Success Quote by Art Modell

A polite sentence that lands like a brick in a window, Art Modell's line is corporate courtesy doing damage control. "Enjoyed the years enormously" reads like a toast at a retirement dinner: smooth, vague, designed to offend no one. Then he spikes it with geography. Cleveland first, dutifully name-checked, followed by the real love note: "especially in Baltimore". That single adverb is the tell. It's not just preference; it's a verdict.

The context makes it combustible. Modell wasn't an abstract "businessman" in these cities; he was the owner who moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore in 1995, detonating one of American sports' most bitter betrayals. So the line functions as a kind of PR alchemy: recasting a civic rupture as personal biography, a wrenching act of relocation as a pleasant chapter change. The words drain the move of moral weight and reframe it as taste. I enjoyed. Especially.

The subtext is transactional intimacy. Cleveland becomes the place of "years" (time served), Baltimore the place of enjoyment (value realized). It's also a subtle claim of legitimacy: by asserting happiness in both places, he positions himself as reasonable, even gracious, while the aggrieved fanbase is left to play the role of the irrational ex.

What makes it work is its banality. Modell doesn't argue. He doesn't justify. He simply smiles and ranks cities, as if loyalty were an amenity. In sports, that is the deepest provocation: treating identity as movable property, then thanking you for the memories.