Dear Mr. Ryan,
There is a concept in business that is known as “Customer Satisfaction”. Basically, whenever a person pays you or your company for a service, they expect results that are comparable to the fee they paid. Guess what – we are NOT getting our money’s worth in Cleveland!
Dawg Pound Mike, one of the BIGGEST fans of the Cleveland Browns, is now trying to communicate a message to your organization, letting you know about the satisfaction level of your fans (the customers). His message, which is shared by pretty much the ENTIRE Cleveland Browns fanbase (which, by the way, is the largest organized fanbase in the world), is that we are all sick and tired of the substandard play we have seen almost EVERY SINGLE TIME we go to the stadium.
I don’t want to speak on behalf of the rest of the Browns fans, though, so I will only speak for myself.
19-32!
That is the Browns home record since I became a season ticket holder, and it is DISGUSTING!
Although I do not have the tenure that many of my brothers and sisters in the stands have, I have been able to attend 51 games at Cleveland Browns Stadium since joining their ranks. Of those 51 games, the Cleveland Browns have managed to win only 19, placing their loss total at 32 embarrassing games. If you exclude the 2007 season (which is the ONLY one where I have gotten MY money’s worth), the Browns have played to an abysmal 12-31 record for the games in which I have been in attendance. That is UNACCEPTABLE!
Still, I show up faithfully every single weekend.
Now, though, Browns fans are reaching the breaking point. You are part of the FIFTH new coaching staff that our city has seen in TEN years. We are rebuilding for the FOURTH time, and we actually look worse today than we did as an expansion team in 1999. By that average, if things don’t change for “your” team, you will be looking for work by this time in 2011. So when the fans decide to band together and voice their disapproval of the product you are putting on the field today, maybe the appropriate reaction is not to snap back and attack the very fans who pay your (so far undeserved) salary. Instead of criticizing Cleveland Browns fans, who have collectively paid BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to Randy Lerner and the rest of this organization over the past 10 years, maybe you should take the time to actually acknowledge their frustration and get on the bandwagon to do something about it, before you REALLY find yourself in the same boat as many Clevelanders - In the unemployment line!
You compare the Cleveland Browns performance to the time when your son failed a class. That may be one of the worst analogies I have ever heard. The only similarity between that and the proposed protest by the fans is the failure. First, your son is not being given millions of dollars on the expectation that he will pass that class. You have not paid him for the service of earning a C grade. I assure you that if you were, you would have demanded that money back following his failure. Second, you refer to his failure as a one-time occurrence. If this were only the FIRST time that the Browns had played terribly at home, believe me that we would be a lot more forgiving. In fact, we HAVE been forgiving, which is why we STILL show up every weekend!
What do you know about the Browns’ struggles, though? You don’t have any idea what we’ve been going through since Art Modell stole our REAL team away from us! You have only cared about the Cleveland Browns since they started signing your paycheck a few months ago. You have ZERO ties to the city, you have NO affiliation to the team, and you get PAID by the team to do a job that you are failing at. The fact that you equate the Browns performance to the time when your son flunked ONE class, and then criticize the fans as if we are abandoning the team because of one mistake, PROVES that you have no REAL clue what has happened in this city and for this football team.
The one thing you were right about, though, is the suggestion you made about hiring a tutor to help improve the team’s performance. You seem to forget, though, that is PRECISELY what the organization hired YOU for. And so if you are now telling us that your recommendation to fix the problems with the Cleveland Browns is to hire a tutor to help the team improve, then I have to ask the question – What are we paying YOU for?! If you can’t do the job, and the only solution you can find to fixing the problem is to find somebody else, then do us all a favor and GET OUT!!!
You have no right to criticize a LOYAL fanbase that asks nothing more from you than to do what you are paid to do, which is to field a COMPETITIVE football team. Enough is enough! I completely support Dawg Pound Mike in his mission to FINALLY let the Browns’ fans be heard. We have tolerated failure and ineptitude for too long, now, and it is time that WE were recognized. WE are the most important part of the organization, not you, and not the players. Without the fans, you have no team.
It is no longer good enough in the city of Cleveland that we simply have a team. WINNING is now the expected result!
If you want to keep collecting my money, you had better start earning it! I am the customer, and I am not satisfied!
On Monday, November 16th, my seat in Section 502, Row 28 will be empty at the kickoff. I only hope that you hear our message!
Signed,
Bleacher Fan (Section 502, Row 28, Seat 20)
