The Relationship Between Ownership and Fans is on Life Support

[Essex Johnson]

(09-16-2019, 11:30 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Heck, even the Browns fill up their stadium and their "winning" tradition is worse than ours!

WRONG... last year they moved the needle finally to 19th.. they averaged 29th for 2016, 2017, 2018  for a fan base that dates back to the 50s.. 

They are start off 0-3 with 2 home losses their attendance will go down after a sold out 1st game... 

[Nicomo Cosca]

(09-16-2019, 01:39 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: Dallas had 24th best percentage in attendance of 90% for their home opener... to try to compare Cincy to Dallas is just dumb.. How can a city with 7th largest metro area not sell out?????  Giants did not sell out .. if we get to 85 to 90 percent with the size of our metro area I would be happy with that

I do think the Bengals are in trouble with attendance ,, they will have to show improvement and starting winning before fans start to come back.. 

How about the other team I mentioned in GB? It’s not all about market size. Our owner thought changing coaches would be enough to sell tickets. And he was wrong as usual.

[samhain]

(09-16-2019, 01:39 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: Dallas had 24th best percentage in attendance of 90% for their home opener... to try to compare Cincy to Dallas is just dumb.. How can a city with 7th largest metro area not sell out?????  Giants did not sell out .. if we get to 85 to 90 percent with the size of our metro area I would be happy with that

I do think the Bengals are in trouble with attendance ,, they will have to show improvement and starting winning before fans start to come back.. 

There's a hell of a lot more to do in Dallas with your free time than there is in Cincinnati.  Same goes for New York, LA, Miami, etc.  

The Bengals game should be THE event going on in the Greater Cincinnati area for 8 days every fall.  Fact is, they are not.

[Bengalfan4life27c]

Cincinatti might lose the franchise. It's not fair sometimes life isn't fair. I guess ill be like my dad he became a Ravens fan.Ill root for the Stlouis Bengals London Bengals whatever. Id prefer they stay in Cincinatti but its not a given they will.

[Essex Johnson]

(09-16-2019, 01:45 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: How about the other team I mentioned in GB? It’s not all about market size. Our owner thought changing coaches would be enough to sell tickets. And he was wrong as usual.

  GB is a bit of an asterisk compared to any team.  Very few professional teams near GB, the place where football was King early... team is owned by the season ticket holders etc..

The main point I will always go to.. is many larger cities/metro areas have a much larger fan base to drawn from that not even most of those teams as selling out week to week .   If the Bengals get push it back to 85 percent over the next couple years that will be better than 90 percents of the Big Cities for sure...

[Essex Johnson]

(09-16-2019, 03:15 PM)samhain Wrote: There's a hell of a lot more to do in Dallas with your free time than there is in Cincinnati.  Same goes for New York, LA, Miami, etc.  

The Bengals game should be THE event going on in the Greater Cincinnati area for 8 days every fall.  Fact is, they are not.

Again size of city/metro area has to be taken in account.. we have much to do in this city and area.. trust me I have family in Houston Austin and friends in Dallas and we have many things to do... besides we are move central located to travel to different states , teams etc than Dallas

Sorry your argument is apples to oranges

[Rattler]

[Shake n Blake]

(09-16-2019, 12:15 PM)Ravage Wrote: Cardinals are historically lousy also. They went from 1947 to 1998 w/o a playoff win and only 4 trips to the playoffs in-between those two wins over 51 years. 

That stretch has always blown my mind. Although any time we're looking to the 1947-1998 Cardinals for comfort, we're not in a good spot.  

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To the OP: Mike Brown's reputation around Cincy is terrible, and he does nothing to improve it. He's a walking PR nightmare. The excitement of finding (what we thought) was an elite QB in Palmer and making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years was enough to get the city hyped...momentarily.

7 playoff embarrassments took a toll on that, and now people are kinda seeing Mike's Bengals for what they are again.

I'd say most people are kind of in a "prove it" state of mind. Until they do, apathy will be the prevailing feeling towards the Bengals in Cincy. I'm there myself.

[Shake n Blake]

(09-16-2019, 05:24 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote:   GB is a bit of an asterisk compared to any team.  Very few professional teams near GB, the place where football was King early... team is owned by the season ticket holders etc..

The main point I will always go to.. is many larger cities/metro areas have a much larger fan base to drawn from that not even most of those teams as selling out week to week .   If the Bengals get push it back to 85 percent over the next couple years that will be better than 90 percents of the Big Cities for sure...

You're not taking into account that we also have one of the smallest stadiums in the NFL, and our percentage of tickets sold has routinely been among the worst.

How long was our sellout streak a few year ago? 7-8 years? Cincy metro is easily big enough to draw 65k fans. We just don't.

[*jason*]

(09-16-2019, 06:48 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: You're not taking into account that we also have one of the smallest stadiums in the NFL, and our percentage of tickets sold has routinely been among the worst.

How long was our sellout streak a few year ago? 7-8 years? Cincy metro is easily big enough to draw 65k fans. We just don't.

Yeah... Chad was buying tickets to get them on TV back in 09... When he's broke, he'll look back and curse the day he did something nice for us chumps.

[THE PISTONS]

(09-16-2019, 06:45 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: That stretch has always blown my mind. Although any time we're looking to the 1947-1998 Cardinals for comfort, we're not in a good spot.  

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To the OP: Mike Brown's reputation around Cincy is terrible, and he does nothing to improve it. He's a walking PR nightmare. The excitement of finding (what we thought) was an elite QB in Palmer and making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years was enough to get the city hyped...momentarily.

7 playoff embarrassments took a toll on that, and now people are kinda seeing Mike's Bengals for what they are again.

I'd say most people are kind of in a "prove it" state of mind. Until they do, apathy will be the prevailing feeling towards the Bengals in Cincy. I'm there myself.

Like take this year. Fans were generally happy about a coaching change despite the fact it's really late.

MB had a willingness to spend. But, instead of landing a Top Tier free agent or two, they somehow spend some $50 million in cap space on scrubs.

[samhain]

(09-16-2019, 06:48 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: You're not taking into account that we also have one of the smallest stadiums in the NFL, and our percentage of tickets sold has routinely been among the worst.

How long was our sellout streak a few year ago? 7-8 years? Cincy metro is easily big enough to draw 65k fans. We just don't.

This city gets excited when the team is doing well.  After the lost decade when we drafted Palmer, Boomer consoled him in an interview.  He told him that if the team does well, the fans will be great to play for.  Then, as he became a terrific young qb, the stadium filled up.  It was loud.  Remember the Thursday night game vs Baltimore?  You could hear the fans from Covington, lol.  As I said before, if you didn't have season tickets, you were paying way over face on eBay (before stub hub) or getting gouged outside by scalpers.

They can absolutely fill the stadium.  They're just done with business as usual.

[samhain]

(09-16-2019, 06:45 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: That stretch has always blown my mind. Although any time we're looking to the 1947-1998 Cardinals for comfort, we're not in a good spot.  

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To the OP: Mike Brown's reputation around Cincy is terrible, and he does nothing to improve it. He's a walking PR nightmare. The excitement of finding (what we thought) was an elite QB in Palmer and making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years was enough to get the city hyped...momentarily.

7 playoff embarrassments took a toll on that, and now people are kinda seeing Mike's Bengals for what they are again.

I'd say most people are kind of in a "prove it" state of mind. Until they do, apathy will be the prevailing feeling towards the Bengals in Cincy. I'm there myself.

There are a few here that will strangely defend Mike Brown to the end.  I don't get it.  He may be a morally okay guy and, you know, like not a Nazi or anything, but he's really kind of a trash member of the football community.

He's also a complete garbage businessman.  He's a gold-plated grifter of the first order.  As much crap as he gets for his football acumen or lack thereof, he's ten times the football man than he is a businessman.  

He's the absolute worst kind of wealthy person.  He's daddy rich.  His dad was a tough, smart guy that valued family over everything
 and Mike never really had to do anything but be his kid to get rich.  His family has all they want.  They have complete control of the team, and little desire to obtain anything else, so long as that remains intact.

He's a billionaire welfare recipient on 2 fronts.  He gets to share profits with league owners who actually do market their teams and try to win.  He also has a sweetheart deal from a city that has grown to hate his guts.  They bought him a football palace that took little time to become obsolete compared to other venues.  

I'd venture that most NFL owners look down their noses at him.  He's the worst of his kind.  The elite bottom feeder taking the scraps of the real alphas and perfectly satisfied to do it.  Damn near proud and indignant about it, really. 

He's one of 32 men on the planet with access to the cash cow that is NFL ownership, and he got it by being born. He has zero desire to milk the cow. He just like to barely keep it alive and keep it from anyone else.

[samhain]

(09-16-2019, 05:27 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: Again size of city/metro area has to be taken in account.. we have much to do in this city and area.. trust me I have family in Houston Austin and friends in Dallas and we have many things to do... besides we are move central located to travel to different states , teams etc than Dallas

Sorry your argument is apples to oranges

We have much to do in this city is your reply?  LOL.  It's nothing compared to true metro area like Dallas.  Suburbs like Plano and Frisco are the size of Lexington or bigger.  The Banks project took forever to materialize and people here treat it like an entertainment miracle.  It's nothing compared to similar sites in Dallas/Nashville/Chicago, etc, some of which have several similar districts.  We're a cow town compared to those places.  Trust you.  Sure.

And perhaps people here wouldn't need to travel to see other teams if they had a product worth viewing here in Cincinnati.  Maybe if the owner worked to put out a better game day product, they'd stay put and go to PBS.  

People aren't going because the team sucks, the ownership has the public persona of a debt collection agency, and the game day product is well below sub par when it doesn't have to be, due to the fact that the owner sucks at what he does.

It's not the city, it's not the economy, it's not location.  It''s a flea market quality football team that has lost all interest from the casual fan.

[BengalsRocker]

Just don't re-name them something like "Pelicans".

[Bengalitis]

(09-16-2019, 01:32 AM)samhain Wrote: 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.  

A guaranteed win is worth the trip, no?

[Bengalitis]

Usually teams with feline mascots don't do too well. It's just the nature of the beast.

Doesn't matter what sport it is.

[Trademark]

(09-16-2019, 04:02 PM)Bengalfan4life27c Wrote: Cincinatti might lose the franchise. It's not fair sometimes life isn't fair. I guess ill be like my dad he became a Ravens fan.Ill root for the Stlouis Bengals London Bengals whatever. Id prefer they stay in Cincinatti but its not a given they will.

If the Bengals do leave Cincinnati then I’ll probably be done with the NFL

[Big Boss]

(09-17-2019, 06:52 AM)Trademark Wrote: If the Bengals do leave Cincinnati then I’ll probably be done with the NFL

Same, which all things considered wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.  I've decided to give college football a try this year and it's already proving to be far more enjoyable.  

They've got 7 years left on the lease. If they can't field a competitive team within that time frame, and they ask Hamilton County to pony up for a new stadium, let the door hit them on the way out.

[treee]

I'd rather them hire a proven GM than sell the team, but either way at least they won't be running the show anymore.