*SpitDrink.gif* This is another thing I can see from both sides. Obviously, the retail owners in the area have every right to be upset. But...a dome would definitely bring more money to the Cleveland area, would it not? If the law was written today, would there be language in there about "metro area" or "local television market" or such? Hypothetically, say the CBJ wanted to move closer to the youth hockey leagues north of Columbus. That would trigger the law, of course, but *should* it? I mentioned something a while back about had the Crew moved to Dublin back in the 90s, maybe there's an alternate universe where the team wants to move to some other state and then the law got discovered after the team had moved to Dublin, London or wherever. My guess: The Browns end up moving. Billionaires typically end up getting what they want. People gnash their teeth and whine, but they eventually get over it, just like people did when they realized a Columbus sports team planned on using blue. Those NCAA Final Fours, Super Bowls and other large events are too hard to overlook.
Well, before anyone gets too excited, saying that building a new stadium in Brook Park constitutes " moving the team" is nonsense. It's only about 20 minutes from downtown. I dont hear anyone complaining that there is no airport in Cleveland, but Hopkins is in the same spot. The main problem is that the politicians don't like the visual. Both sites are still inside Cuyahoga county. Not analogous to moving to Baltimore As for the law, it probably is unconstitutional, and this time the state AG isn't going to fight the battle for them. They need to just give it up and get Haslam to tear down the old place and build them a nice park.
There's still a billion dollar gap on the financing. If HSG pays half the 2.4 bil, who is paying the rest?
Such a thing would NEVER happen, but taxpayers getting discount tickets to those games (then again, the Browns have been sucky for so long...). But I go back to when COSI had their tax proposal and the catch was that taxpayers would have gotten free admission to COSI. Too bad the taxpayers can't pay the initial bill, then the corporate sponsor comes in and they figure out how to reduce taxes for a while to "reimburse" the taxpayers. Getting a publicly-funded stadium reeks of double-dipping. The owners mooch off the public and then they get paid by BigCorporationWithHugeCheck.
Hopkins is a fan of moving the stadium to brookpark to create a district around the airport which lines up with their expansion
The mayor and a lot of other pols want to shutter it and make a lakefront access/ Greenspace with of course the obligatory " mixed use" areas as well. In truth it's really not a good use of prime waterfront/ downtown acreage. The economic advantages of having a private plane airport there are not substantial enough. It may be soon or late but Burke is done.
Hard to see how that would work. A publicly voted tax levy (which Cincinnati did years ago for their stadia) would probably fail. The Haslams would like to make a deal with the county but if the Cleveland city government screams about it, that won't happen. The state will pony up some money but not on the scale HSG wants. The Browns lease at their current facility expires in 2028. The city would be happy to renew it, the team less so. But if they can't get their dome built, they may have to.
Can someone please tell me how to call the Crew and speak to a human? I'll take ANY human whose "mailbox" is not "full". What rubbish. If anyone working for me in a public facing job had a "full" mailbox for five seconds they'd be handed a copy paper box and showed the door. I have a question about using a substantial sum of money that is in my Crew account, but the phone system is worthless, the online chat is a joke and I'm fairly disgusted after having wasted 20 minutes trying to get one very simple answer. Anybody help?
I used to call McCullers--but that was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away--in a different universe.... But you're right--and at that, Crew customer service is better than the Jackets..... Which makes one cringe a bit.
Here's my "hack" I discovered: Send a text message to your rep's phone number. Yeah, the one that comes in their emails that you probably already have. 614-447-XXXX. And yeah, I agree with you. The old system was a lot better. If you don't have their direct number, they had that dial-by-name directory. Isn't the current system a general mailbox, or at least it seems as such? "Leave your name, number and someone will get back to you."
I was sent two CBJ tickets (different games) from someone who can't use them. That person is in a wheelchair and needs ADA seating. I wanted to move them to a "regular" seat. It was easy enough with CBJ FO help...we just didn't realize they had to go back to the original account to be switched. Later on, a time conflict arose with one of the games and I was able to move the one ticket to a different date. That's my CBJ experience.
I e-mailed my ticket rep on Friday inquiring how to spend money in my Crew account on tickets that were available on Ticketmaster's generic site for next Sunday's game. My parents are coming into town and they haven't been to the new stadium yet. Luckily, there are seats available adjacent to my playoff strip seats. To my delight, he wrote back within 15 minutes: he applied the money from my account and the tickets are mine. Bonus: I saved about $100 in ticketmaster fees. EDIT: as far as I can tell, the only way to spend money from your account is to work with your account rep.
They've had some of the NCAA tournament for the past few years, but as for these two games, I have no idea.
Mod note: moved some international politics chat to the international politics thread in the politics NSR subforum.