I-Team: Money for Browns — so what about money for Cavs or Guardians?

Yahoo

18-07-2025

CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team investigated what might happen now with your money going to stadiums for the Cleveland Cavaliers and Guardians, especially since the state just awarded the Browns big money for a dome.
Forget the cost of a ticket. The new focus is now on the cost of keeping up Rocket Arena and Progressive Field, along with how to pay for that.
There's a new spotlight since the state awarded the Browns $600 million to go toward a dome in Brook Park.
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We went to the board for the Gateway Economic Development Corporation. That group owns Progressive Field and Rocket Arena, which rely heavily on money from the 'sin tax' on alcohol and cigarettes.
Gateway has struggled to pay for what needs done.
On Wednesday, the Gateway board also discussed more work that's needed, even after big renovations.
'We need more money,' board Chair Gigi Benjamin said. 'The cost of capital repairs and construction projects continues to increase, and we have a 30-year-old facility that we're trying to preserve.'
In fact, late last year, the I-Team revealed the city and Cuyahoga County had to come up with extra money, a lot of it — about $40 million to pay for major upgrades and more repairs needed at the ballpark and the arena.
Now, the Cuyahoga County executive is talking about going to voters and state lawmakers, exploring ways to get Progressive Field and Rocket Arena more money from the sin tax.
'It's like your old house after years of being in a house. A roof begins to fail, you have to fix a stairwell, and that's what you have to do at the Guardians and Cavs,' Chris Ronayne said.
But with the Browns getting state money to put toward a dome, Cleveland Councilman Brian Kazy told us he may call for an end to the sin tax, saying the state can now pay for everything at all stadiums.
'All the professional sports teams, they wanted this fund down-state. They wanted to tap into state dollars, so let them have it,' Kazy said.
We also went back to Rev. Jimmy Gates, a Browns season ticket-holder and an inner-city pastor seeing need on the streets.
'Why make it worse than what it is now?' he said. 'Let's take the politics out of it. Let's make a decision — a judgment decision — on what needs to happen.'
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It's not so simple to the folks at Gateway. The board chair said that no matter what changes with the system, more money has to come in to keep up with repairs at Progressive Field and Rocket Arena.
'We would need something that would be in place on a regular basis — funding from the city, or the county, or the state, or a combination of the three,' Benjamin said.
No proposals have moved forward yet to have voters decide whether to expand the sin tax, or do away with it.
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