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Jim Ingraham: Haslams obviously don’t know the meaning of loyalty - BrownsZone with Scott Petrak -

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The Browns have announced they are raising their season ticket prices, but if you’re a Browns season ticket holder, don’t be discouraged.

Because when you write that check to the Browns, it also, in a roundabout way, makes you part-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.

Congratulations!

The next time you’re in Milwaukee and the Bucks are holding a shareholder’s meeting, just show up at the door, tell security you’re “one of Jimmy and Dee’s business partners,” and you’d like a couple of “Greek Freak” T-shirts to take home to the kids.

Who says there aren’t perks from playing ball with the Haslams?

Perks, yes.

Browns victories, well, they’re still working on that.

Hence, the season ticket increase.

Warranted or not warranted? You be the judge.

Since the Haslams bought the Browns in 2012, the Browns’ record is 59-118 (.333). In those 11 years the Browns have had seven head coaches and one playoff appearance.

Prior to becoming the owners of the Browns the Haslams were minority owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the best-run organizations in professional sports.

Obviously, something got lost in translation.

Earlier this week, the Haslams agreed to buy a 25 percent share of the Milwaukee Bucks, one of the best-run organizations in professional sports, valued at $3.5 billion. And it was almost a year ago that the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson and signed him to a five-year, $230 million contract.

The Haslams also own the Columbus Crew soccer team.

Now, the Haslams are raising the season ticket prices of their most loyal — some would say most inexplicably loyal — customers: Browns season ticket holders.

Haven’t those fans suffered enough?

To be fair, it should be pointed out that, prior to this year, the last time the Browns raised season ticket prices was … let’s see here … oh, yeah, last year.

The Browns would undoubtedly be happy to remind those affected by this year’s season ticket increase that during the Haslams’ ownership the cost of Browns season tickets has traditionally been among the lowest in the NFL.

The fans, in turn, would like to respectfully point out that, given the product, season ticket prices for the Browns — who are now at 33 years and counting without back-to-back seasons in the playoffs — SHOULD be among the lowest in the league, if not THE lowest.

Incredibly — absolutely flabbergasting-ly — it remains a seller’s market.

The Browns’ season ticket waiting list is over 8,000 — for a team that has finished in last place in its division 16 times in the last 24 years.

It’s a team that hasn’t earned this kind of support, but, for decades, continues to get it, at a level of unprecedented Pavlovian loyalty.

Dawg Pound, indeed.

Granted, this year’s season ticket increase — from $5 to $10 per ticket for most and higher for some — probably won’t be a deal-breaker for the majority of the NFL’s most loyal fan base. But the optics are bad. Very bad.

So is the team.

I’m no economics genius, but asking your customers for more money as the product you’re selling deteriorates to the point that it’s among the worst of its kind, is the kind of business sense that makes no sense.

The Browns should be reducing season ticket prices, even if it’s only for a year, as a thank you to their fans. Call it a “loyalty sale.” A “thanks for sticking with us through our current struggles.” The owners, who could use some Cleveland goodwill, could start there.

Give some kind of indication to the fan base that the organization appreciates this kind of allegiance to a franchise that, long before most of the current season ticket holders were born, was one of the National Football League’s flagship franchises.

Buying soccer teams and pieces of NBA teams fattens the portfolio, but cheapens the perceived commitment by an ownership whose roots are in Tennessee, not Ohio, to what matters most to Northeast Ohioans:

Cleveland’s professional football team.

As the owner of a football team, in a city that stands, figuratively, in the shadow of the game’s Hall of Fame — and takes that sport more seriously than any of them — there’s an obligation to win. To focus only on that.

To their owners, the Browns are a business holding.

To the Dawg Pound, the Browns are their lives.

There is always going to be a disconnect in sports between any city’s fans and the owners of its sports teams. The biggest, of course, being financially and economically.

The fans care nothing about that.

The owners care only about that. At least the best of them do a better job of camouflaging it.

It’s easy to lose touch when your business is everyone else’s diversion. In sports, there’s passion in diversions. In business, a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet.

In sports, owners want success because it helps business.

Fans want it because it’s their lives.

The best owners realize that, and proceed accordingly.

Jim Ingraham is a sports columnist for the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram and the Medina Gazette. Contact him at 329-7135 or jingraham4@gmail.com and follow him @Jim_Ingraham on Twitter

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