07-28-2021, 01:44 PM
(07-28-2021, 01:25 AM)Whatever Wrote: PBS was built in an era where cities were footing the full bill or close to it for NFL stadiums. Not to mention Mikey had the county over the barrel because the county had broken the Riverfront stadium lease by withholding payments to the team. Mike threatened to move the team to Cleveland unless he got a new taxpayer funded stadium, which was the standard at that time. Honestly, from a business standpoint, he would have been better off doing that and renaming the team the Browns because the Browns have been a bigger joke than the Bengals ever since their return, but still destroy us in revenue, ticket sales, merch, etc. Then, he had to fight the county in court for no other reason than "we don't like the contract we just agreed to."
Kind of a chicken and egg argument. Fans want things like expanding the scouting department and an indoor practice facility to improve the on field product. However those things cost money and when you're at the bottom of the league in revenue, it cuts down on the money you have to to spend for those things. Besides that, again, the Browns have been a worse product since their return and still kill the Bengals in revenue. The Bengals had to have corporations step in and buy up chunks of tickets to keep the playoff game against the Chargers from being blacked out. That's sad. The whole "they'd sell more tickets if they won more" rationale is grossly overstated when you look at tangible numbers from when the team has been good vs bad.
Juxtaposing two teams isn't realistic, especially when one of those teams has been to back to back SB's. If the Bengals moved, their revenue is going to go up due to being the new hot ticket in town, which means higher ticket prices, which means more gate revenue. The Bengals have some of, if not the, lowest ticket prices in the league, so literally almost any other major metropolitan market would be a step up. You also get a huge influx of merch revenue from people in the new home market. I'll guarantee you that if the Bengals moved to Portland, San Antonio, St. Louis, they wouldn't be sweating blackouts for home playoff games.
Mikey wasn't given a sweetheart deal. Hamilton County screwed him. You can't be mad at a guy for screwing people who are screwing him. If you are, you should have elected smarter and/or more ethical politicians. They've broken the PBS lease on numerous occasions, too. Does anyone honestly think that if the Bengals leave any of the other 31 owners are going to relocate to Cincinnati, especially if they're footing the bill for a new stadium? Get real. No other owner is going to do that. The way the county operates, they're likely to give a team land to build a stadium on, then decide they want to be paid for it and take them to court.
Mike threatened to move to Baltimore, not Cleveland. I would like to read up on how Hamilton County screwed Mike on Riverfront. I don't remember that. A link to a story would be nice to catch up on this.
As far as the revenue, you act as if the Bengals are on an island. They're not. You can look up the revenue and see that there's an absolute ton of teams jumbled up. In 2019, over half the league had total revenues that ranged from 380 million and 450 million. You'll see tons of big names like Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indy, etc all within a hair of the Bengals. And that's just a snapshot in a down year. In 2007 for example, we ranked 20th. I would imagine if you could comb through each and every year since PBS was built you'd see our number move around quite a bit, usually ranging from 20-30, and usually jumbled up with many of these same teams.
And we all know what revenue is, right? What about expenses? Do you think there's many teams out there with less expenses than the Bengals? How many teams have the stadium expenses we do? Do you know how much money the Bengals have saved on the operating costs of PBS? The last number I saw put county spending in the hundreds of millions just for the upgrades and maitenance.
You can't use revenue to explain not being able to spend more on the front office and for a practice facility. That would only be true if we were always dead last, and our number was a fraction of everyone else. But that's not the case at all. We right in the mix with over a dozen other teams, and nothing is preventing them from spending in these areas. And many of them don't enjoy the perks of a lopsided stadium deal either.
