CLEVELAND — As the Cleveland Browns set their sights on the suburbs, Ohio’s top cop is weighing in on the escalating fight over the Modell law, a state law designed to make it harder for pro sports teams to leave publicly subsidized facilities.
On Wednesday, Attorney General Dave Yost asked a federal court judge to pause or dismiss a lawsuit that the Browns filed last fall. He says the law is clear — and that the legal battle over whether it applies to the Browns should play out in state court.
“The Browns did not have to accept taxpayer money. It was their business decision to do so that got them here. But soliciting and accepting public money comes with small strings, as it should,” Yost and his colleagues wrote in their motion to dismiss. “Here, the Browns claim that those strings are unconstitutional. They are wrong.”
The law in question is Ohio Revised Code 9.67, which impacts pro teams looking to leave taxpayer-supported venues.
It requires team owners to do one of two things: Get approval from their home city to leave. Or give six months’ notice about a move while offering an opportunity for the city or local investors to buy the team.
The statute is colloquially known as the Modell law because it was put in place after former Browns’ owner Art Modell moved the original team to Baltimore in 1996.
In October, the Browns filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the validity of the law. They argue that the law is vague and unconstitutional.
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The Browns also claim the law doesn’t apply to their planned move from Cleveland to neighboring Brook Park, where team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam envision a $2.4 billion enclosed stadium surrounded by more than $1 billion worth of mixed-use development.
That move would happen in 2029, after the team’s lease ends at Huntington Bank Field, the city-owned stadium on the Downtown lakefront.
In the new court filing, Yost disagrees with the Browns’ arguments.
He says the Modell law isn’t burdensome. It doesn’t require a team’s owner to sell – it just gives a city and local investors a chance to make an offer.
“This is an extraordinarily small price for a team to pay in exchange for tens, if not hundreds, of millions of taxpayer dollars that are often provided,” the state’s motion says.
Yost acknowledges that the Modell law has never been fully tested; however, he believes questions about whether it applies to the Browns and their Brook Park plans are a matter for an Ohio court instead.
He notes that no state court has ruled on whether the law applies to a team that plans to move only after its lease expires at a taxpayer-supported facility. And no state court has ruled on whether the law applies to an in-state move (though Yost believes it does).
“The Browns should not be in federal court yet, or possibly ever,” Yost’s motion says. “An Ohio court should have been their first, and possibly only, stop.”
The attorney general’s office weighed in one day after the city of Cleveland filed its own lawsuit against the Browns in state court. The city is trying to enforce the Modell law to stop the team’s departure from the existing stadium.
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Cleveland’s lawyers argue that the Modell law does apply to the Browns.
They’re asking a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge to compel the team to follow the law – and to prohibit the Browns and Haslam Sports Group from getting funding or starting construction for the Brook Park stadium until the terms of the Modell law are met.
Late Wednesday, the city followed up with its own request to dismiss the Browns’ case. Cleveland’s law director and attorneys at Jones Day wrote that the federal court doesn’t have jurisdiction, that the Browns lack standing, and that state court is the right place for this debate.
The city’s lawyers accuse the Browns of “forum shopping” and flouting state law.
“The Browns are trying to leave Cleveland – again,” the city’s attorneys wrote. “The last time, they did so through secret handshake deals and backroom bargains, destroying community trust in the process. This time, they are doing so under the cover of this federal lawsuit – not only again destroying Clevelanders’ trust but also violating the very Ohio law that was designed to prevent this.”
