the old municipal stadium was demolished and Cleveland Browns Stadium (now FirstEnergy Stadium) took its place, the Browns started play again in 1999 under new owner Al Lerner. Since resuming operations, the Browns have made the playoffs only twice, as a wild-card team in 2002 and 2020. The Browns are only one of 12 NFL franchises to predate the 1960 launch of the American Football League, and are only one of three such teams in the AFC. Founding and dominance in the AAFC (1946–1949) In 1944 Arch Ward, the influential sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, proposed a new professional football league called the All-America Football Conference. The AAFC was to challenge the dominant National Football League once it began operations at the end of World War II, which had forced many professional teams to curtail activity, merge or go on hiatus as their players served in the U.S. military. It was a bold proposition, given the failure of three previous NFL competitors and the dominance of college football, which was more popular than the professional game at the time. Ward, who had gained fame and respect for starting all-star games for baseball and college football, lined up deep-pocketed owners for the new league's eight teams in hopes of giving it a better chance against the NFL. One of them was Arthur B. "Mickey" McBride, a Cleveland businessman who grew up in Chicago and knew Ward from his involvement in the newspaper business. McBride spent his early career as a circulation manager for the Cleveland News, and went into business for himself in the 1930s, buying a pair of Cleveland taxi companies and running a wire service that supplied bookies with information about the results of horse races. He had connections to organized crime in Chicago and Cleveland arising from the wire service. McBride developed a passion for football attending games at Notre Dame, where his son went to college. In the early 1940s he tried to buy the NFL's Cleveland Rams, owned by millionaire supermarket heir Dan Reeves, but was rebuffed. Having been awarded the Cleveland franchise in the AAFC, McBride asked Cleveland Plain Dealer sportswriter John Dietrich for head coaching suggestions. Dietrich recommended Paul Brown, the 36-year-old Ohio State Buckeyes coach. After consulting with Ward, McBride followed Dietrich's advice in early 1945, naming Brown head coach and giving him an ownership stake in the team and full control