I wonder what would happen if a crowd-funding campaign could be organized among the Bengal faithful in order to keep them in town, if it came down to it. Would local businesses step up? Would individuals step up? That way, only those with a real interest in the Bengals would give up any money, and average Joe Taxpayer would have no complaints. Isn't the Packers' Lambeau Field publicly owned that way? Plus, we could be the Great American Bengals!
After hearing a Keith O'Brien interview, I deviated from my normal fiction addiction and got his book at the library (I am a thin-wallet guy too). I am about 250 pages into it and I think it is pretty good. There is good stuff about the 75 & 76 WS, interesting details about how early the Reds suspected Pete of betting on games as a player, steroids, corked bats, etc. I give the book a solid B-.
As far as the Bengal stadium woes, I can't take it anymore. Wake me up when it's over.
Once upon a time in the '80s I was at an Oak Hills-Elder basketball game at the Pit. Oak Hills had been in the news that week, floating the idea of a school levy for the district. The always-adroit Panther student section started a "Vote No" chant that was alternately rude, devastating, shocking and hilarious.
I mention that to get to this. (Which I imagine will be an unpopular opinion in this forum.) If it comes to The Family on a ballot asking for any of my hard-earned, I will channel my inner Tim Mara and kindly invite them to stick their hands in their own pockets. We all learned in the Lost Decade we could survive just fine without football. (I recall a certain Morning Man raking leaves to illustrate that point.) If Mike Brown is the good businessman so many credit him being, he can find a way to make more billions by spending some of his money instead of ours. If the Bengals want to be here, they need to show us, not the other way around.
Da Bears & Sox play in the dregs of Chicago, unless it's changed a whole lot. They do need to find a new location for the Bears. Dump the Sox. They have the Cubs. Never ever been a Sox fan.
Bengals gotta stay. It's the sports glue of our City.
Pete Rose needs to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's not like he didn't exist. Come on man....
So when is Cinci going to start a WNBA Team here? It's going to be the next big draw to Women's Sports. Why not? I'd drive up to Indiana to see Caitlan Clarke...It would bring money to our City. Up and coming...watch it happen across America....don't be the last.
I lived in Chicago and worked in Sports Radio at Sporting News Radio when the Bears put the UFO on top of Solider Field the first time they renovated it. A very large portion of the fan base wanted the Bears to spend more money on a dome to get more events in. The team didn't so the city has lost out to Indy for all these years on events held at Lucas Oil. As for the White Sox they are now at least 5th on the sports pecking order in Chicago Bears, Cubbies, Bulls, Blackhawks Big 10 sports then the Sox. Good luck on that new stadium..
Pretty depressing subject matter today. But certainly one that isn't going away. The Bengals obviously hold the winning hand in this poker game that would make Tony Soprano blush for its crookedness. And we, the taxpaying, ticket buying public are left to the tender mercies of Mike, Kate and Troy.
It seems pretty obvious to me that we pony up or fold. I have some hope/faith that the Family will be as reasonable as their leverage will allow them to be. I have absolutely no hope that the NFL would do a solitary thing to stop the team from finding a more glamorous home in a more exclusive neighborhood.
Doc, I fully trust The Family BrainTrust. Which means they’ve somehow progressed leaps and bounds in the last quarter century. As you know, I keep “stuff,” and especially stuff about the Bengals. In 2012, ESPN The Magazine ranked the Bengals dead last (118) among all professional sports franchises based on these criteria: Bang for the Buck, Fan Relations, Ownership, Affordability, Stadium Experience, Players, Coaching, and Championships. Today, I would personally rank the Bengals near the very top of pro franchises in the “best run” category. The championships are still missing, but with “The Burrow Effect” (5 playoff victories and a Super Bowl appearance in 3 seasons after 5 and 2 in 53 seasons) if Joe’s healthy (admittedly a big IF but I believe the trend will now reverse) we will win more than one Bowl in Joe’s career. Bottom line, I trust the Bengals and the city to get the stadium deal done, too, as a key element of this Transformational Decade Plus. And compared to The Lost Decade Plus, you still have to pinch me we are here under the same ownership. The stadium deal is a major motivation to them for sure. And Joe Burrow, who again barring only health issues, will some day be recognized over Pete Rose as the most significant and famous athlete in Cincinnati history, is the biggest reason the deal will get done. Not to mention we will be perennial Super Bowl favorites - not just contenders - the rest of his career - as long as he’s healthy. (No mention of Greg Cook here, please!) As for Pete, agreed! No more books 📕 please! BUT anytime Pete wants to talk we will all listen. The entertainment value never relents! WHODEY DOC!
Doc, Do you resent the ransom demands or are you looking out for the rest of us. It's not like it's your dime. Or do you live in Hamco now? Personally I resent billionaires dictating what we the people need to spend to keep them in an sppropriate playpen. Make a reasonable offer and call their bluff. High stakes chicken but I don't think they'll Modell on us.
I am about halfway through Don Winslow’s Cartel Trilogy, a straightforward and sobering account of the last half-century of the War on Drugs. At various points after another account of mind-blowing carnage, the fictional protagonist Arturo Keller, a long time DEA agent, reflects on the true origin of the mayhem, the overwhelming demand of Americans for illegal drugs from Latin America regardless of the wreckage it entails.
At the risk of extreme extrapolation, this is how we get into these public finance dilemmas with the NFL. We are so collectively obsessed with a violent, collision-based sport that the owners of the business have us over the metaphorical barrel whether we like it or not. Since I am not a taxpayer on the hook here, I will reserve judgment on any future Brown Trust shakedown. But as for how it happens, we are who we are.
Said it a bunch, but I can stomach kicking in a few bucks for the Bengals. Quite simply-they are a public entity that I enjoy. When thrown in with all the other plethora of things I pay for without my consent, it's a drop in the bucket. Ideally The Family will absorb a big chunk of it and the solution will be massive upgrades to Paycor rather than a new place. The building has always seemed built halfway and built before its time in the context of the Banks area. That area has finally been realized (with plenty of more potential) and the stadia should remain key residents. To your point though, if the Cincinnati Bengals ever won it all I'd die happy sports-wise and have no problem rooting for the Albuquerque Bengals for the rest of my days. It's not like I'd ever adopt the Colts, etc.
Ah yes ! On the day Cincinnati was named one of the twenty five most polluted cities, we get to add the smog of stadium negotiations. For years there was proof of the pollen filled deal Hamilton County made with the WhoDeys. Much like the draining, and dredging of Sharon Woods lake, will taxpayers be willing to purify a sports palace again ?
Perhaps the Bengals can get funding from the next trillions of dollars 'infrastructure' bill if they put solar panels on the stadium.
I wonder what would happen if a crowd-funding campaign could be organized among the Bengal faithful in order to keep them in town, if it came down to it. Would local businesses step up? Would individuals step up? That way, only those with a real interest in the Bengals would give up any money, and average Joe Taxpayer would have no complaints. Isn't the Packers' Lambeau Field publicly owned that way? Plus, we could be the Great American Bengals!
Doc. You could write a book about writing books about Pete Rose...
I'm sure people would love it.
After hearing a Keith O'Brien interview, I deviated from my normal fiction addiction and got his book at the library (I am a thin-wallet guy too). I am about 250 pages into it and I think it is pretty good. There is good stuff about the 75 & 76 WS, interesting details about how early the Reds suspected Pete of betting on games as a player, steroids, corked bats, etc. I give the book a solid B-.
As far as the Bengal stadium woes, I can't take it anymore. Wake me up when it's over.
Once upon a time in the '80s I was at an Oak Hills-Elder basketball game at the Pit. Oak Hills had been in the news that week, floating the idea of a school levy for the district. The always-adroit Panther student section started a "Vote No" chant that was alternately rude, devastating, shocking and hilarious.
I mention that to get to this. (Which I imagine will be an unpopular opinion in this forum.) If it comes to The Family on a ballot asking for any of my hard-earned, I will channel my inner Tim Mara and kindly invite them to stick their hands in their own pockets. We all learned in the Lost Decade we could survive just fine without football. (I recall a certain Morning Man raking leaves to illustrate that point.) If Mike Brown is the good businessman so many credit him being, he can find a way to make more billions by spending some of his money instead of ours. If the Bengals want to be here, they need to show us, not the other way around.
Vote no.
Da Bears & Sox play in the dregs of Chicago, unless it's changed a whole lot. They do need to find a new location for the Bears. Dump the Sox. They have the Cubs. Never ever been a Sox fan.
Bengals gotta stay. It's the sports glue of our City.
Pete Rose needs to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's not like he didn't exist. Come on man....
So when is Cinci going to start a WNBA Team here? It's going to be the next big draw to Women's Sports. Why not? I'd drive up to Indiana to see Caitlan Clarke...It would bring money to our City. Up and coming...watch it happen across America....don't be the last.
I lived in Chicago and worked in Sports Radio at Sporting News Radio when the Bears put the UFO on top of Solider Field the first time they renovated it. A very large portion of the fan base wanted the Bears to spend more money on a dome to get more events in. The team didn't so the city has lost out to Indy for all these years on events held at Lucas Oil. As for the White Sox they are now at least 5th on the sports pecking order in Chicago Bears, Cubbies, Bulls, Blackhawks Big 10 sports then the Sox. Good luck on that new stadium..
Pretty depressing subject matter today. But certainly one that isn't going away. The Bengals obviously hold the winning hand in this poker game that would make Tony Soprano blush for its crookedness. And we, the taxpaying, ticket buying public are left to the tender mercies of Mike, Kate and Troy.
It seems pretty obvious to me that we pony up or fold. I have some hope/faith that the Family will be as reasonable as their leverage will allow them to be. I have absolutely no hope that the NFL would do a solitary thing to stop the team from finding a more glamorous home in a more exclusive neighborhood.
READ THE BOOK. Way way more compelling, layered, and nuanced than any previous PER iteration. And I have read most all of them.
Doc, I fully trust The Family BrainTrust. Which means they’ve somehow progressed leaps and bounds in the last quarter century. As you know, I keep “stuff,” and especially stuff about the Bengals. In 2012, ESPN The Magazine ranked the Bengals dead last (118) among all professional sports franchises based on these criteria: Bang for the Buck, Fan Relations, Ownership, Affordability, Stadium Experience, Players, Coaching, and Championships. Today, I would personally rank the Bengals near the very top of pro franchises in the “best run” category. The championships are still missing, but with “The Burrow Effect” (5 playoff victories and a Super Bowl appearance in 3 seasons after 5 and 2 in 53 seasons) if Joe’s healthy (admittedly a big IF but I believe the trend will now reverse) we will win more than one Bowl in Joe’s career. Bottom line, I trust the Bengals and the city to get the stadium deal done, too, as a key element of this Transformational Decade Plus. And compared to The Lost Decade Plus, you still have to pinch me we are here under the same ownership. The stadium deal is a major motivation to them for sure. And Joe Burrow, who again barring only health issues, will some day be recognized over Pete Rose as the most significant and famous athlete in Cincinnati history, is the biggest reason the deal will get done. Not to mention we will be perennial Super Bowl favorites - not just contenders - the rest of his career - as long as he’s healthy. (No mention of Greg Cook here, please!) As for Pete, agreed! No more books 📕 please! BUT anytime Pete wants to talk we will all listen. The entertainment value never relents! WHODEY DOC!
Respectfully Yours, 🐅🧒🏻
Doc, Do you resent the ransom demands or are you looking out for the rest of us. It's not like it's your dime. Or do you live in Hamco now? Personally I resent billionaires dictating what we the people need to spend to keep them in an sppropriate playpen. Make a reasonable offer and call their bluff. High stakes chicken but I don't think they'll Modell on us.
I am about halfway through Don Winslow’s Cartel Trilogy, a straightforward and sobering account of the last half-century of the War on Drugs. At various points after another account of mind-blowing carnage, the fictional protagonist Arturo Keller, a long time DEA agent, reflects on the true origin of the mayhem, the overwhelming demand of Americans for illegal drugs from Latin America regardless of the wreckage it entails.
At the risk of extreme extrapolation, this is how we get into these public finance dilemmas with the NFL. We are so collectively obsessed with a violent, collision-based sport that the owners of the business have us over the metaphorical barrel whether we like it or not. Since I am not a taxpayer on the hook here, I will reserve judgment on any future Brown Trust shakedown. But as for how it happens, we are who we are.
Said it a bunch, but I can stomach kicking in a few bucks for the Bengals. Quite simply-they are a public entity that I enjoy. When thrown in with all the other plethora of things I pay for without my consent, it's a drop in the bucket. Ideally The Family will absorb a big chunk of it and the solution will be massive upgrades to Paycor rather than a new place. The building has always seemed built halfway and built before its time in the context of the Banks area. That area has finally been realized (with plenty of more potential) and the stadia should remain key residents. To your point though, if the Cincinnati Bengals ever won it all I'd die happy sports-wise and have no problem rooting for the Albuquerque Bengals for the rest of my days. It's not like I'd ever adopt the Colts, etc.
Ah yes ! On the day Cincinnati was named one of the twenty five most polluted cities, we get to add the smog of stadium negotiations. For years there was proof of the pollen filled deal Hamilton County made with the WhoDeys. Much like the draining, and dredging of Sharon Woods lake, will taxpayers be willing to purify a sports palace again ?