@nails said:

My friend's sister is married to Mike Furrey. He told me today that the Browns have not shown interest. 3 teams in the mix so far. Pats, Broncos, & Chiefs.....

He is leaning towards the Patriots right now -

Well take a guess why? Put yourself in his place

Pluto is right. The entire way Lerner hired was wrong. Hire the GM first, then the coach. Time will tell but after reading and hearing the Mangini stories from his Jet days, he's no savior. Kokinis is just going to be his yes man. Lerner Blows and you can not fire the owner.

@hoorta said:

BTW, the participating teams in the Super Bowl get about 12,000 seats per game. I'd say we're now in the top 10% in seniority. Unless you want to tell me the club is going to take 1\2 of those seats for perks, I like my odds. You ever checked the price of Super Bowl tickets on Stubhub? It's beyond the means of all but the very richest fans- unless you want to take out a second mortgage on the house to go. I thought I had a cheap out a few years back, because I have a good friend in Detroit that could let me stay at his house. Just to get into the nosebleeds at Ford Field were $2,000 apiece, and they went up-way up from there. That's why you see the plethora of movie stars and magnates at the SB- they're the only folks who can afford those tickets on the secondary market.

SB ticket distribution

AFC Champion - 17.5 percent

NFC Champion - 17.5 percent

Host Team (Dolphins) - 5.0 percent

Other 29 Teams - 34.8 percent

NFL - 25.2 percent

There is no seniority....the teams do it by lottery but if you think it is a fair lottery, dream on. Your odds are slim unless you own a box or suite. The 80/20 rule works here. (20% of your clients produce 80% of your revenue)Unless you are one of the coorportations or businesses or the 20% you have about a 10% chance or less to get tix. The players, coaches, administration, politicians and whoever is connected with ownership will get the tickets.

My brother in law is next door neighbors with former Brown Kevin Johnson(lives in New Jesey)and he told him about the way it works and it makes sense. All NFL players/coaches get 2 tickets. Your best chance is if you know a player or an insider. I hope you learned something and can forget about your pipe dreams and long shot odds of getting SB tickets

c-dawg said:

I think it can get a lot worse than this...see this year's Detroit Lions and Vick's Atlanta Falcons.

0-16 or no team? hmmmmm...at least when the Browns were gone there was no moaning on Monday morning but there was no chance to win either.

Look I dont expect the Stadium to be empty if the Browns play like they have for 8 of the past 10 years but to just blindly and emotionaly keep going & supporting that if it continues is not right either.

@hoorta said:

I live 220 miles from Cleveland, I could easily start rooting for the Colts, but I'll send in my $$ for another batch of season tickets come May. (No increase in prices, I'll wager.) What you folks who don't have season ticket fail to realize, you give up your PSLs- unless you happen to be a millionaire, you've just kissed decent seating at Browns games away forever. We're up to 26 years of ticket seniority- should the Browns ever make the Super Bowl, we may be in line to score tickets for the big game at face value. Should I toss that away too?

Thats the point of the article...how much more can you take and is it worth it? I will tell you one thing....if the Browns would ever make it to the Super Bowl, you have a very slim chance for tickets at face value. As per the PSLs, myself, Iwould not worry about it.If the Browns becaome a Super Bowl contender, you can always gets tickets(maybe not at face)

@dtbh said:

Estrago, you think you're knocking Browns fans for being "stupid" and "liking" losing football.

You're only proving everything we already knew. Steeler "fans" are frontrunners and couldn't care less about their teams when they lose.

Did I write that article..and who said I am a Steeler fan? The writer made a point about theTribe and Cavs and how fans behaved accordingly. Like he said, how much more can one take? Nothing was mentioned about frontrunners and not caring....only YOU did!

@allaneddie said:

It's football, and most of the US of A loves football. Cleveland loves football. Hope springs eternal with each preseason. There is some fun in going to the games. There are only 8 of these games a year spanning a 4 month period. There are plenty of weekends to do other things.

Only fun game last year was the Mon game vs the Giants. Loves football...sure...love bad football...how much much can you take. The Cincy game was fun eh?

@pl4tinum said:

At first I thought this article was going to suck. But it turned out to be pretty good. Thank you for posting it.

You're Welcome

but I made a post last night quoting Bernie praising the Steelers and mentioned the hate and envy...and it got deleted because a mod didnt like it

Wonder if this post will last or if it makes them mad

Where's the breaking point? When does the honeymoon end? When do the Browns reach the point where they are so bad for so long that their fans eventually lose interest and wander off in search of other activities on Sunday afternoons in the fall?

That is what I mean about making ownership accountable !!!

By JIM INGRAHAM

[email protected]

IT'S bad enough that the Browns are bad. But it's who is good that makes it even worse.

The Steelers, who seem to go to the Super Bowl about as often as the Browns change coaches, have done it again. Not just gone to the Super Bowl, but won it.

Again.

Won it with a linebacker from Kent State scoring a touchdown on a 100-yard interception return. Won it with a quarterback from Miami of Ohio throwing the game winning touchdown pass to a receiver from Ohio State.

Why doesn't Dan Rooney just hire some roving bands of steelworkers to invade Cleveland with a bunch of sharp sticks and poke each and every Browns fan in the eye?

I mean, really. Can it get any worse than this?

While Browns fans are still trying to figure out the proper pronunciation of "Kokinis'' — and whether it's even worth the trouble — there was a parade in downtown Pittsburgh Tuesday that was expected to draw upwards of a quarter of a million people.

Hint: it wasn't for the unveiling of a new ketchup bottle.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one other thing, not that you needed reminding. The team the Steelers beat to GET to the Super Bowl was the Browns. No, not these Browns, THOSE Browns. The old Browns. The former Browns. The Browns team that was hijacked out of Cleveland, whereupon the city had to wait three empty years for. . . for. . . THESE Browns.

Other than that, how do you like the decade so far?

All of which raises the question: When exactly will Browns fans stop buying tickets? How long do these Browns have to be this bad before people say "that's enough this'' and stay home?

When the Indians finished their run of division titles after 2001 and began to rebuild, the automatic sellouts at then-Jacobs Field instantly disappeared. Home attendance went from 3.1 million in 2001 to 2.6 in 2002 to 1.7 in 2003.

The year before LeBron James fell into their lap the Cavs were last in the NBA in attendance. Since James arrived and the team got good, the Cavs have, in successive years finished 29th, 9th, 6th, 5th, 3rd, and 3rd in the NBA in attendance.

In other words, in baseball and basketball, Cleveland fans behave the way most fans behave. They show up when the team is good and they don't when the team is bad.

But not in football.

Browns fans show up religiously for every home game, no matter how bad the team is. From this we can draw only one of two conclusions: Browns fans are either incredibly loyal or hopelessly foolish.

In the last 16 years the Browns have had losing records in 13 of them. In 10 of those 16 years the Browns have lost 10 or more games. Yet in none of those 16 years have the fans stopped coming.

It's been sellout after sellout after sellout. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano.

Is tailgating really THAT much fun?

That's got to be it, right? It can't be the football. For the most part the football has ranged from bad to inept to unwatchable.

Yet it's sellout after sellout after sellout.

In what other business could a company consistently provide its customers with such an inferior product and still be assured that the customers would continue buying it, year after year after year?

We should all be so lucky as to own a company such as that.

All of which is not to question the sanity of Browns fans. I mean it's not like they have a choice. You live in Cleveland? You like NFL football? Well, here's your team. Take it or leave it. Browns fans take it, and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, the team they USED to have was the second best team in the AFC this year. And the team they USED to beat — all right, you have to go back to the 1960s to prove it — are the Super Bowl champs. Again.

Where's the breaking point? When does the honeymoon end? When do the Browns reach the point where they are so bad for so long that their fans eventually lose interest and wander off in search of other activities on Sunday afternoons in the fall?

We may find out next season. Given the economy, given the more appealing products at Quicken Loans Arena and Progressive Field, given the Browns' long run of failure, and given, in particular, the organization's embarrassing performance over the last 12 months, will 2009 be the year when Browns fans stop writing checks and finally say "no mas''?

You couldn't blame them if they do.

Or you could admire them if they don't.

Comments

The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the view of morningjournal.com.

amtechs wrote on Feb 4, 2009 10:25 AM:

" After 25 years of being a Browns fan, I am at the closest I have ever been to calling it quits. I am tired of the years of mismanagement, the years of bad decisions, the bad players, and most importantly the arrogant Pittsburgh fans reminding me how much of a fool I am. I won't buy another ticket to a game until they show me that my years of loyalty wasn't a joke. "

Let Lewis go if you get a RB in the 1rst or 2nd round