Roughly $4 billion

[Clark W Griswold]

Hope this continues to put pressure on the family…can’t really plead poor any more. They have plenty of money to get all of the deals done and improve through FA…

https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/allbengals-insiders-plus/look-bengals-ownership-family-worth-nearly-4-billion-as-of-latest-forbes-400-list-01jm29rxmktg

[Joelist]

(02-16-2025, 03:18 PM)Clark W Griswold Wrote: Hope this continues to put pressure on the family…can’t really plead poor any more. They have plenty of money to get all of the deals done and improve through FA…

https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/allbengals-insiders-plus/look-bengals-ownership-family-worth-nearly-4-billion-as-of-latest-forbes-400-list-01jm29rxmktg

And what is their cash flow? “Worth” and “value” mean nothing in the context of paying signing bonuses and putting guarantee money in escrow where cash is necessary.

[FormerlyBengalRugby]

(02-16-2025, 03:18 PM)Clark W Griswold Wrote: Hope this continues to put pressure on the family…can’t really plead poor any more. They have plenty of money to get all of the deals done and improve through FA…

https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/allbengals-insiders-plus/look-bengals-ownership-family-worth-nearly-4-billion-as-of-latest-forbes-400-list-01jm29rxmktg

Overall value and money on hand are two separate ballparks.

Consider a start up company that has a boom and is valued at 200k, but the person running it has no cash on hand because everything is being funneled into the business. The business may be worth that much, but the person is only liquid for maybe 10 to 15k and one bump in the road buckles the business.

The Brown family and the Bengals are far from poor and need to spend more, but think your conclusion was a tad simplistic.

[higgy100]

(02-16-2025, 03:35 PM)Joelist Wrote: And what is their cash flow? “Worth” and “value” mean nothing in the context of paying signing bonuses and putting guarantee money in escrow where cash 

Correct.  it's really no different than telling somebody giving you an escalated value of your home. It's only work that much if somebody's going to pay you that much. It's all about available cash flow for this team and what, more importantly, what their financial philosophy is in giving up present day dollars and guaranteed money. Bengals can afford big salaries all day long but it's about guaranteed money that today's players want.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

Just saw the graph Nug provided in the Tee thread showing we have the ability to sign every one of our guys which was a bit eye opening to me.

No excuses. Still think we should Tag Tee and trade him though as I don't like paying him 26+ mil per year when he is going to miss around 6
games every year. TLL put down my thought of an incentive laden contract for Tee as others will be willing to pay him to miss this many games.

[Clark W Griswold]

Yes I did simplify it but they are “making” hundreds of millions per year so my point is that they can sign these guys if they want to. They should have plenty of $ to put into escrow for bonuses etc. They have the money and the means to manipulate the cap (with restructures/cuts etc) like other teams do.

No excuses for them not fielding a championship level team this year. They already have some of the toughest pieces in place…

[*jason*]

(02-16-2025, 04:46 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: Just saw the graph Nug provided in the Tee thread showing we have the ability to sign every one of our guys which was a bit eye opening to me.

No excuses. Still think we should Tag Tee and trade him though as I don't like paying him 26+ mil per year when he is going to miss around 6
games every year. TLL put down my thought of an incentive laden contract for Tee as others will be willing to pay him to miss this many games.

They've gaslighted us for so long with Hobsin they have people thinking it's an either or situation to keep Tee and improve the team.

[StoneTheCrow]

(02-16-2025, 05:17 PM)jason Wrote: They've gaslighted us for so long with Hobsin they have people thinking it's an either or situation to keep Tee and improve the team.

It’s not gonna fly anymore.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(02-16-2025, 05:17 PM)jason Wrote: They've gaslighted us for so long with Hobsin they have people thinking it's an either or situation to keep Tee and improve the team.

No doubt. The spin has been egregious around this joint. 

[Hammerstripes]

The only thing that I need to know is how much cash they have on hand. That's the ONLY thing that can limit what they do. If they don't have cash on hand, they can't offer huge guarantees since they need to put that money in escrow.

[SladeX]

(02-16-2025, 05:17 PM)jason Wrote: They've gaslighted us for so long with Hobsin they have people thinking it's an either or situation to keep Tee and improve the team.

Even if it’s not, i don’t think Tee is worth the $ he will command on the market. Injuries worry me. I would rather invest in the OL and DL.

[*ochocincos*]

(02-16-2025, 03:35 PM)Joelist Wrote: And what is their cash flow? “Worth” and “value” mean nothing in the context of paying signing bonuses and putting guarantee money in escrow where cash is necessary.

Even if the football franchise is the only source of revenue for Mike Brown and family, their family has been the owners for 57 years.
One would think they'd have enough cash to put toward guaranteed contracts if they really wanted.
Or maybe their expenses are just so high year to year that they really don't have more than $100 mill saved between them all.

[Fullrock]

1. If the Brown family is cash strapped they must be REALLY poor money management people.

2. When you are worth $4B and have an asset worth as much as a NFL franchise, even if you are somehow cash-strapped, you can borrow whatever you want. Corporations take on debt all the time. If they’re serious about competing for Super Bowls, you get it done.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(02-17-2025, 12:16 PM)SladeX Wrote: Even if it’s not, i don’t think Tee is worth the $ he will command on the market. Injuries worry me. I would rather invest in the OL and DL.

Completely understandable and a good plan. I know people like the shiny toys like Tee but he will miss about 6 games every year.

Invest in the trenches and the team will be better for it. Tee has value as long as we tag him, he is the top FA according to most.

We might be able to get a late 1st for him for all we know...

[WeezyBengal]

This isn't liquid cash.

[BRM13]

(02-17-2025, 01:47 PM)Fullrock Wrote: 1. If the Brown family is cash strapped they must be REALLY poor money management people.

2. When you are worth $4B and have an asset worth as much as a NFL franchise, even if you are somehow cash-strapped, you can borrow whatever you want. Corporations take on debt all the time. If they’re serious about competing for Super Bowls, you get it done.

This seems right, but there are a couple of things that mitigate this somewhat.  I agree that this rep for being great business people is overrated.  Sure they are worth $4 billion, but you'd pretty much have to be if your patriarch was Paul Brown.  He was the football genius and a decent businessman.  Mike Brown is a great lawyer.  That is different.

First, while the Brown family has owned the team for 57 years, the current group has only owned it since the early 90s after a messy inheritance transfer where Mike Brown's legal education paid off in allowing them to somehow limit the huge amount of cash the family owed the IRS; this is what allowed them to keep the team in the family (its a pretty famous tax case).   While they were able to keep the team, they bought out a couple of limited partners and still had to pay the IRS something.  I think this is a big source of the unfathomable cheapness and failure of the 90s.  They really were cash strapped in that era.  They have had plenty of time to recover and I'm sure they have.  I don't know what the tax implications are when Mike passes, but the family MAY be hoarding cash for that eventuality (the cap gain may be in the BILLIONS depending on how everything is structured).

Second, the league has pretty strict rules about debt loads to prevent exactly what many advocate they do:  blow past the salary cap with debt backed by the franchise.  So, they may not able to borrow as much as they'd like.  However, given everything else they do, I'd assume they are no where near those limits.

Third, it doesn't really matter if 1 and 2 are trueish, they definitely have access to what appears to be very large amounts of cash.  However, they really don't have nearly as many sources of outside cash as other teams.  Therefore, even if they wanted to compete just like everyone else (debatable, at best) they ARE at a disadvantage relative to what other ownerships seem able to do.  If everyone else can afford $500 million cash per year and they can only do $400, that is a lot money they can't/won't spend on scouts and players.  

My belief has always been that if you think of the Brown family aside from founder Paul as lawyers, rather than businessmen, everything makes sense.  Very risk averse, careful to a fault.  They enjoy winning contract negotiations more than nearly anything else.  And that seems to be what they are best at (see the IRS, Hamilton county, many many players, etc).

[TJHoushmandzadeh's Shiny Shoes]

(02-17-2025, 11:58 AM)Hammerstripes Wrote: The only thing that I need to know is how much cash they have on hand. That's the ONLY thing that can limit what they do. If they don't have cash on hand, they can't offer huge guarantees since they need to put that money in escrow.

If you are worth $4bn it’s a choice to not have cash to hand.

They’d have access to all the cash necessary. There might be a cost involved but it is their choice to not incur that cost.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-17-2025, 01:24 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Even if the football franchise is the only source of revenue for Mike Brown and family, their family has been the owners for 57 years.
One would think they'd have enough cash to put toward guaranteed contracts if they really wanted.
Or maybe their expenses are just so high year to year that they really don't have more than $100 mill saved between them all.

They actually owned only 10% when the team was created, they just had the reins of the team. They've spent most of that 57 years buying up ownership over, including picking up 10% in 2003 and 30% in 2011 so now they're one of only three people to have ownership in the team (One guy owns I think only like 3-5%, and another owns just 1 share of the 586 total.) To throw that into context it means as recently as when they drafted Palmer that they only actually owned ~55% of the team and ~65% when they drafted Dalton.


I'm absolutely sure they have $100m saved between them, but keep in mind that just Burrow, Orlando, Chase, and Hendrickson along with signing just your 1st round picks in a 3 year span are ~$360m guaranteed at signing of cash that needs to go into escrow and I am not sure if practical guarantees need to also go in or if its just guaranteed at signing. If it's practical as well, then that number will be much higher.

While the Browns aren't hurting financially, and they can afford to spend more overall, they do probably have a limit of how much guaranteed money in a time span they can dole out.

(02-17-2025, 04:02 PM)TJHoushmandzadeh Wrote: If you are worth $4bn it’s a choice to not have cash to hand.

They’d have access to all the cash necessary. There might be a cost involved but it is their choice to not incur that cost.

The NFL imposes a debt limit on owners. You can only leverage the worth of your team so much to get cash, and once you do that, you obviously can't do it again until you pay off that debt, so it's not an unlimited solution.

[Isaac Curtis: The Real #85]

The value of the franchise and how much $$ they have are not remotely the same thing.

As others have said.

[Clark W Griswold]

I’m no expert on any of this but it they could pay everyone and add to the team if they want to. They could find a way to get the cash as others have suggested. The article shows that they generated $549 million in 2023 and that number certainly went up last year. Yes they have a great number of expenses but look at the graph in the article. They have the least $ committed to non-QBs in the league and even with QBs they are near the bottom.

But some people are already giving them an excuse to not pay to keep and improve the team because they don’t have the cash in their pocket. Just what MB wants you to believe.

There is no excuse for them not to re-sign/extend/add to this team. There are ways they could get that $ if they really want to compete for Super Bowls. People that rich have a lot of ways to manipulate their $ if they really want to. Cash or no cash this is about how much the Brown family wants to win.