A package of $600 million in 30-year, state-backed bonds to help the owners of the Cleveland Browns fund a $3.4 billion domed stadium and development in Brook Park is in the budget from House Republicans. It’ll take about a billion dollars for the state to pay back those bonds, but House leaders say it will be money well spent.
The Haslam Sports Group has testified in a House committee that the project will raise $1.3 billion more tax revenue—mostly from income and sales taxes—than the state will spend paying back the bonds. The bonds would cost the state around $40 million a year, totaling nearly a billion dollars over 30 years.
House Finance Chair Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said he’s confident in what he called "a once-in-a-lifetime project."
“These are huge economic drivers. We're going to have multiple Super Bowls played in the stadium. Hopefully an Ohio team is playing in one of them. We'll see," Stewart, who’s a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals, said and smiled. "We're going to have the national championship. This is going to be a destination center. I really do think when the when the ribbon is cut here and people walk through the door, I think people are going to be happy that this is in Ohio."
House Democrats asked Republican leaders to reconsider putting this bond proposal into the budget, saying more information and time was needed to get details about the numbers. Assistant Minority Leader Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus) and Reps. Terrence Upchurch (D-Cleveland) and Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) asked for more hearings to invite state officials and the consultants who prepared the financial analysis to share testimony and answer questions, and for the Legislative Service Commission to provide a formal fiscal review.
Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said the Haslam Sports Group's plan has been reviewed by the state treasurer and the Office of Management and Budget.
“We've sent it to the treasurer's office. We've sent it to OMB. We sent it to lots of people and everybody. But their calculation is that all of this money will come back to the state—and in fact the money that the state will be paying out, that there will be a positive back to the state starting in 2029," Huffman said.
The amendment requires the team to put up 5% of the cost of the bond package. Huffman noted the Haslam Sports Group will offer up $38 million in upfront cash, plus $600 million in government funding and a public-private partnership.
“It’s the largest [project] in the history of the state with the exception of the Intel project,” Huffman said. “Half of that is private money.”
Both Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne have said they don’t support the project in Brook Park.
So far, no fiscal analysis of the plan has been released by any state office or by the Legislative Service Commission.
The budget also eliminates Gov. Mike DeWine’s doubling of the tax on sports gambling operators for a sports facilities fund. The Legislative Service Commission analysis estimates that 40% tax would generate up to $161.4 million in FY 2026 and up to $167.4 million in FY 2027.
DeWine hasn't directly threatened to veto this if the final version of the budget includes it, but he hinted that talks are ongoing with legislative leadership and his office. In a forum before the Columbus Metropolitan Club last month, he promoted the sports facilities fund as a way to "permanently solve our problem" of demand on the budget from requests for state funding for these kinds of projects, and added: "I don't think we can afford to continue to go into the general fund of our budget and take this money."
