development experts in there? Let’s count:

Leaving aside whether any of the above makes sense (or what happened to the other two of the “dozen” people Crain’s reached out to), what the hell, man? You have time and resources to call a ton of people and interview them for a story about the local sports team’s potential $1 billion-plus stadium ask, and to talk to at least one of them for 25 minutes according to the story, and you choose to call: Three former city officials, one of whom has also worked for the Browns; three broadcasters who work for the Browns or a fellow Cleveland sports team; two real estate brokers; and two restaurateurs. This is neither a representative sampling of Cleveland opinions nor anything like an expert panel, and reads more like “people our sports reporter already has programmed into his phone.”

The only other recent reporting on the Browns’ plans — which, let’s not forget, are still only rumors based on some railroad blogger’s unsourced report from June — has been a Cleveland.com report from last week about how Browns management is polling fans about what they would like to see in a new or renovated stadium, asking whether they would be interested in such options as new kinds of luxury suites and club seating and whether VIP parking or a private entrance or private restrooms would make them more likely to purchase a “premium experience.” That’s certainly an indication that Browns execs are trying to figure out if they can squeeze more money out of a new stadium that offers “patio suites,” but doesn’t really go into why that would be good for Browns fans or Cleveland residents, or who would pay for it or how, or really any of the questions that one would like answered before your city embarks on a ten-figure expenditure on behalf of the local billionaire. But hey, the team’s radio guy says the old stadium has “warts,” that’s all anyone really needs to know, right? Quick, click “publish” before someone scoops you on this important breaking news.

To be a lazy journalist seems to be the accepted standard and that is just so sad.

A few things as a transplanted Clevelander:

1) Journalism died in Cleveland long before the rest of the country. You will never get quality reporting out of anyone in Cleveland. A few years ago there was a huge corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County. Dozens of people went to jail. The thing is the corruption was well known for years. You could tell just based on what guys were driving and what houses they were living in that things didn’t add up. The local media didn’t lift a finger. So don’t expect quality reporting to come out of there

2) That Nathan Kelly guy that is quoted was formerly the Chief of Staff to the County Executive (a position created in the aftermath of the corruption scandal described above). So he would have a bit more insight then that quote would indicate.

3) The stadium is awful. It was poorly designed from the get-go. They basically took the same design as Baltimore and Tennessee, changed the color of the seats, and called it a day. Expect that things like open corners don’t work when you’re surrounded by the Lake on 3 sides. This stupid design was because between Art Modell being a con-man and the the old mayor and county government not thinking things through before the move of the old team happened they put the deal together fast and didn’t think stuff through.

4) Lakefront development is an issue that has plagued mayor after mayor, county government after county government. There is literally miles of city owned lakefront land that they haven’t figured out how to do anything with. Part of the problem is the aforementioned bluff makes connecting the lakefront with the downtown core difficult, but you also have a stupid elevated highway between the downtown core and the lakefront, and private airport that no one uses but the last mayor was too stupid to get rid of. The best idea would have been to build the stadium somewhere else and sell off the Lakefront land but again leadership is incompetent.

I could stand and applaud this all day. I’m a fifteen-year transplant sitting at a complete stop at the terminus of I-77 at I-90 (not from traffic volume but awful freeway design). There’s a lot to like about living here but the unforced errors in this town are epic!

One of the great ironies is that Cleveland State has one of the best urban planning schools in the country and the city is so poorly planned.

15 year NEO Expat, concur completely.

Dont forget how deep the ties ‘old’ Cleveland had to organized crime and its (semi)former status as a banking center. That corruption scandal was big, and could have been a lot bigger.

and Lol Cleveland, more waterfront than some countries invade over and you literally cannot do a thing besides play football and drink beer there…

The former City Council President was literally on tape saying his bribe money was “minimal” and he not only was never charged he later got elected to the state legislature.

Well, it is the Crain’s business journal trade rag after all…

And why should we expect more from Cleveland Journalists than we do from, say, Monsanto or Dow Chemical???

Sure, the study we publish will say don’t worry this product is perfectly safe. And, sure, we have 704 other studies that scream “Danger! IDLH toxicity!!!”

But hey, we aren’t required by law to disclose those studies… and we paid for all 705 of them, so we get to choose what is published.

NFL games are going to be boring when most teams play in a hermetically sealed dome. The weather (wind, cold, rain, snow, fog, etc.) makes the games fun to watch.

Agreed Roman. And adjustments in scheduling could easily alleviate any real issues with playing in Cleveland during the cold weather months (playoffs excluded), and with playing in Texas or Arizona in hot weather months.

It’s true fans will sometimes stay away from home games in miserable weather… but we also know that fans tend not to like being in a dome during the nicer weather months. So, at the end of the day, if you lose some fans due to bad weather are you actually down any over the course of the year when you compare it to life in a dome full time?

Football and baseball are outdoor sports, IMO. I would be just as likely to skip a warm weather game on a beautiful fall day if it forces me to sit indoors as I would a late season or playoff game if it’s miserable out.

Without the lakefront cold weather during late-season home games, Cleveland in a domed stadium would be just another generic venue. In that case, you might as well be watching the Birmingham Stallions.

I live in Cleveland Hts. Other folks have bigger, nicer houses than I do. Cuyahoga County and CH should figure out how to build me a house as big and nice as those others. Get in line, Browns.

Touche. Great line of thinking!

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