Haslam Comments to Cleveland City Council

Yes - this is Steeler related, and I thought it was hilarious.

Jimmy Haslam met with Cleveland City Council today to talk about his plans for the Clowns. Of course, he said he wanted to turn the Clowns into a winning football team, but one of his reasons was excellent!

He said that he has been coming to Clowns Stadium for the last 4 years, and he wants to start seeing Brown and Orange in the stands instead of all the Black and Gold! He talked TWICE about how embarrassing it is to have the stadium filled with fans wearing Black and Gold when the Steelers play in Cleveland and he wants to put a stop to that, but the only way to do that is to produce a winning football team!

I say we SHOW him this year how many citizens of Steeler Nation we can pack into that Godforsaken stadium!

 

why would anyone want to go to a dump like the city of cleveland

 

I met a woman from cleveland years ago, she was certainly worht the trip.

 

Well - I do live here - and I admit it was a mistake to move here in the first place, but I do have a lovely wife, a handsome son and two beautiful daughters that make it bearable. I just think it's funny that one of Haslam's biggest concerns is all the Black and Gold in the stands when the Steelers come to town!

 

You and I must be the only lucky ones. We found the only two in town!

 

My take, Cleveland should sell out every game, regardless of their record. If not, then they deserve to lose their team again. Of course it doesn't help that the Browns are a factory of sadness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRBDMMVctu8

 

And your Johnny didn't fall off? Haha
Couldn't help it.

 

I'm in Cleveland for a few months and it has really overexceeded my expectations. Some nice upscale restaurants here (XO Steakhouse, Lola's, Chinato, Red's), some great kitschy restaurants (Melt Bar & Grilled, Lucky's Cafe), some decent nightlife and, most surprisingly, I've been making more money here than in most major cities in this country (especially Pittsburgh).

Some of my employees are involved with one of Bernie Kosar's companies and we watched the season opener against the Eagles with Bernie (and Kevin Mack, Webster Slaughter, and Hanford Dixon) from his private luxury suite and he had some great stories. I kept a lock on my allegiance but, man, what a first-rate dude Kosar is. Signed autographs for hours the night before at the new casino and even pulled the car over to take a picture with a woman chasing after him in her car because she wanted to introduce him to her pet pig named 'Bernie Kosar.' He saw her holding up the pig and said, "Hold up, I've gotta pull over. This I've gotta see!" A clip of RGIII came on the tv in the suite and Bernie's girlfriend said, "There's your lover!" Bernie started laughing and confessed he had a man crush on RGIII. Met him in NYC and said he was a quality dude and his skill set was off the charts. Guess we're seeing what he saw. He was probably super impressed RGIII doesn't have a 'tell' in the way he lines up under center that indicates whether it's going to be a run or a pass ; )

Still, I want no part of the Browns being as good as they were in the eighties. I'm cool with a nice Baltimore rival and four gimmees against the Ohio teams each year. Helps us rack up the division titles and postseason appearances. And isn't it just fun to laugh at Cleveland?

And the best part about Cleveland, of course, is that it's only an hour and forty-five minutes to the Burgh!

 

Actually, they pretty much DO sell out their games. There may be tickets available some weeks, but most of the time those get bought and given away by radio stations, etc.

The issue is that by the time they play the Steelers, the season ticket holders are selling their tickets cheap and even those who bought tickets in advance are trying to get rid of them. So, the Steelers fans buy them and make the Cleveland game our 9th home game!

Hey - Cleveland is becoming the Pittsburgh of the west anyway. PNC bank and Giant Eagle have become two of the biggest corporations in the city AND Heinz Corp. even sponsors the radio broadcast. I have to laugh everytime I hear an announcer say that the Clowns have entered the "Heinz Red Zone" - it's not often, but I appreciate the irony.

 

Haslam is going to be a game changer in Cleveland he has a passion
for football. Maybe I heard wrong, but did he not mention maybe
doming Cleveland Brown Stadium?If so, for what reason, they like PGH do not
have enough hotel rooms to host a Superbowl. I may have heard this wrong.

 

I agree that he will have a positive impact on the team and the organization. He is really going to be a hands-on owner.

As far as a dome - his statement said that he was planning to "look into it". He said that he plans to bring in three stadium architects to investigate the possibility. He said that the reason would be to be able to use the stadium more often and for more events than they do now. That doesn't make sense to me because they didn't have ANYTHING scheduled for summer, when you can usually count on dry weather.

 

Like I've posted before, Haslam is a very successful businessman and he wouldn't invest in something that he didn't believe would be profitable. And winning would help make any NFL franchise more profitable. I have to believe that he has a strategy to make Cleveland competitive. Additional competition in the division is always a good thing.

 

Every NFL owner is/was "a very successful businessman" (or damn good at betting on horses).

That doesn't necessarily translate to success in pro sports.

Also, being "competitive" and "profitable" are two completely different things. Look at some of the owners in pro sports like Robert Sarver with the Phoenix Suns or the owners of baseball teams in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Miami, etc . . . They are more interested in profits than performance.

 

We didn't have a drop of rain from the end of June through MOST of August. Most summers here, we're near drought status.

 

Umm... OK... thanks for educating me.... :roll:

 

It's funny that he talked about all the Black and Gold in the stands. I called a guy off Craigslist last night to ask about his tickets to the Titans game and he said he has literally not sold even ONE ticket to a Titans fan. He said we're gonna dominate that stadium. I said "Dude we have about 30 home fields"! I think the only 2 stadiums where we are heavily outnumbered is probably Dallas and Green Bay. But for the most part when we go on the road it's not that much of a disadvantage.

 

I`m not sure, but I think they had another one of those mega-country star concerts there this summer, like the one the year before, where Kenney Chesney, and Garth Brooks, or whoever played a gig together, and all the toilets backed up... Seriously... No joke, it was a disaster... I had to laugh when I read about it in the paper...
And, Tomlin Era, No... THIS year, we had a VERY dry summer. Completeley outta character, for this area. I have lived here for 40 yrs, and, NEVER seen so little rain. It was weird. Our big resevoirs of water, and big lakes that people swim, or fish at, were dropping like 3 to 7 FEET, over the summer, depending on the size of the "lake'. It was crazy!!!
Anyhow, I must have read the same article Bates is referring to, and my take on it was that they wanted to be able to use the Stadium, more than they have been.(Offseason). That is part of what he said. However, he also said that part of the "charm"(strange choice of words to me...) of the stadium, was the environment it provides, during the later months of the football season.
I get what he`s saying about cold weather football in this part of the country, but "charming" is not the word I would use to describe below zero temperatures, and 20 mph+ winds coming off Lake Erie, let alone, when it`s a night game, and the sun has set, getting rid of any illusion of warmth, it may have been providing. (Then again, when I do go there to watch US play, I`m not sitting in a luxury box...)
Anyhow, He basically said he was looking into the feasibility of putting a retractable roof, on the current stadium, so maybe they could use it for other events, when it wasn`t being used for football.
He did NOT commit to doing it, but basically said, it would be stupid NOT to at least bring in the 3 companies that specialize in that sort of thing, and see if it was a possibility.
Makes sense to me, I just hope they leave the roof open, to let that "charm" in, during the colder games!

 

UGH... to see the steelers?

HINES