Media's contempt of Bengals sparks the ire of present and former Bengals.

[Whatever]

(02-19-2020, 05:12 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: It's literally impossible not to make a profit in this league. 

You could have an ownership group and front office consisting of: Honey Boo-Boo, Simple Jack, William Hung, and a Chimpanzee from the Cincinnati Zoo and still make tens upon tens of million dollars every single year.

If it were any other a business, a real business, they would have went under years ago.

They were dead last last year in % of tickets sold. 2nd to last in total tickets sold, only because the Chargers are stuck in a 30k stadium awaiting their new one. They were dead last in product quality (record).

If there are 32 widget makers and you rank 32nd in widgets sold you have a serious problem. If your widget ranks 32 out of 32 in product quality you have a serious problem. If you're the only widget maker in the last 30 years to have never won a single award you have a serious problem. These all are going out of business problems.

This is a business who tried to market a free popcorn with $1500+ purchase. This is a business who has been ridiculed by the media for decades. This is a business that continues to have the same problems and perception issues and refuses to adapt or change.

Everything about them is poorly run. In any other space they would've been laughed out of business by about 1997.

This is ridiculously far off base.

The first issue is that a high product quality doesn't necessarily equate to sales.  McDonald's has low product quality, but they still take in exponentially more than favorite little family owned burger joint.  In a real business, you can be highly profitable despite poor product quality because there are always people out there looking for cheap products.  Conversely, you can have a very high product quality and go out of business quickly due to low sales volume because most people are not going to pay for top quality.

That aside, the economics of a sports team are governed by completely irrational consumer demands.  For example, nobody cares when buying a tv if the manufacturer hasn't won any awards for the last 25+ years.  They look at the features, product quality, and price of the model they're looking at.  Also, consumers will accordingly curve quality expectations based on price.  The Bengals are 30th in the league in average ticket price.  Therefore, they should hypothetically also be 30th in product quality.  Since, they've provided a higher quality product than indicated by their price point almost yearly, the consumers should be happy with them and they should be experiencing good sales if they are a "real business.". Instead, consumers are down on them because they are expecting Mercedes-Benz quality when they're paying Kia prices.  Again, not a reasonable consumer expectation for a normal business, but we're talking sports.

They would never go out of business without revenue sharing, anyways.  They would simply move the team to a new market to increase sales and prices.