09-16-2015, 10:05 AM
I can't understand why everyone is overlooking the simple explanation here, the financial impact of supporting a team.
I sit here on my laptop in England, so obviously can't comment on the local issues and sentiments in Cincinnati, but I understand why this fanbase has mixed feelings towards the Bengals, I see the same thing in the English football (soccer) leagues.
The cost of following a sports team has sky rocketed. Back when ticket prices were low and merchandising affordable, supporting a team was a light hearted hobby. As a kid I used to go to see my local football (soccer) team all the time. It cost me almost nothing to get into the ground up until the age of 16. My local team, was then and remains to the this day a small, rather unsuccessful club. When they used to lose badly, it wasn't great, but it didn't matter, id spent very little, I got over it. Fast forward to 2015, that same unsuccessful club now charges far more for tickets.
The minute as a fan you start to have to question the money spent in supporting a team, there is an issue. I am assuming it is more than easy to spend well over $1,000 during the course of an NFL season. When such large percentages of wages are invested in watching sports everything becomes more serious. It turns from a 'oh well' attitude, to 'What the F**k'. The last time the Bengals won a playoff game I wasn't born, next year I turn 25. When a team hasn't even gone over the first rung of playoffs in almost a quarter of a century, the fanbase is going to be pretty unhappy, quite rightly so.
I sit here on my laptop in England, so obviously can't comment on the local issues and sentiments in Cincinnati, but I understand why this fanbase has mixed feelings towards the Bengals, I see the same thing in the English football (soccer) leagues.
The cost of following a sports team has sky rocketed. Back when ticket prices were low and merchandising affordable, supporting a team was a light hearted hobby. As a kid I used to go to see my local football (soccer) team all the time. It cost me almost nothing to get into the ground up until the age of 16. My local team, was then and remains to the this day a small, rather unsuccessful club. When they used to lose badly, it wasn't great, but it didn't matter, id spent very little, I got over it. Fast forward to 2015, that same unsuccessful club now charges far more for tickets.
The minute as a fan you start to have to question the money spent in supporting a team, there is an issue. I am assuming it is more than easy to spend well over $1,000 during the course of an NFL season. When such large percentages of wages are invested in watching sports everything becomes more serious. It turns from a 'oh well' attitude, to 'What the F**k'. The last time the Bengals won a playoff game I wasn't born, next year I turn 25. When a team hasn't even gone over the first rung of playoffs in almost a quarter of a century, the fanbase is going to be pretty unhappy, quite rightly so.
