Last week, my Facebook wall and Twitter feed was filled with Browns fans bemoaning the sorry state of the team, especially after the team’s latest trade and quarterback change. Yesterday, it was filled with people celebrating the team’s win as evidence of a turn in the team’s fortunes, as if the offending trade from earlier in the week never happened. Meanwhile, Cleveland’s good sports team, the Cleveland Indians, is playing well and is on the verge of making the playoffs as a wild card entry but nobody seems to care. Can anybody explain that to me?
Actually, my former colleague at Crain’s Cleveland Business, Kevin Kleps (an excellent writer, you should follow him on Twitter and read his blog posts) wrote an article in last week’s issue that examines why the Indians aren’t attracting fans to the ballpark. Team President Mark Shapiro blames the low attendance on the complexities of running a small market team and that’s certainly a major factor. Elsewhere in the article, Kevin talks to Cleveland area sports radio hosts who blame the poor attendance on fans who still hold a grudge over past mistakes made by team management.
Excuse me? Poor management?? The same fans who cry foul over what they perceive to be bad decisions by Indians management will pack the Mistake by the Lake 2.0 to see a team that has been mismanaged since Jim Brown hung up his cleats. This terrible expansion team version of the Browns is 0-1 in playoff appearances. The less terrible old Browns under Art Modell appeared in three AFC championships in the 80s. The Browns are as consistently bad as they are because team management is consistently bad.
Since 1994, the Cleveland Indians have given Cleveland something to be proud of: seven ALDS appearances; four ALCS appearances, with two ALCS titles; and two World Series appearances. Sure, the team blew it with some bad trades, most notably CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee. But those were driven more to small market challenges than bad decision making. And even when the Indians haven’t made it to the post season, they rarely play at the same embarrassing level that the Browns have so completely embraced.
But the problem isn’t that the fans support the Browns instead of the Indians. The problem is that the fans support the Browns at all. A lot of Browns fans wear their undying support of the team as a badge of honor. Their Browns jerseys don’t project an air of sadness and desperation, they prove their mettle as sports fans. They are proud to support a terrible team.
Browns fans think they deserve better because they’re so loyal to the team. I think the fans deserve everything they get. They deserve every loss, every quarterback controversy, every draft pick that goes bust. The fans have enabled Browns management and allowed them to go on autopilot, doing the minimum necessary to field a team. Why should management spend the money and effort to build a good team when they can put the same, old bad team on the field and people will still pay to see it? If the team is already packing the stadium and making money on bad teams, how much more could they possibly make with a good team? The fans keep showing up so the team keeps doing the same thing, which is fielding a team that is barely fit to play at the professional level. They have no incentive to do anything different.
I’m sorry, Browns fans, but I don’t feel sorry for you. You deserve this terrible team because you haven’t demanded anything better. Going online and bitching about the team won’t inspire Browns ownership and management to do anything differently. Not buying tickets, not watching or listening to game broadcasts, not buying team merchandise…hitting the team where it really hurts will inspire ownership to do something differently. If the fans stop subsidizing lazy team management, the Browns ownership will have a damn good reason to wake up and do something. Until then, they’ll weather the criticism from fans and take comfort in the piles of money that they’re still making, despite being awful.
So wake up, ditch those losers on the lake and get behind the winners playing up the street at Progressive Field. Go Indians!!
What Would Liz Lemon Do? 