Huntington Bank Field
Huntington Bank Field is a stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the home field of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, and serves as a venue for other events such as college and high school football, soccer, hockey, and concerts. It opened in 1999 as Cleveland Browns Stadium and was known as FirstEnergy Stadium from 2013 to 2023 before briefly reverting to its original name until 2024. The initial seating capacity was listed at 73,200 people, but following the first phase of a two-year renovation project in 2014, was reduced to the current capacity of 67,431. The stadium sits on of land between Lake Erie and the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway in the North Coast Harbor area of downtown Cleveland, adjacent to the Great Lakes Science Center and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cleveland Stadium stood on the site from 1931 to 1996.
History
Huntington Bank Field is located on the site of Cleveland Stadium, commonly called Cleveland Municipal Stadium, a multipurpose facility built in 1931 that served as the Browns' home field from their inception in 1946 through the 1995 season. During the 1995 season, owner Art Modell announced his plans to move the team to Baltimore, which resulted in legal action from the city of Cleveland and Browns season ticket holders. The day after the announcement was made, voters in Cuyahoga County approved an extension of the original 1990 sin tax on alcohol and tobacco products to fund renovations to Cleveland Stadium. Eventually, as part of the agreement between Modell, the city of Cleveland, and the NFL, the city agreed to tear down Cleveland Stadium and build a new stadium on the same site using the sin tax funds. Modell agreed to leave the Browns name, colors, and history in Cleveland and create a new identity for his franchise, eventually becoming the Baltimore Ravens, while the NFL agreed to reactivate the Browns by 1999 through expansion or relocation of another team. Demolition on the old stadium began in November 1996 and was completed in early 1997. Debris from the former stadium was submerged in Lake Erie and now serves as an artificial reef.Ground was broken for the new stadium on May 15, 1997, and it opened in July 1999. The first event was a preseason game between the Browns and the Minnesota Vikings on August 21, followed the next week by a preseason game against the Chicago Bears. The first regular-season Browns game at the stadium was played the evening of September 12, 1999, a 43–0 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In 2011, local comedian and Browns fan Mike Polk referred to the stadium as the "factory of sadness" in a video recorded outside the stadium in which he complains about the team's futility. In 2021, after the Browns defeated the Steelers at Acrisure Stadium, local TV station WKYC broadcast a segment with Polk where he "closed" the "factory of sadness".
Through the 2023 season, Huntington Bank Field is the only NFL venue that has yet to host a postseason game of any kind. The Browns are one of five teams who have yet to host a home playoff game in their current stadium, along with the Atlanta Falcons, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, and New York Jets. Those facilities, however, have each hosted the Super Bowl, while the Jets' home, MetLife Stadium, and the Chargers' home, SoFi Stadium, have also hosted home playoff games for their other tenants, the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams, respectively.
New Huntington Bank Field
The Browns lease at the stadium is set to expire at the end of the 2028 season. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and the Browns announced in October 2024 that the team plans to construct a new indoor stadium in suburban Brook Park, at a site adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, in time for the 2029 season. The current naming rights deal specifies that the Huntington Bank Field name will be transferred to the new facility once it opens. The city of Cleveland objected to the project, saying such a move would violate Ohio's Modell Law, which is designed to prevent franchises from leaving publicly funded facilities. In response, the team sued the city in October 2024 for clarification on the Modell Law, and the city countersued in January 2025 to enforce the Modell Law. Dennis Kucinich, who served as mayor of Cleveland in the late 1970s and was one of the main authors of the Modell Law when he served in the Ohio Senate, filed a lawsuit in late August 2025 against the Browns on behalf of taxpayers for enforcement of the Modell Law.Public funding for the stadium was approved by the Ohio legislature on June 30, 2025, and the Ohio Department of Transportation approved the construction permit for the stadium on September 18, after it was found that it would not interfere with the airport. The Browns and the city of Cleveland announced an agreement on October 13 that calls for the team to pay the city $100 million, including the costs for demolition of the current stadium, and the Browns will have options to extend the lease through the 2029 and 2030 seasons if the new stadium is not completed in time. The city agreed to drop all lawsuits related to the move and cooperate with the new stadium development including infrastructure improvements around the airport.
Facility
The stadium was designed by Populous, which was known at the time as the Sport Venue Event Division of Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum. Indianapolis-based Huber, Hunt & Nichols was the construction manager. The stadium is a concrete and glass structure, using precast concrete and cast in-place for the upper concourse. Natural stone accents were used at the base of the stadium. The construction of the concrete superstructure took more than 6,000 truckloads of concrete, or the equivalent of, with a weight of approximately.The playing surface is a Kentucky Bluegrass irrigated field, with a sand-soil root zone and an underground heating system that involves nine boilers and of underground piping. The heating system prevents the field from freezing and extends the growing season of the turf. Although it was designed for football, the playing surface was built large enough to accommodate international soccer matches.
The eastern seating section is the home of the Dawg Pound, a section of bleacher seats. It was designed as a successor to the original Dawg Pound at Cleveland Stadium, the bleacher section also located in the east end zone. When Huntington Bank Field opened in 1999, the Dawg Pound was a 10,644, double-deck area. During stadium renovations in 2014, the upper level of the Dawg Pound was reduced to make way for a new, larger scoreboard, auxiliary scoreboard, and additional fan areas, and the bleacher seating in the upper level was replaced with chairbacks.
Renovations
In 2013, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam announced a modernization project for the stadium. The project included two phases that took place during the NFL offseasons in 2014 and 2015. Phase one included improving the audio system, installing new scoreboards three times the size of the original scoreboards and at the time the fourth largest in an NFL stadium, as well as adding more seats to the lower bowl. Phase two included concession improvements, upgrades to technology connectivity, graphics throughout the stadium, and enhancing the premium suites. The renovations reduced the stadium's capacity to approximately 68,000. The total cost of the renovations was estimated at $120 million with the city of Cleveland paying $30 million over 15 years and the Browns covering the rest of the cost.Stadium naming
The city specifically chose not to sell the naming rights to the stadium itself, which is highly unusual for major American stadiums built in recent years. However, it instead sold the naming rights to each of the facility's four main entrance gates. Originally, the gates were named for National City Bank, Steris Corp., CoreComm Inc., and the Cleveland Clinic Sports Health. The arrangement was later discontinued, though has since been restored. As of the 2025 season, the southwest gate is sponsored by Meijer, the southeast gate is sponsored by University Hospitals of Cleveland, the northwest gate by Huntington Bank, and the northeast gate by Electronic Merchant Systems.Randy Lerner sold the Browns to Jimmy Haslam, CEO of truck stop chain Pilot Flying J, in August 2012. Before the deal officially closed in October 2012, Haslam announced he would sell the stadium's naming rights. Haslam effectively ruled out his family business as buying the naming rights, mentioning that he had received offers for the naming rights, and that none of them are based in his home state of Tennessee. On January 14, 2013, it was reported that the naming rights were sold to FirstEnergy Corporation, the Akron-based electric utility serving most of northeastern Ohio. The Browns announced the following day that the stadium would be renamed "FirstEnergy Stadium, Home of the Cleveland Browns", with the deal getting official Cleveland City Council approval on February 15, 2013. Ironically, the stadium's power is actually generated and paid for through the city's power utility, Cleveland Public Power, instead of FirstEnergy.
Because of the Ohio nuclear bribery scandal and FirstEnergy's involvement in it, Cleveland City Council passed a resolution in June 2022 to urge FirstEnergy to relinquish its naming rights. At the time, neither the Browns nor FirstEnergy motioned that the agreement would be revoked. The Browns then announced on April 13, 2023, that the team and FirstEnergy had come to an agreement to immediately terminate the naming rights deal, restoring the stadium's original moniker. The original agreement was set to expire in 2029.
Haslam Sports Group announced on September 3, 2024, they had sold naming rights to Huntington Bank, based in Columbus, Ohio, in a 20-year partnership agreement. If the team eventually moves to a new stadium elsewhere in the region, the naming rights will follow the team to the new facility.