Edifice Complex

Rick Henderson from the August/September 1997 issue

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The once-ubiquitous and much-beloved Modell faced death threats and had to go into hiding. He couldn't even attend home games after he decided to move the team. The "sin tax" initiative passed anyway; the money will pay for a new stadium to host a new franchise, also called the Browns, which the NFL says it will have in place by the end of the decade.

You can't make this stuff up. The story practically tells itself. Rosentraub instead focused on the financial package put together to build the Gateway complex, while noting Modell and the Browns only as an aside. This approach isn't likely to
sell many books. And to get people upset enough about multi-millionaire moochers to demand that they start paying their own way, Rosentraub doesn't have to convince people like me, who already agree with him. He needs to win over sports fans and, more important, the beat writers, columnists, talk-show hosts, anchors, and essayists who can move audiences. He needs to convince George Will to write about these welfare queens in his syndicated column and use his platform on ABC's This Week to fume about them. He needs Dick Schaap to lambaste these freeloaders on World News Sunday or on ESPN's Sports Reporters. And from there, the Jay Lenos and David Lettermans could make the franchise owners, politicians, and even the more avaricious players national laughingstocks. But it's almost certain that Rosentraub's arid prose will turn off most readers soon after they crack the spine.

Among network journalists, to date, only ABC's John Stossel has used Rosentraub as a source for a major story. But this was for one segment of his prime-time special on freeloaders. And Stossel isn't a sports journalist. Until team owners who try to soak taxpayers become known as the enemies of their fans, rather than the saviors of their cities, they'll continue to get their bailouts. It will take more than the reams of information presented in Major League Losers to properly vilify them.