The Relationship Between Ownership and Fans is on Life Support

[*SHRacerX*]

(09-16-2019, 01:32 AM)samhain Wrote: After attending today's game and dozens of others since PBS opened, it's extremely difficult to ignore the sad state of attendance and interest in this team.  Small observations amount to a lot in regard to this, IMO.  Here are a few that I've had after today:

I attended the Thursday night home opener last year and thought it was poorly attended for a prime time season opener.  Today was much worse.  The club level was barren as it has been for over a half decade, and if not for 49er fans in attendance, the canopy and lower Bowls would have been even sadder.

Speaking of 49ers fans, it was a surprise to see just how many were there.  I've seen people comment on the defense chants coming from the stand when the Bengals were on offense.  This didn't start late in the game when SF was looking dominant and the fans came out of their shells.  It started literally immediately on the first drive of the game.

PBS is becoming a destination stadium for other NFL teams.  We're used to seeing Steelers fans and lately even Browns fans taking over, but we're talking about droves of fans of a team that plays their home games 3000 miles from here owning it on opening freaking day.  That's uh, something, I guess.  

The Banks tailgate area was pretty poorly attended as well.  In 2014 and 15 I avoided it because of crowding and difficulty getting to beer/food.restrooms.  Today it was pretty wide open with the only line being for pizza, the only food offered outside of the restaurants.  Almost no wait for beer or toilets.

Why does this matter?  It speaks volumes about how apathetic this fanbase is and how done the casual football fan is with the ownership of this team.  Attendance worsened a lot in 08 when they sucked and the economy was garbage.  Early in the Palmer era, you paid through the nose for canopy seats on the secondary market.  Now the team is forced to reduce ticket prices in a much better economy.  The club level hasn't recovered to this day.

There's no shortage of bashing the Brown family for their approach to personnel acquisition here and anywhere else Bengals football is discussed.  What's perhaps even worse is their lack of interest in growing their brand or expanding their profits by improving the fan experience at games.  In the lower bowl where we sit, TVs are few and far between in the concourse.  It's basically concrete and a couple of picnic tables with the same shitty concessions they've always had save for some buffalo sauce on the chicken fingers that they always seem to be out of.  You have to do better than that in modern pro sports.  The Reds have sucked for years and play in the same small market, but their fan experience is excellent.  They make an effort.

The club level situation is an eyesore.  It might as well not be there.  It's pathetic that they can't generate corporate interest in the suites that have sat empty for such an extended period of time.  It's not just individual fans that are done, it's local businesses as well. So lazy and such a waste.  

It's going to take more than a new coach to change this.  It will take years of sustained winning, and even then that might not be enough.  I think it's a real possibility that this team isn't long for Cincinnati once the lease is up.  People just don't give a shit anymore and they've seen enough of the family's act.

Although I agree with you 100% on the overall post, I have to correct this statement.  The club lounge seats always look more empty because those seats have access to the club lounge.  The club lounge is where they spent a great deal of the money on this stadium.  I believe they were thinking this would get fringe fans and businesses to get these seats for the "experience" and not so much for the game itself.  I traded for those seats once and I was amazed how many of the folks in those sections never even came out to watch the game.  Sure, there are a lot of TVs back there, but you can watch TV at home.  

For some time, these seats were all sold out as season tickets.  I have no idea where the numbers are at now, but they always looked empty for that reason....although they weren't really empty, just in the lounge.

As for the rest, I am starting to have the conspiracy theories of moving the team by tanking.  The mere fact that a team averaged almost 10 YPC and destroyed you on your field is so embarrassing that I can't comprehend ever wanting to pay to see that.  I let my tickets go last year, partially due to divorce and partially due to my father's issue with his knee.  I paid for those seats during the pathetic 90s and always dealt with t the legion of drool in our stadium every steeler game.  It was never worth the money, and even more so now that there is no blackouts.

I fear this team is heading for a tear-down and might let AJ Green and Dalton go.  Sad, because the ownership might actually listen to their stupid fan base that blames Dalton for everything.  That defense is putrid.  I have no idea what happened between week 1 and 2, but the 49ers are not that good.  The Bengals just made them look that way.  

I got my hopes up again.  Lucy pulled the ball away again.  I will probably have this happen the rest of my life, but I doubt I get my hopes up again any time soon.