Cleveland always struck me as a city with passionate fans that stuck with their teams through thick and thin.
When LeBron James took his talents elsewhere, the Cavaliers continued to draw crowds, recording the third-highest average attendance in the NBA and standing behind a team that was almost guaranteed to be lottery bound.
The passion they hold for the Browns is so strong that when the team was stolen from them and moved to Baltimore, the city made sure to keep the name and history for when an expansion franchise made its way back to the shores of Lake Erie.
But as a Detroit sports fan and Michigan native, there’s something I don’t understand about Cleveland fans.
Why don’t they support the Indians?
The team is almost assured to earn a wild-card spot after investing in players like Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher, along with manager Terry Francona in the offseason.
They play an exciting brand of baseball, with promising pitchers like Danny Salazar and a future superstar like second baseman Jason Kipnis.
Yet the Tribe sits at 28th in all of Major League Baseball in attendance, one spot ahead of the clown car known as the Miami Marlins organization and one spot behind the inept Houston Astros.
I’ve tried to look into the reasoning for a playoff bound team to be drawing less than 10,000 fans for a meaningful game against a competitive Kansas City Royals team in September.
Excuses range from the expense of ticket prices to the ease of watching a game at home, but the most prominent is the distrust in ownership.
The Dolan family, which owns the Indians, has not been the best to the organization, but there are oodles of owners in professional sports that are more concerned about turning a quick buck rather than fielding a competitive team.
That’s basically what the new incarnation of the Browns have been, with the Lerner family, the former owners and now current owner Jimmy Haslam raking in the money from filling a stadium on Sundays, without putting a team on the field worth paying for.
People are interested, as the Indians claim to have gained ratings for their television and radio broadcasts.
Look, the Indians are about to do something the new edition of the Browns have not done in more than a decade and make the playoffs, with a chance, no matter how slim it is, to win a championship for a city that deserves one.
ch203310@ohiou.edu
@c_hoppens
