Cleveland Browns leadership says it wants to give fans “the best-in-class experience they deserve” with a new stadium. So where do those Browns die-hards want the team to play – in an open-air, renovated bowl on Lake Erie, or under a new dome in Brook Park?
City Council Member Kris Harsh, a season ticket holder fresh off a fact-finding mission at the Browns’ two preseason home games, has some data points to offer on that question. According to Harsh, nearly 60% of fans he surveyed at the games want to stay on the lake.
Pen and reporter’s notepad in hand, Harsh hoofed outside and inside the stadium, asking fans, “Stay here, or go to Brook Park?”
He didn’t just quiz a handful of people in line for hot dogs. He recorded 3,158 responses with help from Council Member Danny Kelly, he said. The results, according to Harsh: 1,889, or 59.8%, voted to stay; 1,160, or 36.7%, voted to move to Brook Park. Another 109 said they didn’t care.
“I was not trying to conduct a pure scientifically unbiased poll,” Harsh said. “I just wanted to know what people going to the stadium thought about it. And I figured, rather than sit around and wondering, I got my ticket, I can go down and just start asking.”
Was sent this video of @CleCityCouncil’s @KrisHarsh (and Danny Kelly, not pictured) outside the Browns-Vikings game conducting a highly scientific survey on fans’ preferred home for the team. pic.twitter.com/pjZLeMY5T6
— Nick Castele (@NickCastele) August 17, 2024
A sample size of 3,000 is nothing to sneeze at. It’s larger than the typical presidential poll, although professional pollsters take pains to make sure their samples are representative.
Harsh acknowledged that there could be selection bias in his call-and-response survey. After all, these were fans who chose to spend their afternoons at the lakefront stadium for low-stakes preseason games.
Whether the results are significant or just a statistical blip, the survey shows how stadium politics have shifted since Mayor Justin Bibb publicized his proposal for financing a renovation. With negotiations at last out of the dark, politicians are taking sides.
Harsh’s vote is for the Browns to stay on the lake, though he said he’s reserving judgment on the details of Bibb’s plan. Council President Blaine Griffin and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne have joined Team Lakefront, too.
If the Browns were conducting their own market research on stadium options, they might survey a wider universe of people, according to Michael Goldberg, who directs the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship at Case Western Reserve University.
Loyal fans will buy tickets, whether that’s to a game on the lake or near the airport. But what about potential new customers, Goldberg said – like convention planners or the people who book Taylor Swift’s tour venues? Would they pay to use a roofed football stadium in a Cleveland suburb?
“The methodology seems fine,” he said of Harsh’s fan-on-the-street survey. “Is that the right customer to be asking? Maybe not.”
That’s a question only the Browns can answer. For Harsh, the window for polling has closed. He won’t repeat his survey when Cleveland hosts the Dallas Cowboys for the home opener in September. Instead, he’ll be in his seat with tens of thousands of other fans.
“I want to start watching the games now, because they start counting,” Harsh said.
