Ravens president Dick Cass, left, will retire after 18 years with the crew and will probably be succeeded by former Washington Wizards and Cleveland Browns govt Sashi Brown, proper.
Ravens president Dick Cass will retire after 18 years with the group and will probably be succeeded by former Cleveland Browns and Washington Wizards govt Sashi Brown, the crew introduced Friday.
Cass, 76, has lengthy been Ravens proprietor Steve Bisciotti’s right-hand man, supervising each non-football side of the franchise whereas additionally collaborating in high-level soccer conferences. He has served because the crew’s level particular person on all the pieces from stadium enhancements to relationships with elected officers to COVID-19 response.
Hiring Cass, a former Washington lawyer, was Bisciotti’s first main transfer after he bought a majority share of the Ravens from Artwork Modell in 2004.
Brown, 45, is predicted to affix the Ravens in March. He’ll formally take over for Cass on April 1, when he’ll be part of the Washington Commanders’ Jason Wright because the NFL’s solely Black crew presidents. Brown most just lately served as president of Monumental Basketball, the umbrella group established by Monumental Sports activities & Leisure CEO Ted Leonsis.
His transfer comes lower than three months after receiving a multiyear extension from Monumental, the place Brown had labored since 2019. He oversaw numerous operations for the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and the NBA G League’s Capital Metropolis Go-Go. Brown additionally was a particular adviser to Leonsis and oversaw Monumental Basketball’s chief of athlete care and efficiency, Daniel Medina.
The Harvard-educated lawyer beforehand served as govt vice chairman of soccer operations for the Browns. He was the crew’s prime soccer official in 2016 and for many of 2017, a span wherein the franchise gained only one sport. Brown was fired in December 2017, and stated in an announcement afterward that “our win-loss document since I grew to become govt vice chairman isn’t going to chop it.”
Upon his hiring in 2013 as Cleveland’s govt vice chairman and common counsel, Brown oversaw the roster and wage cap and directed the crew’s soccer administration features and participant contract negotiations. On the enterprise facet, his duties included insurance coverage and threat administration, licensing and intellectual-property points, and litigation and stadium issues.
Brown additionally served as a senior vice chairman and common counsel for the Jacksonville Jaguars from 2005 to 2012. He was concerned in each soccer and enterprise operations there, too, together with negotiations over the naming rights for EverBank Area (now TIAA Financial institution Area).
The Ravens’ hiring of Brown comes amid heightened scrutiny of NFL hiring practices. On Wednesday, former Cleveland coach Hue Jackson, who can be Black, advised ESPN that the franchise had a “four-year plan” that incentivized dropping throughout his first two years, 2016 and 2017. Kimberly Diemert, the chief director of the Hue Jackson Basis, additionally alleged in a sequence of tweets Wednesday that the Browns paid Jackson and three crew executives, together with Brown, bonus cash to tank throughout the 2016 and 2017 NFL seasons.
In an announcement, a Browns spokesman denied the allegations: “The latest feedback by Hue Jackson and his representatives referring to his tenure as our head coach are utterly fabricated. Any accusation that any member of our group was incentivized to intentionally lose video games is categorically false.”
The Browns fired Jackson in October 2018 after the crew began 2-5-1. Cleveland went on to complete 7-8-1.
“Unequivocally, Hue Jackson was by no means paid to lose video games,” Browns proprietor Jimmy Haslam advised the Knoxville Information Sentinel on Thursday. “That's an absolute falsehood. And it’s additionally an absolute falsehood that I laughed whereas we had been dropping.”
After graduating from regulation college in 2002, Brown took his first job on the Washington agency Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, the place Cass was a accomplice and senior supervisor. Cass gave him a advice for his first NFL job.