Baltimore Ravens

About Baltimore Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. They compete in the AFC North Division of the National Football League (NFL). The Ravens have won one Super Bowl title, Super Bowl XXXV, in the 2000 season against the New York Giants.

On November 6, 1995, then-Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell announced his intention to move the team to Baltimore, citing the inadequacy of Cleveland Stadium and the lack of a sufficient replacement, along with his heavy debt. The decision triggered a flurry of legal activity that ended when representatives of Cleveland and the NFL reached a settlement on February 8, 1996. It stipulated that the Browns' name, colors, and history of the franchise were to remain in Cleveland, including past records and the attribution of its Pro Football Hall of Fame players. A reactivated Cleveland Browns team would then begin play in 1999, while Modell's relocated club would technically and legally be an expansion team, the Ravens. Still, some consider the Ravens and the pre-1995 Browns organization as one continuous entity, using terms like "The Modell organization" or "Art Modell's franchise" to denote it.

Baltimore's professional football history, both during the NFL Baltimore Colts era and after the Colts' move to Indianapolis in 1984, had captured Art Modell's attention. In 1994 Baltimore's Canadian Football League team adopted the name "Baltimore CFL Colts", but later were forced by the NFL to drop it. Although legally titled the Baltimore Football Club (Baltimore F.C.), the team was locally known as "the CFLs" or "CFLers," and was unofficially nicknamed the "Colts" by fans. The team reached the championship game in its first season and won the Grey Cup in its second season as the Baltimore Stallions. The team proved a success and the fans showed up in droves to show a great appetite for professional football in Baltimore. Before the Stallions, Baltimore's only USFL team,the Baltimore Stars, won the last USFL Championship game in 1985.