Cleveland Browns to Sell Stadium Naming Rights to FirstEnergy
By Josh Hill
Monday morning there were nine NFL stadiums that still remain free of naming rights. Tuesday morning there are only eight, as Jimmy Haslam is expected to announce this week that he has sold the naming rights to Cleveland Browns Stadium to the Akron-based company FirstEnergy. Cleveland Browns Stadium will next year be known as FirstEnergy Stadium, or so one would assume.
Whatever the official name ends up being on the Browns stadium, one thing is certain: Haslam is literally crossing out the old to write-in the new. He fired the previous coaching staff, he fired his general manager and now, in essence, he’s firing the name of the stadium.
The Cleveland Browns were part of a very exclusive group of teams that own stadiums without a corporate name plastered all over it. Now that FirstEnergy will be naming the Browns stadium after their company only the Green Bay Packers (Lambeau Field), Kansas City Chiefs (Arrowhead Stadium), Buffalo Bills (Ralph Wilson Stadium), Cincinnati Bengals (Paul Brown Stadium), San Francisco 49ers (Candlestick Park), Chicago Bears (Soldier Field), Dallas Cowboys (Cowboys Stadium) and Atlanta Falcons (Georgia Dome) remain as teams with stadiums without corporate sponsorship.
This truly is a brand new era for the Cleveland Browns under the ownership of Jimmy Haslam. So far Haslam is doing his best to polish the turd of a franchise he bought back in August. The only question is will the polishing result in the turd turning to gold or will all the hard work just be — well the polishing of a turd?