The following is the first in our NFL series on Organizational Reports. The Business of Sports Network will be working to add these reports across all sports we currently cover (see our MLB Organizational Reports). The following report by Bill Jordan covers the Cleveland Browns from historical aspects, to how they deal with the salary cap, from their high points to how they historically do in the draft and much, much more. - Maury Brown, Founder and President, Business of Sports Network

Joined the NFL in 1950 when the AAFC was forced to disband.

Name Significance: Named after the team’s first head coach Paul Brown whose family still owns the Cincinnati Bengals.

Team Colors: Brown, White and Orange. The colors were copied from those of Bowling Green State University where the Browns held their first pre-season practices. During the 2007 season, the Browns wore their brown jerseys at home and their white’s on the road. Despite their orange jerseys being a fan favorite, they didn’t wear them for a single game during the past season.

Current owner: Randy Lerner (His father Al purchased the team when they came back to Cleveland in 1999. The elder Lerner passed away in 2002 and has been remembered with a sleeve design featuring his initials since then.)

Current general manager: Phil Savage (Really the third GM since the team came back. So far has followed through on his promise of bringing a winning team to Cleveland.)

Current Head Coach: Romeo Crennel (Was once an assistant coach on the Browns when Chris Palmer was the head coach. Crennel left his post as the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots to take this job.)

Home Stadiums: The Browns played in Cleveland Municipal Stadium from 1946-1995. When they were reestablished, they moved into Cleveland Browns Stadium and have been there since then.

League Championships: The Browns have eight: four in the AAFC (1946, 1947, 1948, 1949) and four in the NFL (1950, 1954, 1955, 1964), but they have never won, or even played in, the Super Bowl.

Conference Championships: The Browns have 11: three in the NFL American Conference (1950, 1951, 1952) and eight in the NFL Eastern Conference (1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1969).

(The NFL does not recognize the Browns’ championships in the AAFC because it was, and still is, widely believed to be an inferior league to the NFL at the time. The Browns tried to defuse this when they won an NFL championship during their first season in the “superior” league, but it didn’t help. The NFL also refuses to acknowledge the Browns’ undefeated season in 1948.)

Division Championships: The Browns have 13: four from the AAFC’s Western Division (1946, 1947, 1948, 1949), three from the NFL’s Century Division (1967, 1968, 1969) and four from the NFL’s AFC Central Division (1971, 1980, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989).

Wild Card Births: The Browns have three: 1988, 1994 and 2002. The Browns also made it to the playoffs during a strike shortened year in 1982 despite their 4-5 record due to the expanded field.

Radio Station: The Browns’ main radio station is Cleveland’s WTAM 1100 AM which is partnered with WMMS, 100.7 FM. The game is also broadcast on other stations including Akron’s 1590 WAKR.

Both WTAM 1100 and ESPN 850 WKNR have pre and post game shows that air before and after every Browns game.

Former NBC sports analyst Jim Donovan does the play-by-play and is partnered with former Browns offensive tackle Doug Dieken who is the color analyst. WTAM sports reporter Andre Knott joins them during games as the sideline reporter.

TV Stations: Since the Browns are an AFC team, CBS has the rights to most of their games. During the 2007 season, all but two of the browns games were broadcast on CBS while the other two were on Fox.

There are various stations that have different shows on the Browns in the Cleveland area. Sports Time Ohio and Ohio’s Fox Sports Net both have half hour shows dedicated to the team a couple times a week while the local CBS station broadcasts a pre game show before every game whether it is on CBS or not. This usually airs at 11:00 am ET before the NFL Today.

NBC also has a half hour show hosted by Jim Donavon that they air a couple times a week during the season reflecting on the week’s match-up and looking forward to the next one. NBC’s WKYC also now televises the Browns’ preseason games locally after they were removed from WOIO (Cleveland’s local CBS station) before the start of the 2007 season.

Forbes Ranking: The Browns most recent ranking on the Forbes list is ninth with a reported value of $969 million.

Attendance Ranking: During the 2007 season, the Browns ranked seventh in the league in average attendance at 73,000 per game at home, keeping a 101.4 percent capacity throughout the season while putting up a 97.8 percent rate on the road.

Salary Information: During the 2007 season, the team’s total payroll was $102,394,922 while their average salary was $1,005,880. This was a big jump from what they spent during the 2006 season when their payroll was $89,196,326 and their average salary was $750,000.

The Move and the Non-Football Years in Cleveland: After the 1995 season, owner Art Modell, who previously promised never to move the team, packed up seemingly over night and moved it to Baltimore where he had been promised a new stadium. (Fans knew the team was going to move before the end of the 1995 season, but were still shocked when it actually happened.)

Originally, Modell was going to take the name and colors with him to Baltimore, but the city fought to keep them and the league allowed them to do so. While there wasn’t an NFL team in Cleveland, a few teams tried to use Cleveland as leverage claiming that they would move there if they were not awarded a new stadium. (The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos both used this in negotiations.)

Eventually, the Browns were awarded a new team, and with that, the second least amount of days from when the owner purchased the team until the opening game in league history. This is partly why the Browns seemed to enter a perpetual cycle of losing and turnover through the next seven years. The little time they had to prepare for their opening season rushed many judgments and affected the franchise for longer than Cleveland fans thought possible.

For more recent original work from the Biz of Football check here.

(NFL and Browns fans will want to check back to this report often as there will be frequent additions with much more information about the Browns.)

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed