CLEVELAND — In 1997, after it became clear that Cleveland would once again have an NFL franchise following the Browns’ desertion to Baltimore, the new owners announced the ability for fans to purchase season tickets at a new stadium for the new expansion of the Browns. .

I enthusiastically tried to round up old high school buddies with whom I’d shared season tickets before the Browns moved—hardened veterans of Red Right 88, The Drive, and many discouraging trips to Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium – by inviting them to join me. purchasing four personal seat licenses that would allow us to secure good seat locations for the team’s start in 1999.

The reception was much less enthusiastic than I expected. Why, we wanted to know, would he want to shell out big money to oversee an expansion team?

Well, they won’t always be terrible, I assured him. And when they’re good in a few years and they’re making the playoffs, I told them you’re not going to want to sit at home watching the games on TV, are you?

I clearly remember his response: “Are you kidding? We will then be 60 years old (we were all in our 50s then). Who’s going to want to sit there and freeze our butts off at this age?

It turned out that he was extremely optimistic. I’ll be 78 soon and I’m still waiting for the opportunity to freeze my butt off at a home playoff game.

I thought about this exchange recently.

I had invited my son-in-law to join me for the Browns-Steelers game two Thursdays ago (yes, I bought season tickets in 1997 and still have them). At first he was excited, but a few days before the game he said, you know, the forecast says it’s going to be 22 degrees with the wind chill and a mix of rain and snow. Do you really want to freeze your butt off at the lake Thursday night? What if you sold your tickets, I’d buy you a nice steak and we could watch the game in the warmth of our homes?

There was a time when I would have dismissed such a lousy idea out of hand, Miami Dolphins style. Butt freezing is an age-old and proud aspect of Browns fandom.

But like I said, I’m old. If his predictions had included the revelation that the Browns were going to beat Pittsburgh in a thrilling, come-from-behind game, I might have made a different decision. However, working with the information available…I had my steak medium rare.

This is all a long way to approach the idea of ​​a domed stadium near the airport that Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam have floated. A modern, covered, room temperature dome where I could park nearby, walk inside, and watch the Browns play in a place where it wouldn’t rain or snow and my mustache wouldn’t freeze in the freezing winds December and January. . And yes… where I wouldn’t freeze my butt off.

This seems very good to me.

But for their troubles, the Haslams were inundated with insults and insults from various corners of Cleveland management and the media, which is something of a Cleveland tradition toward the owners of its professional sports teams . So I thought maybe they deserved a word of support from someone who wants to be warm when, as Gordon Lightfoot sang, the November winds come early.

In a word, the Haslams say they acquired an option to purchase 176 acres of land in Brook Parkon which they propose to place the dome, numerous parking lots and other related attractions for the entertainment of the people of Northeast Ohio. The cost of the project is expected to be approximately $2.4 billion, with half proposed by the owners and the other half coming from us.

That’s a huge mark, granted, but the harsh reality is that it’s the going rate for new football stadiums across the country – more so than some; much less than the others. Some were entirely funded by the team; others mainly by the city, region, state and private investors.

SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, where the Rams and Chargers play, costs nearly $6 billion. Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, home of the Raiders, cost $2.31 billion. The Atlanta Falcons’ Mercedes Benz Stadium cost $1.92 billion in 2014. AT&T Stadium, in Arlington, Texas, where the Cowboys play, cost $1.9 billion in 2005. This year, the Chicago Bears announced a proposal for a dome of 4.7 billion dollars.

Well, you say, we are not Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Dallas or Chicago.

But Minneapolis built a $1.44 billion home for the Vikings in 2013 ($1.94 billion today), Indianapolis built a $1.05 billion dome for the Colts in 2005 (1, 69 billion dollars today), the The Buffalo Bills will begin play in the new $1.7 billion Highmark Stadium (which isn’t even a dome) in 2026, and Nashville will open A $2.1 billion Nissan Stadium for the Tennessee Titans, in time for the 2027 season.

As they say, go big or go home. If you think small, you stay small.

The Haslams are proposing that we go big, and the least city leaders and others can do is try to make it work, instead of responding with Cleveland’s time-honored response to visionaries: “No “.

The cities above have all found a way to support these projects… why not us? One solution could be to propose and support a seven-county regional tax so that everyone who would benefit would help pay. The Haslams could step up their efforts further, as Cowboys owner Jerry Jones did in Dallas.

“I think Cleveland deserves to be seen as a creative, forward-thinking, evolving city, rather than not thinking big,” Dee Haslam saidwhen the proposal was announced last March.

“And when you start thinking about what Cleveland can be and what the vision is for this city, I think we underestimate what a great place it is.” And I think there’s an opportunity here to maybe build a domed stadium that could transform our region,” she said.

The alternative plan that the Haslams have discussed with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and others involves spending between $500 million and $1 billion to upgrade the current stadium.

This is a very bad idea.

One of the complaints about the NFL’s expensive construction of outdoor stadiums is that they are only used 10 or 12 times a year. Spending all that money on an upgrade would only serve to lock in the location, adding decades to the original mistake of building the current stadium on the site of the old one. Why not double the investment and build a dome that could be used dozens of times a year, raising our cultural profile as a great venue for year-round use, while expanding access to the lakefront.

During the 12 years the Haslams have owned the team, they have been a positive force in the community, proposed creative proposals to open access to the lake and spent lavishly trying to improve the football team. It’s true that the Deshaun Watson deal will likely go down as the worst in NFL history, but their mistake wasn’t due to a reluctance to spend money.

The Haslams need cooperation, not resistance, to achieve this. An inland domed stadium, preferably with a retractable roof, would be far superior to what we currently have and would go a long way toward finally opening up the lakefront to better uses.

And above all, it would keep me warm.

Ted Diadiun is a member of the editorial boards of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

To contact Ted Diadiun: [email protected]

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