Success Quote by Art Modell

Nostalgia is doing a lot of work here, but it is nostalgia with a ledger attached. When Art Modell says, "The quality of ownership is not what it was in yesteryear", he is not pining for old stadium hot dogs; he is policing status. The line carries the patina of elder statesman complaint, yet it doubles as a warning shot: modern owners, in his view, lack the stewardship, civic obligation, or gentlemanly restraint that once supposedly came with holding a franchise.

The phrasing is telling. "Quality" treats ownership as a moral category, not a balance sheet. It implies there is a right way to possess a team: not merely to extract value, but to embody a kind of custodial legitimacy. "Yesteryear" softens the accusation by wrapping it in sepia, letting Modell condemn the present without naming names. It's critique by implication, the cleanest form of insider scolding.

Context sharpens the irony. Modell is forever linked to the Browns' relocation to Baltimore, one of the most painful reminders that ownership in modern sports is as portable as capital. Coming from him, the lament reads less like innocent yearning and more like an attempt to redefine the standard after the rules changed - or after he benefited from their change. Subtext: the club has become a boardroom asset; the old mythology of the owner as civic patriarch is collapsing under media money, public financing fights, and franchise free agency.

It works because it sounds like a throwaway line, but it’s really a battle over who gets to claim virtue in an era when sports are increasingly honest about being business.