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The hearing gave various Ohio politicians--Senators John Glenn and Mike DeWine, Representatives Louis Stokes and Martin Hoke, and Cleveland Mayor Michael White--an opportunity to show how much they care. White promised that "as long as there is no team in Cleveland, there will be no peace." Glenn and Stokes said they would introduce in their respective Houses a bill called the Fans Rights Act, which would 1) grant a limited antitrust exemption shielding a professional sports league from a lawsuit if the league blocks a relocation, and 2) require a team intending to move to give 180 days' notice, during which time the jilted hometown could try to induce it to stay. Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, who is about to lose the Oilers to Nashville, said he simply didn't trust the N.F.L. "The foxes are guarding the chickens," said Lanier, "and while they keep saying, 'We're nice foxes,' I wonder what those feathers are, coming out of their mouths."
Modell declined the subcommittee's invitation to appear. But John Moag, the chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority that lured the Browns to Baltimore, did testify. Shedding crocodile tears, Moag said, "Marylanders have tremendous empathy for what Cleveland is going through right now. We have been there; we know the pain all too well." Moag went on to say that fan support was no longer enough to keep a franchise. A city requires "political courage" and a business sense of "what professional athletics means to a community's image and pocketbook." In other words, a brand-new stadium with lots of luxury boxes and P.S.L.S.
Then there was poor Tagliabue, who explained to the Senators that while there were a number of reasons for the rash of franchise shifts, the main culprit was the 1982 court decision allowing the Raiders to move from Oakland to Los Angeles. "Right now," said Tagliabue, "antitrust law, as it applies to internal commitments among members of sports leagues, is being interpreted in a way that is ripping leagues apart." When the Senators were through with him, Tagliabue subjected himself to the entreaties of the media, most of which went like this: "Commissioner, what do you say to the people of [choose one] Cleveland/Houston/Baltimore/Nashville?"
THE COMMISSIONER, A THOUGHTFUL, decent man, has a lot to worry about, what with the Balkanization of his league, Dallas owner Jerry Jones' cutting his own marketing deals, a salary-cap system that pleases nobody and one of his referees' asking a star quarterback for his autograph before a game. An early-season prediction by Minnesota Vikings owner Roger Headrick seems to have come true. Responding to Jones' ambush marketing scheme, Headrick said, "You've got chaos; you've got bedlam; you've got...baseball." But there is one aspect of baseball that Tagliabue would love to have: its antitrust exemption. Major league baseball, in part because of that exemption, hasn't had a franchise move since the Washington Senators went to Arlington, Texas, in 1972. Since then, the N.F.L. has faced 10 moves, counting Cleveland, Houston, Chicago and the two New York City teams to New Jersey. As far back as 1964, N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle argued that an antitrust exemption was necessary to safeguard "the league's ability to take measures which ensure survival of its weaker franchises."