08-10-2022, 12:35 PM
Either way you spin it, Bengals ownership needs more cash. Period. The Amazon deal kicking in, however, will provide plenty of that. Each team gets, what... $3BILLION from that deal when distributed amongst the teams? But that is over a long period of time. A decade. Not fast enough.
The Bengals are cash/revenue stream poor when compared to other NFL teams and ownership. They sat on their asses as business owners for decades, which was enabled by NFL profit sharing. They didn't HAVE to generate revenue outside of basic TV deals and traditional local marketing.
However, the landscape of how much it costs to fund an NFL roster and how much cash is needed by the business doesn't lend itself to the Brown family's past modus operandi.
I wish the Bengals take a page out of the Cowboys book and make the practice building a unique fan experience. A restaurant or unique concessions, a post game hangout, the ability to come watch practices, eat, drink, etc. Watch the players work out, blah blah blah would all generate plenty of revenue. But things like this are progressive and that isn't the Bengals way. They will probably just build a modest practice facility that meets the bare minimum under the idea of "A penny saved is a penny earned". The Bengals are basically the Frisch's Big Boy of NFL franchises. Instead of spending the last 20 years figuring out how to improve food quality, innovate the menu, find better service options, and drive more traffic - they worked on reducing food costs and cutting labor.
The team has missed an ABSURD amount of business cashflow opportunities over the last 20 years and are now feeling the pains of short sightedness. The team's financial goals have always been to just provide enough cash at year's end for the family to have a truck full of money. That's small business thinking left over from Paul/Mike Brown's era of NFL.
No business in history has ever won the race to zero. The Bengals are figuring that out now, the hard way. The stadium naming rights should have been first sold after the 2005 season.
The Bengals are cash/revenue stream poor when compared to other NFL teams and ownership. They sat on their asses as business owners for decades, which was enabled by NFL profit sharing. They didn't HAVE to generate revenue outside of basic TV deals and traditional local marketing.
However, the landscape of how much it costs to fund an NFL roster and how much cash is needed by the business doesn't lend itself to the Brown family's past modus operandi.
I wish the Bengals take a page out of the Cowboys book and make the practice building a unique fan experience. A restaurant or unique concessions, a post game hangout, the ability to come watch practices, eat, drink, etc. Watch the players work out, blah blah blah would all generate plenty of revenue. But things like this are progressive and that isn't the Bengals way. They will probably just build a modest practice facility that meets the bare minimum under the idea of "A penny saved is a penny earned". The Bengals are basically the Frisch's Big Boy of NFL franchises. Instead of spending the last 20 years figuring out how to improve food quality, innovate the menu, find better service options, and drive more traffic - they worked on reducing food costs and cutting labor.
The team has missed an ABSURD amount of business cashflow opportunities over the last 20 years and are now feeling the pains of short sightedness. The team's financial goals have always been to just provide enough cash at year's end for the family to have a truck full of money. That's small business thinking left over from Paul/Mike Brown's era of NFL.
No business in history has ever won the race to zero. The Bengals are figuring that out now, the hard way. The stadium naming rights should have been first sold after the 2005 season.
