CLEVELAND — Gov. Mike DeWine confirmed on Tuesday that his office is involved in a plan to keep the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field well into the 2030s.
The current lease is set to expire after the soon-to-be-renamed Indians play their 30th season in Progressive Field in 2023. DeWine said that the team, city, county and state are working on a 15-year deal to keep the Indians at Progressive Field. DeWine added that there could be five-year options the city could add.
In exchange, the state would help renovate Progressive Field, which would also require the backing of the state legislature, as DeWine noted.
DeWine said he has been trying to push for a longer-term deal, but acknowledges 15 years is still a long time out in the future.
The sides are still working on the agreement, and DeWine stressed that no deal is official yet. The Indians have yet to react to the governor’s comments.
“I was asked by the city of Cleveland, the mayor and by Armond Budish the county executive, if we can be of some help and if the state was willing to put some money into that,” DeWine said. “And I said ‘I would of course have to ask the state legislature,’ but as far as I was concerned, having the Cleveland Indians still in the city – they won’t be called the Indians anymore, but the baseball team is very, very important and it is a small market. It’s a small -market team.
“It’s not the NFL where all the money gets divided equally, so it’s important, it’s important to help, and it’s a big asset for Cleveland, not only Cleveland, but for northeast Ohio, So I said, ‘Sure, we would be interested in trying to help,’ but I’m interested in a long-term contract.”
DeWine wouldn’t confirm how much a potential lease agreement and remodeling would cost.
“To me, the important thing was to have a long-term lease and I think that’s moving,” DeWine said. “I’m very optimistic that we’re going to end up with it.”
Given that the Indians are a small-market club with an expiring lease agreement, there has been speculation around baseball that the Indians are ripe for a relocation. Relocations have been rare for baseball in recent decades. Not since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. in 2005 has a team relocated from its market.
Baseball also has not expanded from its current 30-team footprint since 1998.
Spectrum News1 reporter Peter Grieve contributed to this report.
