Baltimore Ravens

The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland, playing in the North Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The team has played its home games at M&T Bank Stadium in downtown Baltimore since 1998, and is headquartered at the Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills.

The Ravens were established in 1996, when then-owner of the Cleveland Browns, Art Modell, announced plans to relocate the franchise to Baltimore. As part of a settlement between the league and the city of Cleveland, Modell was required to leave the Browns' name, colors and heritage in Cleveland for a replacement team that took the field in 1999. In return, he was allowed to take his players to Baltimore, where his new team would be legally recognized as an expansion team. The team's name was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven—as Poe lived for a time in Baltimore, died and was buried there in 1849—and by the name of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles.