What’s old is now new again in Cleveland.
The Browns and FirstEnergy Corp. have mutually agreed to end FirstEnergy’s naming rights deal with the team’s stadium. The facility along the shores of Lake Erie will now be known by its previous name, Cleveland Browns Stadium.
The naming rights deal was set to continue through 2029.
“We’ve had a great association with FirstEnergy for more than two decades, and we appreciate this partnership and what it has created for our team and the broader northeast Ohio community,” Haslam Sports Group C.O.O. Dave Jenkins said in a statement released by the team. “We reached this amicable agreement that is consistent with the productive relationship we have always enjoyed, and we wish FirstEnergy success with their future initiatives.”
Cleveland Browns Stadium opened in 1999 for the first season of the city’s expansion franchise that kept the name, colors, and history of the team that moved to Baltimore in 1996. FirstEnergy purchased the naming rights to the stadium for $107 million in 2013.
But the company has been embroiled in one of the largest bribery scandals in Ohio political history over the last few years. Last summer, the Cleveland City Council passed a resolution that urged FirstEnergy to drop its naming rights. Nothing came of that at the time, but it has now.
The Browns have compiled a 76-115-1 at Cleveland Browns Stadium since it opened in 1999.
