As new renderings emerge for Cleveland Browns new stadium, Jason and Travis Kelce state their case for keeping NFL teams playing downtown
By now, everyone understands the Cleveland Browns are poised to build a new state-of-the-art stadium where they'll play their home games long into the future. That doesn't mean everyone agrees with it, though.
One of the most vocal objectors to the move happens to be a Cleveland native with one of the most popular sports podcasts in the world.
Ex-Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, who makes up one half of the New Heights Podcast with his brother Travis continues to staunchly oppose the Browns looming move from their current stadium downtown to the suburbs.
"Keep those stadiums in the cities," Kelce said on the latest episode of he and Travis' podcast. "I know you guys want to make all your money. You want to have all your shows. The fans pay a lot of the money for you guys to have all these things and for the NFL to exist. I don't like the stadiums moving. I don't like that Cleveland's moving out of Cleveland."
The conversation came up as Jason and Travis reflected on their time in California last week for the Super Bowl, with Jason noting how far away from downtown San Francisco the 49ers' stadium is.
The NFL siblings seemed to understand why more and more teams build outside of their respective teams' city limits, but noted that growing up in Cleveland where all the major sports teams played their games in downtown, it's what they prefer.
"Man, these cities, there's something awesome about going downtown, into the heart of Cleveland to go see a Browns game," Jason added. "They could figure out a way to build a new stadium downtown, like you could build a big, beautiful stadium right down there."
Whether Kelce brothers are on board or not, the Brook Park Stadium is expected to be moving forward, despite facing some last-minute litigation over the state's use of unclaimed funds to help the Haslam Sports Group fund the project.
Earlier this week, the architecture firm HKS, which is overseeing the stadium project, released new renderings of the estimated $2.4 billion facility, which included a close up of the re-imagined Dawg Pound section, with a video board overhead.
The Browns have targeted March 2, as the official date to break ground on the new stadium.
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