Browns Deal With Sponsors

June 28, 1999 / 8:43 PM EDT / AP

Browns owner Al Lerner on Monday put an end to any guessing about the name of Cleveland's new NFL football home.

It's Cleveland Browns Stadium a name as simple the team's unadorned helmets.

Lerner is passing on a chance to sell stadium naming rights to one business or organization. Instead, the Browns are selling naming rights to the new stadium's four gates.

Lerner and team president Carmen Policy said the Cleveland Clinic, CoreComm, National City Corp. and Steris Corp., each with a sponsorship agreement, will each have a gate with the organization's name above the entrance.

Policy said some NFL owners get up to $5 million a year by selling stadium naming rights. He said by limiting sponsorship to the four gates, the Browns will receive significantly less.

He refused to disclose the specific dollar amounts in the gate deals.

Â"It isn't what we could have gotten, but it's a nice, healthy compromise, and what I like most about it is that it's never been done,Â" Policy said.

Lerner said he believes the 70,000-seat stadium should be called Cleveland Browns Stadium and nothing else. But he said he is pleased to involve sponsors.

Â"It's more than the money. It's getting people involved. Economically, obviously it's a benefit, but it really goes beyond that. I mean, if we had one entity that would pay us a lot more money and take all four gates we wouldn't have done it,Â" Lerner said.

Lerner, who is also in the banking business as chairman of MBNA Corp., said he believes National City is the nation's best-run bank. That brought a smile to David Daberko, chairman of National City, a multistate bank.

Â"When this opportunity first came to me at the bank, I thought that this is really one of the most unique marketing opportunities I had ever seen, so I urged our people to get it done,Â" Daberko said.

The Cleveland Clinic, a large medical foundation of which Lerner is the chairman, will also be in charge of the medical stations in the stadium.

CoreComm is a telecommunications company and Steris a medical products company. Both are based near Cleveland.

Diane Downing, Cleveland's stadium project director, said the stadium is about 90 percent completed. The scoreboard is being installed, and she said construction could be completed by the end of July. The first Browns exhibition game is Aug. 21.