12-28-2018, 06:53 PM
Paul Daugherty: The Cincinnati Bengals belong to you, the fans
It’s your team. Let’s start with that.
Technically and financially, it’s Mike Brown’s team. He owns the Cincinnati Bengals. His money runs them, he can decide to move them if he feels the business isn’t doing well enough.
Emotionally, you deserve your cut. Your passion is your equity. It needs to be recognized.
The Nippert seasons, Greg Cook, the Freezer Bowl, the strike season, ya don’t live in Cleveland. The Lost Decade, 2005, 2015 and every moment before and after.
Anthony and Kenny and Boomer and Sam. Dave. Marvin, Chad, Nine and 14. Adriel Jeremiah Green. Whit.
All yours.
We are a small place by pro sports standards. If you like the NFL but not the Bengals, you can’t defect to the team across town. Our size limits our choices, and our points of civic pride. No one in New York is sweating the annual nightmare that is the Jets.
San Francisco could lose every pro sports franchise it had, and it’d still be San Francisco.
Because we are small, pro sports are a bigger part of who we are. We take them personally. Who that was born here doesn’t feel something down deep for the Reds? A hundred years from now, the Big Red Machine will still have meaning. Relatives of the 500,000 or so fans who claimed to have been at the Freezer Bowl will still be able to summon that memory.
You’ve given the Brown family the gifts of your loyalty, trust and passion. And oh yeah, your money. Where’s your return on investment?
No team owner gets rich and famous listening to fans and sportswriters. Business-by-emotions is a bad idea. Knee-jerking to appease people who know less about your business than you do is a good way to lose your business.
That’s not what we’re talking about here.
Sometime next week, sooner than later, the BrownTrust will decide what it wants its team to be. Time waits for no one. It can be suggested, fairly, that time has once again passed the Bengals by. The Family’s patience is legendary, its loyalty to its workers can never be questioned.
To what end?
The Bengals legacy as postseason failures is cemented. As the blow-hardy Stephen A. Smith noted recently on ESPN, “SIXTEEN YEARS!" The Family’s loyalty and stubbornness, er, steadfastness, is regarded favorably inside the family gates. Everywhere else, it’s seen as excessive and detrimental.
Mike Brown says he has a “comfortable" relationship with Marvin Lewis. Comfort is not a word normally associated with successful NFL teams. Brown inhabits a space where excuses are reasons and hope is a plan. Hope is not a plan.
The Factory of Sameness down by the river reliably churns out mediocrity mixed with the occasional January heartbreak, yet those responsible aren’t accountable. Does anyone else see the irony in Lewis imploring his workers to Do Your Job?
Because he is Original School, Mike Brown is feeling the attendance blues being sung at Practically Barren Stadium. NFL teams don’t really need butts-in-seats to make money. (Butts in suites is another matter. That’s revenue that isn’t shared.) But NFL owners with egos don’t want acres of empty seats loitering on TV screens, either.
I’m not good at making apocalyptic, hit-seeking statements. Life is gray. So I won’t say the Bengals franchise is at a crossroads. I will say in 31 years here, I’ve never seen a fan base more poised to jump ship. Once it does, try getting it back.
The BrownTrust makes a case that, eventually, the Bengals will return to the financial situation they faced before we built them PBS. Even with revenue sharing and a salary cap, they won’t have the income to stay profitable. Cynics and conspiracy theorists will contend that is the Family’s aim: Run the franchise into the ground, cry poverty, bolt town.
I don’t believe that. I can’t blame those that do.
Now would be a good time for the Family to realize its team belongs to you, in an intangible, yet vital way. And to act accordingly. It’s not too late for that revelation to dawn, but it’s getting there.
Next week, the Family has a chance to inspire hope in a forgiving fan base. It can acknowledge its obligation to this region, a duty that involves more than simply fielding a team and opening the gates.
It’s time the Brown family does right by you. Before it stops mattering.
It’s your team. Let’s start with that.
Technically and financially, it’s Mike Brown’s team. He owns the Cincinnati Bengals. His money runs them, he can decide to move them if he feels the business isn’t doing well enough.
Emotionally, you deserve your cut. Your passion is your equity. It needs to be recognized.
The Nippert seasons, Greg Cook, the Freezer Bowl, the strike season, ya don’t live in Cleveland. The Lost Decade, 2005, 2015 and every moment before and after.
Anthony and Kenny and Boomer and Sam. Dave. Marvin, Chad, Nine and 14. Adriel Jeremiah Green. Whit.
All yours.
We are a small place by pro sports standards. If you like the NFL but not the Bengals, you can’t defect to the team across town. Our size limits our choices, and our points of civic pride. No one in New York is sweating the annual nightmare that is the Jets.
San Francisco could lose every pro sports franchise it had, and it’d still be San Francisco.
Because we are small, pro sports are a bigger part of who we are. We take them personally. Who that was born here doesn’t feel something down deep for the Reds? A hundred years from now, the Big Red Machine will still have meaning. Relatives of the 500,000 or so fans who claimed to have been at the Freezer Bowl will still be able to summon that memory.
You’ve given the Brown family the gifts of your loyalty, trust and passion. And oh yeah, your money. Where’s your return on investment?
No team owner gets rich and famous listening to fans and sportswriters. Business-by-emotions is a bad idea. Knee-jerking to appease people who know less about your business than you do is a good way to lose your business.
That’s not what we’re talking about here.
Sometime next week, sooner than later, the BrownTrust will decide what it wants its team to be. Time waits for no one. It can be suggested, fairly, that time has once again passed the Bengals by. The Family’s patience is legendary, its loyalty to its workers can never be questioned.
To what end?
The Bengals legacy as postseason failures is cemented. As the blow-hardy Stephen A. Smith noted recently on ESPN, “SIXTEEN YEARS!" The Family’s loyalty and stubbornness, er, steadfastness, is regarded favorably inside the family gates. Everywhere else, it’s seen as excessive and detrimental.
Mike Brown says he has a “comfortable" relationship with Marvin Lewis. Comfort is not a word normally associated with successful NFL teams. Brown inhabits a space where excuses are reasons and hope is a plan. Hope is not a plan.
The Factory of Sameness down by the river reliably churns out mediocrity mixed with the occasional January heartbreak, yet those responsible aren’t accountable. Does anyone else see the irony in Lewis imploring his workers to Do Your Job?
Because he is Original School, Mike Brown is feeling the attendance blues being sung at Practically Barren Stadium. NFL teams don’t really need butts-in-seats to make money. (Butts in suites is another matter. That’s revenue that isn’t shared.) But NFL owners with egos don’t want acres of empty seats loitering on TV screens, either.
I’m not good at making apocalyptic, hit-seeking statements. Life is gray. So I won’t say the Bengals franchise is at a crossroads. I will say in 31 years here, I’ve never seen a fan base more poised to jump ship. Once it does, try getting it back.
The BrownTrust makes a case that, eventually, the Bengals will return to the financial situation they faced before we built them PBS. Even with revenue sharing and a salary cap, they won’t have the income to stay profitable. Cynics and conspiracy theorists will contend that is the Family’s aim: Run the franchise into the ground, cry poverty, bolt town.
I don’t believe that. I can’t blame those that do.
Now would be a good time for the Family to realize its team belongs to you, in an intangible, yet vital way. And to act accordingly. It’s not too late for that revelation to dawn, but it’s getting there.
Next week, the Family has a chance to inspire hope in a forgiving fan base. It can acknowledge its obligation to this region, a duty that involves more than simply fielding a team and opening the gates.
It’s time the Brown family does right by you. Before it stops mattering.
