To most folks who regularly attended games at this big cathedral, it was anything but a mistake by the lake. Municipal Stadium, which served at the home port for Cleveland’s pro football teams almost nonstop for six decades, was an impressive structure that was one of the loudest venues in the game. It was also the home of the famous Dawg Pound, where fans sometimes threw dog biscuits at opposing players.
Interestingly, the city of Cleveland did have football on its mind when ground was first broken in the summer of 1930.The original plan called for 80,000 seats with the possibility of expanding to as many as 110,000. Although the first actual event held there was a boxing match, the baseball Indians used it more than anybody else (although they played home games at League Park until 1947). The first football game played there was in September 1931 when the Cleveland Indians, a local team that had designs on the NFL, drew 35,000 for a game against a semi-pro team. In 1936, Cleveland joined the new American Football League, playing their games at Municipal. A year later, team owner Homer Marshman accepted an offer to join the established NFL.
Despite being fairly successful on the field, the team didn’t draw well in the cavernous stadium. In 1943, the Rams suspended operations for a year. Despite winning the league title in 1945, owner Dan Reeves got fed up with poor attendance figures and moved to Los Angeles. That was the opening Paul Brown, who had been a very successful high and college coach, was waiting for. Brown, who also served as head coach, partnered with local businessman Mickey McBride to form a team that played in the All-American Football Conference.
The team was an immediate hit at the big Stadium. The very thing the baseball Indians didn’t like – the stadium’s vastness – appealed to football fans, many of whom didn’t seem to mind sitting up high. (The upper deck ran 32 rows and the roof was 116 feet -- the equivalent of ten stories – above the field.) The Browns drew 60,135 for their first home game against Miami … and rarely looked back for the next 50 years.
At about the same time, the Indians, perennial also-rans, also shot to the top of the baseball charts. As a result, the city of Cleveland kept adding seats to the stadium, pushing its capacity well over 80,000. A crowd of 82,769 attended a 1948 game with San Francisco.
Despite the fact it was a huge stadium, Municipal was a very open structure. As was the case in most stadiums used for baseball, the field ran from the first base foul line out to left center field. That meant, although one end zone was totally enclosed, the other one was fairly open. Many a bitter wind shot through the place in December and January games.
Municipal Stadium holds a couple of unique niches in NFL lore. In 1962 NFL teams played six preseason games against opponents of their choosing. It was not unusual for one of these to occur at a neutral site.
These games tended not to draw very well so the Browns offered an unusual incentive – a guarantee to two teams to come and play a game prior to a Browns’ game. That year, Detroit and Dallas (which was in just its third year of existence) played followed by a game between the Browns and their archrival Pittsburgh. 77,863 fans attended the two games, an extraordinary figure for a preseason game.
This started a tradition that lasted a decade. The Browns would work hard at getting good matchups, who seem to treat the game as more than a simple warmup for the regular season. Joe Namath and the New York Jets appeared twice. So did the Green Bay Packers. Helped by a break in ticket prices, the twinbills regularly drew crowds of 80,000 plus. By 1971, however, teams preferred to play as many preseason games at home as possible and the doubleheader was discontinued.
The Browns were consistently a good draw. The Indians were not. As long as the city owned the stadium, this was not a big deal. But when Browns owner Art Modell bought the stadium from the city in 1973, things began to change. Modell was now the baseball team’s landlord, a very unusual arrangement. Although they were primitive by today’s standards, he built one of the few group of luxury suites in an outdoor stadium. The Indians didn’t send a lot of business his way but the football fans loved the idea.
Eventually, the baseball team worked out a deal with the city to get their own place, Jacobs Field, in 1994. Although many people didn’t know it, this was the beginning of the end of Municipal. Modell lost money because many folks didn’t renew their suite rental, opting for the new park. The Indians, who improved on the field as well, were suddenly a hot commodity and Municipal suddenly looked like a very old place that couldn’t be fixed up.
The years of rock concerts and use by baseball and football teams had taken a heavy toll. Modell realized the cost of fixing the stadium to even come close to matching Jacobs was prohibitive. Word leaked out midway in the 1995 season the team was going to move. While some diehards were upset, fan unrest was surprisingly minimal. The NFL came to a compromise that satisfied everybody when it was revealed a new team would come back to Cleveland in three years and play in a new stadium. The Browns’ name and everything else would remain there when Modell went to Baltimore.
On December 17, 1995, the Browns, who were having a poor season, bade farewell to Municipal with a 26-10 win over instate rival Cincinnati. Only 55,000 showed up for the final game. The stadium stood empty for another year before taking down. Ironically, it cost $2.9 million to take the stadium down … which was more than it cost to build the place.
Fittingly, the new Browns’ stadium was built on the same site.
In addition to the games with the Rams, Browns and Indians, Municipal was the scene of several other games and events. In 1932, Notre Dame played Navy in the first of what would be 13 encounters at Municipal. All of them were big box office hits with the 1947 game drawing 84,090 fans. Ohio State played four games there. In 1947, the Great Lakes Bowl, which saw a George Blanda led Kentucky team defeat Villanova, 24-14, was played there. But the game drew just 14, 908 fans and was never played again.
Municipal was also host to several concerts, including a 1966 Beatles event. In 1984, Michael Jackson played to large crowds two nights in a row. The largest crowd ever for a Municipal event was a non-sports affair – when 125,000 attended an Eucharistic Service in 1935. Billy Graham held a pair of crusades there. His first was in 1972 and he returned for one of the last events ever held in the stadium in 1994.
