02-27-2022, 02:38 PM
(02-27-2022, 01:35 AM)Luvnit2 Wrote: The Bengals are now worth billions and 100% controlled by the Brown family. They could borrow hundreds of millions if needed based on the equity position. I do believe many teams borrow money in order to pay these large bonuses handed out.
The value of the Bengals and all NFL team rises every year, so since they don't have a lot of debt, they can easily get a bank to loan them money and ay a low interest rate.
The league has a maximum amount of leverage for any team, it is not value based. It is their way of protecting themselves from a Dodgers situation that has an insolvent owner unable to pay their players. The league will even finance things but the issue is after the pandemic many smaller teams already had to tap that fund pretty hard.
Also, the issue is you have to actually pay them back. You are looking at players only but that cash is used for things well beyond players and includes running the entire business. The only team we do know finances on is the Packers and they lost $38 million last year, but usually make about it $70 million, so if your borrowing 100’s of millions every year there is simply no way to pay it back.
Bottom line, and this is well known inside the league, the Bengals are cash poor it’s just the truth. Now their cash poor and you and I’s cash poor aren’t the same but that’s is why you’ve seen shock the last couple years at the actual cash expenditures in free agency. It’s also why they STILL structure contracts in a way to avoid a ton of upfront cash when possible (see Lawson vs Hendrickson last year).
It’ll take a half decade of sustained success to change the financial landscape of the franchise and even then there are still market restrictions that will keep them towards the middle tier of league cash.
