Who wants to get along? 

The Browns’ pursuit of a roofed suburban stadium has scratched away the gloss of teamwork that Cleveland’s government and business leaders typically try to maintain. 

In 2021, local officials and Guardians’ ownership united to unveil a deal that they had already hammered out in private. By contrast, the Browns’ deal has ridden a wave of lawsuits, crabby letters and public shows of disappointment. 

Browns executive David Jenkins wrote to Chris Ronayne to call the Cuyahoga County executive’s opposition to a Brook Park stadium “disheartening” and “inexplicable.” Ronayne shot back that the team’s idea was “costly, risky, and poorly conceived.”

Next, the executive committee of the Greater Cleveland Partnership — the area’s chamber of commerce — endorsed the Browns’ plans. Rebuttals followed. The harshest came from City Council Member Kerry McCormack, who labeled the partnership “increasingly irrelevant” representatives of “the ultra wealthy.”

The rhetoric marks a sharp turn from the usual front of buzzwordy bonhomie put up by Cleveland’s decision makers. Consider a conference just five-and-a-half years ago, when Cleveland-area leaders discussed building a “tri-sectoral win-win competency” benefitting governments, nonprofits and businesses. 

Now the sectors are trying to one-up each other. Who could have imagined Downtown Cleveland Inc., downtown’s nonprofit advocate, publicly saying that it was “disappointed” with the Greater Cleveland Partnership? 

It hasn’t all been sharp elbows. Ronayne said the fight with the Browns has brought the county closer with the Cavaliers and Guardians. He praised Cavaliers’ owner Dan Gilbert’s investments on the riverfront, which are being helped along with tax breaks from the city.

“Our relationship with the other two sports teams is frankly solidified over all this,” he told Signal Cleveland this week. (Ronayne knows what it’s like to get on the Cavs’ bad side.)

Ronayne and Bibb now have more fodder for playing the Guardians and Cavaliers against the Browns. Public officials this week received the results of a poll of likely voters that ranks the football team as the least popular of Cleveland’s three pro sports clubs. 

The fight over the Browns’ stadium has a twist. If Ronayne and Bibb get the renovated, $1.2 billion downtown field that they want, the city will be on the hook to pay for part of it. If the Browns get their $2.4 billion Brook Park dome, then the city could wipe the stadium from its balance sheet. Bibb and Ronayne have argued that a Brook Park stadium is worse for downtown — a case the Browns have tried to rebut. 

There’s something to be said for airing all this acrimony, even if it does come with finger-pointing and theatrics. It may not be a tri-sectoral win-win or a public-private-philanthropic partnership. But it forces each side to argue its case, week after week, for all to see. 

Imagine that: a public debate over taxpayer subsidies for stadiums.