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Why the Browns and the city of Cleveland should split over the new stadium

If the Browns want to be happy, they should head west to Brook Park.

The Browns and the city of Cleveland, like a bad marriage that has run its course and both parties are clinging on for the sake of hanging on, should part ways amicably.

I reached this conclusion after extensive consideration. When the notion of Brook Park becoming the team’s home came up, I was violently opposed.

Why? As a Cleveland native — an east side Cleveland native — the prospect offended me for reasons rooted in old, but still fresh, city divisions from growing up in the 1970s and to a lesser degree the 1980s. I figured the team would end up losing a significant portion of the fanbase. The east side-west side divide was real when I was growing up.

I know that unless I must work in the proposed palace Jimmy and Dee Haslam will apparently build, I am likely no longer the person for whom it’s intended. What a shock. I’m not a Swiftie.

Perhaps years of spending Sundays at Cleveland Browns Stadium have made me immune to stadium fever. Perhaps it was several nights at the then-Quicken Loans Arena, or Saturdays at Ohio Stadium.

You have a deep look behind the curtain, and the magic is nowhere to be found. Being surrounded by people is bothersome, and being squeezed in a press box with food that is basically bad for you has lost its charm.

I am knowledgeable enough to know when it is time to move on.

The average male from my generation goes through a cycle in his life, which includes a phase when he is a fervent sports fan. That was me fifteen years ago. Browns’ apparel. The Browns flag is waving on my doorstep. Going to watch Browns games with my boys and drink beer on Sunday afternoons at my neighborhood bar. The fever broke.

I was among the thousands who spoke out when the Browns left downtown after the 1995 season due to Art Modell’s moral thievery. I was also one of the legions that voted for the prolonged sin tax to fund a new stadium to resurrect the team. Fun fact: the initial sin tax that financed for Gateway was successful in the suburbs but not in Cleveland itself. Residents of a still-rusting city realized what a waste it was to spend taxpayer money to pay for a billionaire’s playground.

They were right then. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb looks to be right now in his obvious criticism of the Haslams after publishing the city’s offer. Given that I now live in Cleveland’s suburbs, I’m no longer completely involved in city politics, and haven’t been since 2000.

But Bibb and some of the more forward-thinking people in power on Lakeside Avenue appear to understand that the city’s most valuable asset is the lakefront, and while I believe the offer to the Browns was entirely legitimate, his imposing a deadline for a response was a signal that it might be time to move on.

My generation had its own version of the Browns and entertainment when I was considerably younger and a young father. Since my time, the NFL has become the Godzilla of sports. There’s the NFL and everybody else.

This generation gets to have its version and make the Haslams pay for it. They want to reap the benefits of their football team, potential concerts and any other events they can use to fill a cavernous building. Have at it. That means when they eventually leave Cleveland Browns Stadium, the money from an extended sin tax should be off limits to them.

I understand the significance of having an NFL club in your city. However, these teams are now more of a regional asset than a municipal one. They are privately owned, and because of how the NFL has evolved, a simple stadium is no longer sufficient. Consider the reasoning behind what Robert Kraft created in New England versus what the owner of the Los Angeles Rams built in Inglewood, Calif., with So-Fi Stadium, which is part of the Hollywood Park entertainment complex.

Every NFL owner looks at those two developments and salivates. And that’s OK.

However, if I’m looking at whether I want to see money invested in football team or development along Cleveland’s lakefront, which is both a regional and national asset that holds endless possibilities, I’ll take the latter.