Every football fan in Baltimore knows the story. Art Modell brought NFL football back to Baltimore after we missed twelve NFL seasons after the Colts left in March 1984. Why Modell left Cleveland will be debated by sportswriters and fans just as Walter O’Malley’s decision to take the beloved Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958 was debated.
Was Modell a greedy NFL owner searching for the highest bidder and the best stadium deal or was he a loyal member of the Cleveland community who felt he was not appreciated and was not going to receive the financial aid he needed from Cleveland to keep the team. Both sides have their points, but whether or not Modell was justified in leaving Cleveland will be debated forever.
Is Modell’s controversial move keeping him out of the Hall of Fame? Clearly there’s no debating his contributions to the health and wealth of the NFL of today.
Modell, has long been admired by NFL owners and executives. The late Wellington Mara, the New York Giants owner, the man who talked Modell into getting into the NFL back in 1961 had advocated his induction for years. And while Mara was certainly influential, it is the unwritten rule of the Hall of Fame Electors not to be swayed during the voting process. Yet twice in recent history that rule has been pushed to the brink.
Most recently Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News was able to convince enough electors to induct Michael Irvin in 2007. The other elector who for years has broken the unwritten rule of lobbying is Tony Grossi of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Of course in the case of Grossi, he is not advocating for a candidate – he’s grandstanding to undermine one – Art Modell. And that’s something that doesn’t sit well with most Baltimoreans.
We know Modell as a gentleman with a big heart who has given to this community, including $10 million dollars to the Johns Hopkins Heart Institute. He created the Inner Circle in Cleveland in the early 80’s. This group was the first to officially recognize that some players needed help. The Inner Circle provides assistance to players who have family or substance abuse problems. These selfless acts never receive proper attention. Most outside of Baltimore prefer to view Modell as the villain who moved the Browns.
An objective observer of Modell’s accomplishments on behalf of the NFL would undoubtedly be impressed. More on that later but it’s important to note that there are just 15 inductees’ in the Hall of Fame who were not either a player or a coach. Well, make that 14. Al Davis was Oakland’s head coach for three seasons but it was his activities as a general manager and commissioner that earned him a bust in Canton.
Let’s consider those 15 in alphabetical order and then compare their accomplishments to those of one Arthur B. Modell. Maybe then you can make an objective decision as to whether he is deserving of similar status in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Bert Bell– Founded the Philadelphia Eagles in 1933 and developed the NFL college draft. He was elected NFL Commissioner in 1946 and served as commissioner to his death in 1959. He worked tirelessly during his tenure to ensure stability for the league and crafted the merger with the failed All America Football Conference in 1950 bringing the Browns, Colts, and 49ers into the league to commence the modern expansion of the NFL.
Charles Bidwell Sr. – He was a Chicago Bears fan who was asked by the league to purchase the bankrupt Chicago Cardinals and did so in 1933 thus preserving the team during the Great Depression. Bidwell died in 1947 and left the team to his family.
Joe Carr– Carr was an original founder of the NFL and was the league’s first president in 1921. He developed the first player contract and set rules and guidelines that allowed the league to survive in the early years, such as forbidding teams to use college players before their college playing eligibility was finished.
Al Davis– He was the head coach and GM of the Oakland Raiders in 1966 when he was elected AFL commissioner. He had helped escalate the bidding war between the AFL and NFL by signing college players drafted by NFL teams, pushing salaries higher and making the AFL more competitive. This in turn enticed NBC to sign a $36 million television deal with the AFL in late 1965. The end result was the NFL began serious merger negotiations with the AFL which resulted in the NFL-AFL merger on June 8, 1966. Davis’ aggressive actions pushed the leagues into that merger. He later became majority owner of the Raiders and moved them twice, from Oakland to Los Angeles, then back to Oakland. His moving of the Raiders did not sway the Hall of Fame electors, who recognized and rewarded him for his maverick dealings in the 1960’s by electing him in 1992.
Jim Finks– As a GM he built three losing teams into winners, the 60’s Vikings, the 70’s Bears, and the 80’s Saints. He was a finalist to replace Pete Rozelle after he retired when the owners elected Paul Tagliabue as commissioner.
Lamar Hunt– Hunt was one of the founders of the AFL in 1960. He was the Dallas Texans owner from 1960-1962, then moving them to Kansas City in 1963 and re naming them the Chiefs. He led the NFL-AFL merger negotiations in 1966.
Tim Mara– He founded the New York Giants in 1925. He kept the team afloat in the 20’s despite losing money, realizing that a successful professional sports league could not survive without a team in the nation’s largest city. His family still owns the franchise.
Wellington Mara– He began working for his father’s team in 1937. He assumed day to day operations of the Giants when Tim Mara passed away in 1959. Wellington was the first owner to realize that television could be a great revenue source. He pioneered television negotiations with the major networks.
George Preston Marshall-He founded the Redskins in 1932 in Boston, later moving them to Washington DC in 1937. Marshall crafted key rule changes in 1933 that opened up the game for the offense and made the league more competitive. He proposed using hash marks to spot the ball when a ball carrier went out of bounds. Before 1933 if a player went out of bounds, the next play the offense had to snap the ball one yard from the sidelines. He also crafted the rule allowing a passer to attempt a pass from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage. Before 1933, the passer had to be 5 yards behind the line before a legal pass could be attempted. This prompted more teams to throw the ball. He also designed the format to align the league into 2 divisions that created a championship game between division winners at end of the season.
Hugh (Shorty) Ray– Ray was the first supervisor of officials from 1938-1952. He streamlined rules to improve the tempo of the game and advocated for player safety. He created the roughing the passer penalty and made wearing a helmet mandatory.
Dan Reeves– Not the Cowboys player and Broncos and Falcons coach. This Dan Reeves bought the Cleveland Rams in 1937. He was a visionary who saw the west coast as a new revenue source for the league and moved the Rams to Los Angeles in 1946. This opened a new market for the league. He was the first post World War II owner to sign an African American player. He owned the Rams to his death in 1971.
Art Rooney– Founder of the Pittsburgh Pirates football team in 1933, changing their name to the Steelers in 1940. He was ne of the most likeable personalities in pro football history. He was respected league wide for keeping the Steelers afloat and in Pittsburgh despite losing money almost every year and having the league’s lowest attendance.
Dan Rooney-Rooney began assisting running the day to day operations of the Steelers in 1955. He was instrumental in forging the 1993 labor agreement between the players and owners.
Pete Rozelle– NFL Commissioner 1960-1989. Highlighting his accomplishments is a story in itself. He is the most important person in American sports history that was not a player.
Tex Schramm– Schramm began with the Rams in 1947 before becoming the expansion Dallas Cowboys general manager their first year in 1960. He developed the modern scouting system that is used by every team today. He was one of the key players in the NFL-AFL merger in 1966.
Art Modell and the NFL
If you agree that Art Modell belongs in the HOF, feel free to sign the petition at this LINK
Modell was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1925. Growing up he was a huge football fan, rooting for both the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Football Dodgers. Modell pursued a professional career in television advertising and worked his way up the ranks. While working in New York he befriended Giants owner Wellington Mara. Mara was a visionary who correctly forecasted a financial windfall for professional football through partnering with television. Given Modell’s advertising background, Mara believed he would be a good fit as an NFL owner.
In 1961, Mara knowing that Cleveland Browns owner Dave R Jones wanted to sell his team, brought Modell and Jones together. On June 22, 1961, Modell and a group of investors purchased the Browns from Jones. Modell immediately took the lead of the NFL television committee.
On January 10, 1962 Modell negotiated a $4.65 million yearly television pact with CBS for them to televise all NFL regular season games. In 1964 the deal was increased to $14 million and in 1966 it was up to $18.1 million. Today the NFL collectively receives more than three billion dollars a year from the various television networks. Clearly the league is woven into the country’s social fabric.
Modell served on the television committee for more than thirty years. He is revered by all owners for his work. He took them from being a casual weekend sport with little media coverage to being the new America’s Past Time. He also helped get the league into prime time as an driving force behind the creation of Monday Night Football.
In addition to his television work, Modell was a showman and introduced NFL pre season double headers in the 60’s in Cleveland. On the business side he helped craft the first collective bargaining agreement with the players and was a key player in the NFL-AFL merger. He and Tex Schramm negotiated for the NFL while Lamar Hunt headed the AFL side. Modell along with the Steelers and Colts volunteered to join the AFL teams in forming the American Football Conference in 1970, which put the finishing touches on the merger.
While these are certainly landmark accomplishments, perhaps the best example of Modell’s contributions to the league is embodied in today’s Pittsburgh Steelers.
Prior to the television pact signed in 1962 the Steelers were the NFL’s poorest team. Owner Art Rooney struggled to keep his team in business, with ticket sales as his only means of revenue. Challenging those ticket sales was the inept performance of the team. From the time the Steelers were founded up to the signing of the television deal the Steelers had lost more games than any NFL team.
In 1961 the Pittsburgh Steelers averaged 24,600 fans a game for their 7 home games. Conversely the Baltimore Colts averaged 55,973 fans a game. Before the national television pact teams had only ticket sales and the small revenues from local radio. Only a few teams had local television coverage.
The Steelers had struggled every year to stay in business and because of that their focus was on survival, not necessarily on winning and their record over the years proved that.
The 1962 television package which brought in $4.65 million was evenly split between every team. Modell insisted that this needed to be part of the deal. CBS wanted to be sure that all of the franchises would be stable financially. The large market teams such as the Giants and Rams shared in this new wealth evenly with the lowly Steelers, even though Pittsburgh’s local television market was not big and they were not a national attraction such as John Unitas or the New York Giants.
Modell’s television deal allowed the Steelers to stay in Pittsburgh. Without it, Rooney would have had to sell or move them. The guaranteed TV revenue stream stabilized them financially. They were then able to turn their attention towards fielding a better team instead of fighting for survival. The franchise’s four Super Bowl wins in the ‘70’s could never have happened without television and arguably Art Modell.
Modell’s election into the Hall of Fame is a no-brainer.
Yet it hasn’t been that way for those with the power to vote.
Perhaps the problem with the voters rest in the credentials of those voters or should I say the lack thereof. Sportswriters and broadcasters can debate the abilities and accomplishments of players and coaches with highlights and statistics. Those accomplishments are measurable.
Yet contributions made by worthy candidates who don’t compete or coach such as Art Modell are hard to gauge since there so many intangibles that are impossible to measure. The Hall’s election of owners and other contributors should be handled by a special committee more suited to assess their accomplishments.
The Hall of Fame has a special Seniors Committee, a group from the 44 electors who have a better historical knowledge of the game. They nominate players and coaches who careers ended before 1983. The Hall would be wise to do the same for candidates like Modell.
If such a committee were now in place Art Modell would be the first selection inductee that he should have been given his pioneering contributions to the economic growth of the NFL.
Until then Tony Grossi, clearly a man with an ax to grind and an agenda needs to be hit with the mute button and end his vindictive slandering of Modell. The subject of moving the Browns, right, wrong, or indifferent pales in comparison to the contributions Art Modell made to this league, every owner and franchise, and to football fans everywhere, not just in Cleveland and Baltimore.
Art Modell not being in the Hall of Fame is a wrong that needs to be righted and hopefully not posthumously.
If you agree that Art Modell belongs in the HOF, feel free to sign the petition at this LINK
