Cleveland Browns Tickets For Sale


Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns were founded in 1944 by the owners Arthur Mickey McBride and Paul Brown. They started playing in 1946 in the All-America Football Conference, a professional football league that was a major challenger for the established National Football League. From the onset, the Browns had tremendous fan support over the original Cleveland football team, the Rams, and as a result, the Rams relocated to Los Angeles.

In 1948, they were the first team ever to complete the season unbeaten and untied. By the end of the 1949 season, the Brown wins became very predictable, and the general feeling was that this was because of the weak teams that made up the newly formed All-America Football Conference. At about this time, the All-America Football Conference was having difficulty sustaining itself, so it merged with the NFL and the Browns became one of the three teams to join the NFL.

Even after joining the NFL in 1950, the Brown's success as a winning team continued and they became one of its best teams, winning consecutive division crowns as well as the NFL title. The Browns were an exceptionally consistent team, losing only 12 times in 46 seasons and picking up seven division titles in the twelve years from 1950 to 1962. In 1961, the Cleveland Browns were purchased by Arthur B. Modell, and their success continued through the 60s.

In the 70s, things turned sour when the team’s success took a nose dive. While they appeared in the playoffs in 1971 and 1972, they lost in the first round each time. Then, from 1973 to 1979 they never even managed to make it to post-season.

In the mid 80s, when the Browns drafted Kosar and teamed him with Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack, the Browns experienced a resurgence. They made it to the play-offs from 1985 to 1989, and Kosar became a top-ranking NFL quarterback. The Browns made it to the AFC Championship in 1986, 1987 and 1989, only to be defeated by the Denver Broncos each time. Due to these match-ups, the two teams became eminent rivals.

In November 1995, the owner of the Cleveland Browns decided to relocate them to Baltimore, Maryland. The decision met with unparalleled hostility from fans and lead to the filing of more than one hundred lawsuits the following day, in addition to death threats against the owner. Fearing backlash of anger from fans, many of the team’s sponsors pulled their advertisements in the final weeks before the team moved to Baltimore for the 1996 season.

In reaction, the voters of Cleveland approved $175 million tax dollars to upgrade the outdated Cleveland Stadium. In an unprecedented legal settlement, the new Cleveland Browns also got to keep the Browns legacy in the city, while the NFL announced that the team would only be deactivated, and a new stadium would be built for the new activated Cleveland Browns team in 1999. The new team will keep the rights to the Browns’ name, colors and all the memorabilia.

In the little over a decade since the new franchise came into existence, the performance of the Cleveland Browns has been unimpressive. In the first 40 years of their history, the Browns made it to the playoffs 22 times. Despite this, they have never been able to play in the Super Bowl.