A Bengals lease-fleece? Who knew?

Time to get over it. It ain't changing

A FEW SPORTS TOPICS will last forever around here. They’ll have the half-life of nuclear waste. A hundred million years from now, they will be discussed over beers at a Delhi bar. They are, in no particular order:

The legacy of the Big Red Machine.

The fate of Pete Rose.

The Freezer Bowl.

The Bengals stadium lease.

The lease has come up again. What a shocker. The Enquirer is reporting that money from the naming rights to the erstwhile Paul Brown Stadium, now Paycor Stadium, was never intended to be shared with Hamilton County. Says so right there, in the Bengals stadium lease.

Outrage from elected officials is always a popular tactic when public money is being spent. There is no greater slamdunk in the Queen City than outrage directed at the football team. It indicates the elected officials are On Your Side. Even as said officials know what the lease says.

Enquirer:

“In an email dated March 22. (Bengals attorney Stuart) Dornette (wrote), "It is clear that the County will not receive any revenue in the foreseeable future from any reasonable naming rights deal under the Lease.”

He notes the lease Hamilton County has with the Reds for Great American Ball Park gives the Reds all the naming rights revenue. The language in the 2003 lease with the Reds states the Reds "shall have the right to receive all revenues from the sale of naming rights to the Ball Park, provided that the county shall retain the right to approve any name."

Other NFL teams also get all the naming rights revenues from their stadiums, Dornette said. "Within the NFL, no deal in the last several decades has the naming rights on any basis other than 100% to the team," Dornette wrote.

Looking at Cincinnati's NFL neighbor to the north, the city of Cleveland or Cuyahoga County did not get a dime from the $102 million, 17-year deal the Browns struck with FirstEnergy in 2013. The money all goes to the team. The Indianapolis Colts get all of the money from the $122 million, 20-year naming rights deal for Lucas Oil Stadium.

Sounds pretty clear to me. Also, crazy. But a deal is a deal.

We might not like it. In fact, we’ve disliked it since 1997. Who wants to be on the hook for mega-millions, seemingly forever? But there it is.

If you want to be accurate about it (and hold your nose while reading this) the Bengals actually have been less aggressive than the lease allows them to be. They haven’t demanded upgrades to Payjoe Stadium that are due them.

Conventional wisdom suggests that The Family are very smart business people. They’re not. Chances to expand their fiefdom deeper into Ohio and Indiana have never been explored, or at least acted upon, over the years. They’re fabulous lawyers, though, and swing leverage the way Paul Bunyan swung an axe.

The deals with the Bengals and Reds have not been wholly one-way streets. We did get a very fine, redone two-way street out of them. Fort Washington Way works, as does the GE building on The Banks and the new performance hall and the housing down there. All made feasible by the presence of the two stadia.

Compare that with the Cleveland situation, where the stadium might as well be on Elba.

As an entertainment district, The Banks has been hit or miss, but it’s there if you want it. I’m not backing the Bengals here. The stadium deal was and continues to be egregious. Name me one, anywhere, that isn’t. (OK, Oracle Park in San Francisco, where the Giants play, was paid for by team owners.) But adhering to the provisions of a lease seems honorable to me, not a reason to scream bloody murder.

Now, then. . .

IN THE COURSE OF THE ROSE DISCUSSION over the weekend, a Mobster came up with an excellent idea: Since Pete is going to make the first wager in the sportsbook at Hard Rock Casino when it opens here Jan.1, they should name the venue The Rose Room, or some such.

Brilliant. Let’s take that a step further. Let’s marinate MLB in the juices of its new-found love of money and gambling. The Pete Rose Room shall have a lux area for high-stakes bettors, and it shall be named The Joe Jackson Wing.

As you enter the Rose Room, you will be greeted by life-sized stand-ups of Manfred and Selig. Affixed to their cardboard backs will be a recorder playing on a loop Baseball’s rule against players betting on games.

A woman dressed like a ring girl and looking suspiciously like Mickey Mantle will hand you a slip of paper detailing the day’s games and odds. She’ll be standing next to Willie Mays, who’s explaining how to execute a parlay.

If you’re feeling really flush, for $500 you can visit personally with the Mighty Manfred in the Hypocrisy Room, where you’ll get a full explanation of his stance on Rose’s ongoing banishment.

Lastly will be Pete himself, or rather a dummy that looks like Pete. He’ll be in a machine, sitting behind glass, like the fortune tellers in the old amusement parks. Think Coney Island (NY, not Cincy) or the Tom Hanks movie, Big. Ask the Magnificent Rose-O a question — who do you like in Bengals-Steelers, Rose-O? — drop a dime into the slot and get your inside info. “I like the Steelers getting the points. Please play responsibly. I never bet on my own team. Have a nice day.’’

BYE WEEKEND BLUES. . . We took the advice of Hey Michelle! on Saturday and went to the Holiday Market at the convention center. We spent money ($10 apiece) for the chance to spend more money, which sounds way too much like buying a Bengals seat license.

Never have I seen more pieces of thin wood painted red and green and bearing holiday beseechings: Believe. Let It Snow. HoHoHo.

If you wanted a fragrance or a women’s garment, you were in the right place. What I don’t get and don’t like is the over-abundance of stuff for females. It’s OK the market had 5 million candles and at least as many CZ rings, but what about men?

I don’t need a cedar box in which to store my mood rings. I might have been interested in man cave stuff. Pinball machines, humidors for my cigars, mini-fridges for my kegs.

Men wear clothes, often. I need a new pair of hiking boots. I could use a new poncho. I like games. Sports and war board games. Hell, even a decent cornhole set would have been nice.

Men have skin. The Market didn’t realize that. Men have hair, too, and while I’m not a “product’’ guy, I understand the need.

I’ll give ‘em a break on a complete lack of hunting, fishing and golf stuff. There’s another show for that. But no, say, grill accessories? Nothing for the car or truck?

If I missed something — and it’s possible, the place was jammed — my apologies. And I realize that when it comes to purchasing options, men will have one aisle of shoes at Nordstrom and women will have 700. But I humbly suggest that next year at the Holiday Market, ponder assuming that that men exist. You might make a little more money.

AND FINALLY. . . When I was working, I was grateful to be covering actual football games on Sundays, if only because it meant I was watching football only from 1 to 4, not 1 to midnight. Well. . .

Yesterday, I watched all or parts of four games. I should be flagged for delay-of-life. A few observations:

The Steelers are terrible, but Kenny Pickett isn’t as bad as he was a month ago.

Watching Andy Dalton play quarterback is sadly and utterly dull.

Dak Prescott would be Joe Smith if he weren’t a Dallas Cowboy.

Rodgers and Brady, redeemed on successive Sundays. The NFL lives a charmed life.

Tua is hellaciously effective, seemingly smart and accurate overnight. The RB Wilson, of whom I’d never heard, is very good. I wouldn’t want to play Miami in Week 1 of the playoffs.

The Browns are still the Browns.

The new Stallone show, Tulsa-Something, looks aggressively bad. The more a network promotes a new show, the less likely it’s any good. I saw Stallone yesterday more than I saw my dog, who was lying next to me on the couch.

AS FOR YELLOWSTONE. . . What a letdown. I spent half a year waiting for that? A two-hour, season-opening “event’’ had as many surprises as a ham sandwich. To recap: John Dutton still hates politics, Beth Dutton is still amusingly evil, Jamie Dutton will soon be fitted for his dog collar, wolves still eat cattle. Dramatic interest: Not much. Compelling, new story lines: Zero.

Better luck next week.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . The best rendition of this tune, off one of the best live albums ever made. One of these days, I’m gonna visit Tucson, Tucumcari, Tehachapi and Tonopah. Sort of a Winslow-Arizona-corner thing.