Randy
Lerner and I are about the same age. We even worked for the same company.
Lerner graduated from Columbia in 1984. A year later, I would get my
undergraduate degree in engineering from Ohio State.
After graduation, Lerner worked for the
Progressive Corporation, until forming an investment firm called Securities
Advisors. In the early 1990s, I was a consultant working with Progressive for a
little over two years developing
AI systems to help rate auto insurance policies. Cool project.
It was at Progressive that I first heard of Randy's father, Al Lerner, who
helped guide the company while also being Chairman of MBNA.
If there was a full org chart of Progressive at the time, it would have
started with a box that said "Peter B. Lewis" with a dashed line of some sort
that would quickly have connected to another box that said "Al Lerner". About
three feet down, after a lot of boxes, straight lines, dashed lines, little
jumpover connectors and more sheets of paper, would be the client execs who I
worked with at Progressive.
I'm guessing that somewhere on that org chart was a cloud that said simply
"various demigods with wealth beyond your mortal imagination". Peter Lewis and
Al Lerner were above that in the org chart. Our project team was a ways below
it.
Still, what happened on November 6th, 1995 changed the very different lives
of Al Lerner's son and the son of a plant manager in Georgia, eventually pulling
them into orbit around the same thing.
When Art Modell declared in Baltimore that he had no choice but to betray
Browns fans, it set in motion events that would ultimately give Randy Lerner
ownership of the Browns.
A trivial side note, unworthy of recording, was that among the multitudes of
Browns fans outraged at the events, a manager at a Big Six firm based out of
Cleveland was very, very pissed off.
Ten years later, that one-time manager would write an article that Randy
Lerner would read.
Therefore, we can only conclude that Modell's actions in November 1995
directly led Randy Lerner to develop a splitting headache over a decade later as
he attempted to wade through mangled sentence structure, nonsensical analogies,
garbled syntax, and pointless tangents.
From this we learn two things: It's a small freaking world, and one should
never underestimate how many of life's maladies can be blamed on Art Modell.
* * *
As important to all of us as the events on 11/6/95 were, something happened a
week later which still torments me today. If you've been with this site for a
while, you've heard me talk about it at some point.
On November 13th, the Browns travelled to Pittsburgh for a Monday night game
against the Steelers in generic Three Rivers Stadium.
Browns fans were rightfully enraged by the news of the week before, and
travelled to Pittsburgh with the notion of making their voices heard on national
television. Steeler fans, with a vague notion akin to loyalty forming in their
primitive simian brains, vowed to join Browns fans in protesting the move of
their long-time rival.
That evening ABC television showed football fans where real power lies, and
how it can be used to dull and suppress fans of the sport.
As I sat in front of the television that evening, I was stunned throughout
the entire first half as ABC television cameras steadfastly avoided showing any
shots of the crowd. Such reaction shots, common throughout all broadcasting of
all football games, were simply chopped out. The eye of the camera lens pointed
only at the field.
During halftime, play-by-play voice Al Michaels, by far the most trusted of
the sportscasters in that booth, spent five to ten minutes telling NFL fans
across the country that they should sympathize with Art Modell and explaining
the conflict purely from Modell's point of view.
Modell had been one of the folks behind Monday Night Football, for decades one of
ABC's highest-rated shows. The right to broadcast that money-generating TV
staple was not ABC's by divine right, but sold to them by the NFL on a recurring
basis.
I felt, and still feel, the NFL had used its power either directly or
indirectly, deliberately or not, to ram their point of view down the throats of
viewers across the country.
Meanwhile, fans who had been wronged wailed in the darkness. Shunted outside,
they pounded without answer on the locked door. People like you, and me, and
everyone who comes here, hammered down by the NFL. Told to shut up, while the
NFL put their twisted logic into the heads of millions, powerless.
That was over a decade ago, but for better or worse, I've never forgotten it.
I'll never forget it.
Even when I tell myself to let it go, that I'm over-reacting, that night
created a prism of distrust that I now look through when I see everything that
comes from the NFL, and even from the team that earned my lifelong devotion
while I was still a youngster.
I hate it. I want to believe, I want to give the benefit of the doubt, I'm
trying. But it never goes away.
* * *
When Romeo Crennel talked to us yesterday, he told us that Maurice Carthon
"resigned". A little less than two years ago, Butch Davis also "resigned".
I'm a trusting sort by nature. Foolishly so, at times. I'm sure that Soviet
leaders in that country's dark oppressive days would "fall ill", or decided to
"vacation at a Black Sea villa for the next fifteen years".
When we heard that yesterday, though, it's obvious that the ears of every
writer with an ounce of Woodward and Bernstein in them perked up. It didn't
sound like the truth, and journalists have this "thing" about getting the truth
out there. Fans have this "thing" about trying to find it.
To what purpose?
If the organization wants to say that Mo Carthon "resigned", why shouldn't
they be allowed to say that?
The Cleveland Browns are trying to help someone who was in their employ, and
I'm sure a lot of us wish we had an employer like that. What's the harm in
allowing an employee to leave with as much dignity as possible?
Do little distortions always lead to bigger ones? I hope not.
I wonder if Al Michaels has an opinion. I wonder if Rich Eisen does. But I
doubt they worry about such things.
* * *
The National Football League has decided to end their agreement with CBS
Sportsline and will bring development of NFL.com in-house.
Here is what was I read in a press release yesterday:
The NFL will increase its owned-and-operated media assets by bringing
in-house the operations of NFL.com...
“In a rapidly changing digital landscape, bringing NFL.com in-house
provides us greater control of our valuable content and enables us to
strategically build the site as a media asset,” said Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s
vice president of media strategy. “Fans can look forward to an even more
entertaining, interactive and informative site built upon the expertise of the
NFL and its other in-house media outlets such as NFL Network and NFL Films.”
If these new capabilities are used to bolster coverage of the game, or even
to simply allow the NFL to offer its own scrubbed and polished point of view to
fans, I have no problem with that.
If, however, that power is used to monopolize media coverage and take
news-gathering opportunities away from the independent and objective media, it
is a bad thing for fans. If that power is used to navigate fans away from
coverage that the NFL simply doesn't like, that is a bad thing for fans.
The NFL, like any other powerful organization, and particularly a tolerated
monopoly of sorts, needs to be held somewhat in check. We learned that here, a
decade ago. The media serves a vital and important role in making that happen.
Like any group of people in business, we hope, the folks who comprise the new
staff of NFL.com will be competitive and driven. They will want their web site
to dominate the landscape. When that happens, there will be the temptation to
use whatever resources are available to excel and beat their competition - in
this case, independent sites like local newspapers, ESPN, Fox, and, of course,
Scout.com.
There is already whispering that gameday press conferences broadcast from NFL
stadiums are an "NFL asset" and will be removed from the hands of the
independent media for broadcast only on NFL-owned channels. The NFL combines
already have only the NFL Network allowed to broadcast them, or even report on
them from inside the facility. Reporters are kept outside the facility, across
the street.
The more power the NFL accumulates in its own media properties, the more rife
the threat of abuse becomes.
* * *
All around my office, from the fan paraphernalia to the bookshelves to the
shelves of team photos to the computer, Al Michaels' stentorian voice still
echoes, banging around my brain.
I want to believe. I want to trust. I want to not care about this. All I want
is to be pleasantly buzzed and do some high fives with my friends as the Browns
win the AFC Championship. I want to smoke a stogie afterwards in the Muni, and
go home to lie down, exhausted and drained, and think of the Super Bowl that
lies ahead.
I want that to be all I care about when I show up each day to work on this
website.
That's all I want.
But the echoes of 1995 won't go away.
Barry McBride is publisher of The Orange and Brown Report. He began
publishing football-related commentary as a hobby in 1996 with a website
protesting the move of the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore. In 2001, he
established the OBR, originally named Bernie's Insiders. Barry would be happy to
receive your questions or comments via email at
barry@theobr.com.
The opinions expressed in this article are his and his alone, and do not
necessarily reflect the opinion of other writers or staff of the Orange and
Brown Report.