Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Browns’ quest for a domed stadium starts an NFL fight for Ohio dollars
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A political battle fit for the gridiron is underway in Ohio, where state Republican leaders are clashing over whether to single out the Cleveland Browns for help building a new suburban domed stadium or impose tax hikes to fund stadium upgrades for the Cincinnati Bengals and other teams longer term.
Neither idea is without critics in both parties, who argue that underwriting National Football League stadiums siphons money from the state’s policy priorities, including funding infrastructure and public schools.
The most heated debate centers on a proposal by Haslam Sports Group, which owns the Browns, to relocate from the team’s existing open-air stadium on downtown Cleveland’s lakeshore — where they have played since 1999 — to a new $2.4 billion complex in Brook Park, about 15 miles (24.14 kilometers) south. The team has proposed a private-public partnership to which the state would contribute $600 million.
After the money was approved by the Ohio House last week, commissioners in Hamilton County, home to the Bengals, balked. They moved swiftly to re-up their request for $350 million for Paycor Stadium, where the Bengals’ lease is up June 30, 2026. The ask follows Bengals Executive Vice President Katie Blackburn’s comments at recent NFL meetings in Florida, where she said, “We could, I guess, go wherever we wanted after this year” — while noting negotiations are progressing.
The stadium debate heads to the Ohio Senate after their two-week spring break.
Browns dream big, Cleveland recalls Modell nightmare
Dee and Jimmy Haslam, generous Republican campaign donors, say they want a facility “consistent with other world-class NFL stadiums.” With the addition of a dome, the Browns could host year-round events during northeast Ohio’s severe winters and “catalyze meaningful economic impact” at an adjacent entertainment complex. They point out that eight in 10 home game attendees live outside city limits.
Leaders in Cleveland, where Browns games draw coveted economic activity to downtown and the tourism district along Lake Erie, are livid. The existing $247 million Huntington Bank Field was primarily funded by city and county tax dollars. To many, it’s a symbol of the hard-luck sports town’s commitment to the team it nearly lost when then-owner Art Modell notoriously packed off to Baltimore in 1996.
Modell’s messy exit, also hitched to a stadium dispute, led to a state law that says no owner of an Ohio professional sports team that plays most of its home games at a tax-supported stadium can go elsewhere without an agreement with its host city or unless the host city is given six months’ notice with an opportunity to buy the team.
Democratic Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and members of the city council have threatened for months to invoke the “Modell Law” to prevent the Browns from leaving their current location, where the lease runs through the 2028 season. The city plans to remake the so-called “North Shore” with an eye toward accessibility, economic development and environmental protection. The team has filed a constitutional challenge to the law, and the city sued it back.
Meanwhile, the clock for allocating dollars toward the project is running down: Lawmakers face a June 30 deadline to finalize the state budget for the next two years.
Governor and House have different funding ideas
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s budget proposal called for raising the $600 million by doubling the tax on sports betting companies from 20% to 40%. The idea was to create a long-term revenue stream that could help both the Browns and the Bengals, and other teams.
“The governor’s plan goes beyond one team,” DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said. “The general revenue fund can’t afford that. Therefore, we need to look at something that is more sustainable and can help all the teams.”
The GOP-led Ohio House, however, rejected DeWine’s plan in a vote last week. Its version of the operating budget calls for issuing $600 million in general obligation bonds to pay for the Browns project instead. Paying off the bonds would cost the state about $1 billion over 30 years.
House Finance Chairman Brian Stewart told reporters that the “metrics” of bonds are better for Ohio taxpayers because officials project that tax revenue from the Browns’ “megaproject” will be ample to cover the $40 million a year it will take to repay the bonds.
Senate must work through the opposition
As the Senate takes up the bill, it must weigh opposition to the current plan from all quarters: DeWine, the city of Cleveland, the Bengals, legislative Democrats and Republican Attorney General Dave Yost, who is running to succeed DeWine next year.
“Ohio is getting ready to spend more money on a new stadium in one city for one football team than it will spend on new highway construction for the next two years in the entire state,” Yost wrote in a recent Columbus Dispatch op-ed. He called state money for the project a “spendthrift gift to a billionaire.”
House Democrats unsuccessfully fought to pause the funding proposal altogether, citing unanswered questions about revenue projections, economic impacts and commitments by private developers. Cleveland Rep. Terrence Upchurch told reporters that lawmakers have more important priorities than helping the Browns’ owners, “especially since they only won three (expletive) games last year,” referring to the team’s 3-14 record.
A fellow Democrat in the Republican-supermajority Senate has proposed prohibiting public dollars from going to any professional sports franchise without a winning record in three of its five past seasons.
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AP Sports Writer Joe Reedy in Cleveland contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Who: Cleveland Cavaliers (12-8) vs. Boston Celtics (10-8)
Where: Rocket Arena — Cleveland, OH
When: Sunday, Nov. 30 at 6 pm EST
TV: FanDuel Sports Network Ohio, FanDuel Sports App, NBA League Pass
Point spread: Cavs -7.5
Cavs injury report: Jarrett Allen – OUT (finger), Lonzo Ball – OUT (injury management), Sam Merrill – OUT (hand), Max Strus – OUT (foot), Larry Nance Jr. – OUT (calf), Craig Porter Jr. – QUESTIONABE (hamstring), Chris Livingston – OUT (G League)
Celtics injury report for Saturday’s game vs. Minnesota: Jaylen Brown – QUESTIONABLE (back), Jayson Tatum – OUT (Achilles), Derrick White – PROBABLE (calf), Ron Harper Jr. – OUT (G League), Neemias Queta – QUESTIONABLE (ankle), Max Shulga – OUT (G League)
Cavs expected starting lineup: Darius Garland, Donovan Mitchell, Jaylon Tyson, De’Andre Hunter, Evan Mobley
Celtics expected starting lineup: Payton Pritchard, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Jordan Walsh, Luka Garza
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Buckeye State has quite a few bodies of water and plenty of people hardy enough to brave the cold air to spend time on Ohio’s lakes and ponds.
However, as cold water temperatures can be particularly dangerous, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Parks and Watercraft is reminding Ohioans to be careful.
“Ohio’s lakes and rivers are beautiful in every season, but cold water brings serious risks,” ODNR Director Mary Mertz said in a press release. “Wearing a life jacket and understanding the dangers of cold water can make all the difference in keeping your adventures safe and enjoyable.”
 
(ODNR)
Being submerged in cold water can cool your body at a rapid pace, increasing your risk of hypothermia. The ODNR said that almost 90% of boating fatalities are from drowning, “and almost half of those involve immersion in cold water.”
Cleveland Clinic offers the following tips for treating hypothermia, in addition to calling for help:
- “Move the person to a warm, dry location
- Remove wet clothing and replace with dry clothing
- Cover them up with a jacket, hat and blanket
- Apply external heat to their skin, such as with a heat lamp or hot pack”
If it is a more severe case of hypothermia, they said a healthcare provider may be required to:
- “Insert an IV into your vein and pump warm fluids into your body
- Give you warm oxygen through a mask or breathing tube
- Use a machine that warms your blood and pumps it back into your body”
The ODNR recommends wearing a U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket that fits properly and that you dress for the weather.
You can view more of the ODNR’s winter safety tips here.
Enjoying outdoor events later the season has become possible in Cleveland due to climate change. Here, the St. Ignatius High School soccer team plays at Cleveland State University’s Krenzler Field on a sunny, mild October day (NEOtrans). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Data reinforces Cleveland as climate refuge
Despite the snowy Thanksgiving holiday, Cleveland’s status as a climate refuge got a warm review thanks to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In the last decade, only three U.S. cities’ climates warmed faster than Cleveland’s, according to the new data.
In fact, NOAA’s data showed six Great Lakes cities and four New England cities comprised the top 10 cities that warmed the fastest from 2015-2024. Those cities, from most to least fastest warming, were: Sault Saint Marie, MI; Caribou, ME; Rochester, NY; Cleveland, OH; Columbus, OH; Syracuse, NY; Bangor, ME; Flint, MI; Burlington, VT; Montpelier, VT.
“Cleveland saw average temperatures rise from 51.13°F in 2015 to 55.23°F in 2024, an increase of 4.10°F,” a press statement noted. “Meanwhile, Columbus followed closely behind, warming from 53.21°F to 57.28°F, a 4.07°F spike. These increases place both Ohio cities among the fastest-warming urban areas in the country.”
In Sault Ste. Marie, the average temperature was 41.98°F in 2015. Last year, it was 46.78°F, or a 4.80°F rise. At the low end of the top 10, Montpelier’s average temperature in 2015 was 42.54°F. A decade later, it was 46.31°F or a 3.77°F rise.
Of the 215 locations studied in NOAA’s data, assembled by the National Centers for Environmental Information and Anderson Air, around 78 percent (or 168) have had temperatures increase between 2015 and 2024.
Cleveland and Columbus both ranked in the top-10 U.S. cities experiencing the largest temperature increases over the past 10 years (NCEI, Anderson Air).
On the opposite end of the study, coastal California bucked the national trend. Los Angeles has cooled by 2.93°F since 2015, marking the largest temperature decrease nationwide. San Diego followed closely behind, cooling by 2.52°F.
Why is climate data in a blog about Cleveland-area real estate, construction and economic development? Because where people want to live drives investments in housing or transportation and utility infrastructure.
And the data offers a challenge to cities like Cleveland. Warmer temperatures put increased stress on cooling systems and electrical utility infrastructure which is already being tasked to handle significant new consumers of electricity, namely data centers.
At the extreme, sudden changes in climate can push people out, like the 1930s Dust Bowl forced farmers to abandon the Great Plains for the relative calm of the West Coast. Today, tropical storms and high insurance rates or even cancelations are causing some people to leave the Gulf Coast states. Wildfires have wreaked havoc across the Western states and Canadian provinces.
It’s not just North America that’s affected, of course. Up to 1.2 billion people worldwide may be displaced by climate change by 2050, according to the Institute Enjoying the cool breeze off Lake Erie is a popular pastime on hot days at Cleveland’s Edgewater Park (NEOtrans).
for Economics & Peace. Their loss could be Cleveland’s gain.
The Great Lakes region, harboring 20 percent of the world’s freshwater supply, seem like a peaceful alternative to places experiencing climate turmoil — aside from our increasingly rare blizzards or wetter springs that can bring severe thunderstorms and flash floods.
“We have to realize that the southern states are literally not going to be livable in 50 years,” says David Pogue, American technology and science writer and correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning. Pogue is a Cleveland-area native and the author of How to Prepare for Climate Change.
“Where are they going to go?” Pogue asked in a recent article. “They’re going to move North. There’s absolutely no question. This is Cleveland’s game to lose. It’s time to start thinking about attracting a new generation of people who can make Cleveland vibrant, beautiful and safe.”
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County leaders are striving to capitalize on our location on a Great Lake, a shoreline that was turned over to industry in the 1800s. But in post-industrial Cleveland, where someone can work remotely to anywhere in the world, our shoreline is turning residential and recreational.
While Greater Cleveland’s population is edging upward, a lack of new housing inventory is causing prices to surge. In fact, housing prices are rising faster in Greater Cleveland than in most other metros, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index. The region’s affordability has been one of its greatest draws.
Building more housing, enhancing transportation and energy infrastructure, and converting obsolete industrial lands along Lake Erie into publicly accessible uses are a challenge to Greater Cleveland if it wishes to protect its status as a climate haven in the coming decades (NEOtrans).
According to job and career search Web site Monster.com, Greater Cleveland was one of the nation’s fastest growing job markets in the third quarter of 2025. The Q3 2025 Monster Job Market Report ranked Greater Cleveland as the 11th-best hiring hot spot in the United States.
Cleveland’s affordability, improving economy and climate safety, like those of Detroit, Milwaukee and others in the Great Lakes region, are causing young people to “boomerang” after leaving home for the promise of coastal big cities.
“Cities like Cleveland, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York faced similar declines as industry left and young people followed,” said Strong Towns staff writer Asia Mieleszko. “But the tides are shifting. Some communities are seeing their children return, ready to raise families where they grew up.”
“Others are seeing renewed job opportunities, sparked by local entrepreneurship or policy success,” she added. “Some neighborhoods are welcoming people relocating from places affected by hurricanes, wildfires, or floods—whether for the long term or just to get back on their feet.”
END
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