Jim Donovan of WKYC
Channel 3 in Cleveland has reported that Randy Lerner will sell all but 30% of his ownership interest in the Cleveland Browns very soon, possibly before the 2012 NFL season starts, to Tennessee businessman Jimmy Haslam III, a minority owner of the
Pittsburgh Steelers. Mr. Haslam, as reported by several news agencies, is quoted as saying "I am 1000 percent a Steelers fan!" after his purchase of a minority stake in the team. BEFORE THAT, he was reported as being a Cowboys fan AND a Colts fan.
http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2012/07/background_on_jimmy_haslam_iii.html
This is about the worst scenario for the Browns that a fan could hope for at this point in another rebuilding year. The timing couldn't be worse. It's basically the very beginning of training camp and now the team is pretty much mired in uncertainty as to who their head coach, their GM, and their president will be in the near future. It's already rumored that Haslam wants to bring in his own guy, Joe Banner, to run the team. I am no big fan of Mike Holmgren, but at least he had some sort of a plan with his guys, GM Tom Heckert and Head Coach Pat Shurmur, having relative job security. That is all gone now. "Until we sit down with the new owner, no one's really sure what's going to happen with the new owner," according to Heckert. You can talk about it being "business as usual" all you want, but the truth is it is a HUGE distraction for everyone involved. Reports say that the players really have nothing to worry about other than doing their jobs, but how is that really possible when you have no idea who the President, GM, and coaches are going to be in the near future. A lot of the guys on the roster have no doubt been championed by one, some, or all of these guys at one point; how can you not think about your job security if the guy who was your biggest supporter gets canned under the new regime? It's not as if the Browns are loaded with established veterans who have no worries about landing another job as soon as they're released. To say that the players have nothing to worry about is flat out wrong.
Nothing about this deal points to any kind of success for the Browns this season or in the near future. Holmgren, while he says he knows whats going on, doesn't really appear to. About a month ago, he said Lerner wasn't going to be selling the Browns and that he and the owner had a close relationship. If that's the case, he either lied or was lied to about the whole scenario. After the sale negotiations were announced, Holgren said the Browns were in no danger of being relocated. How would he know? He has no idea about Haslam and while the Browns have a 30 year agreement with the city, billionaires like Haslam have been known to try to circumvent such agreements.
While the Cleveland press has been treating this story with a relatively ho-hum attitude, this blogger believes some serious red flags need to be raised. We'll be going from an absentee owner to a "hands-on" owner who has no strong affiliation with the city and is, first and foremost, a businessman. By the way, Randy Lerner said he wouldn't sell the team until they started winning and he could find the right people to sell it to. Has that happened? If it did, I missed it. I hate to be a doom-and-gloom Browns fan, but this does not bode well for the upcoming season or the future of the Browns.
