When then-Browns owner Art Modell declared his intention to relocate the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns from their longtime home of Cleveland to Baltimore before the 1995 NFL season, it sparked the relocation issue, which supporters have come to refer to as “The Move.”
The NFL was able to arrange a deal so that the Browns franchise, history, records, and the intellectual property remained in Cleveland as a result of subsequent legal actions taken by the city of Cleveland and Browns season ticket holders.
In return, Modell was given permission to create a new team in Baltimore that would eventually take the moniker Ravens.
The NFL officially deactivated the Browns’ franchise in February 1996 after determining that it would be impossible for them to play the 1996 season in Cleveland in light of the current situation.
As a result, Modell was permitted to transfer the Browns’ football organization to the Ravens, who are now recognized by the NFL as an expansion team that debuted in 1996.
In accordance with the settlement, the NFL promised to reinstate the Browns team no later than the 1999 season, providing that Cleveland built a new stadium to match NFL standards to replace the deteriorating Cleveland Stadium.
Later, starting in late 1996, the city of Cleveland dismantled Cleveland Stadium and erected a new stadium there.
The NFL sold the Browns franchise to Al Lerner, a former minority owner of the team under Modell, for $530 million in 1998 after ruling out transferring any of the league’s then-30 teams to Cleveland (and, consequently, committing to filling the roster of the 31st team with an expansion draft).
Through this expansion draft, the Browns were able to add players and resume play in 1999.
Since then, franchise decisions and agreements in other leagues, such as those in Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League, have referenced this compromise, which at the time was unheard of in professional sports in North America.
Why did the Browns leave Cleveland?
At a press conference held at Camden Yards on November 6, 1995, when the club was 4–5, Modell announced that he had signed a deal to relocate the Browns to Baltimore for the 1996 season. Modell stated his belief that Cleveland lacked the resources and political will necessary to construct a world-class stadium.