Cincinnati Bengals officials tell the county that their current stadium lease is perfect and that the public loves it too
Hamilton county agreed to “guarantee 50,000 tickets sold per game”, agreed to give the Cincinnati Bengals all stadium management rights, agreed to give the team all advertising revenues, agreed to give the team all money made from food or beverages and agreed to pay for all stadium maintenance or capital projects. But best of all, the county agreed to give the Bengals a state-of-the-art provision that essentially allowed the Bengals to go to the county every off-season and demand the best and…
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Ohio State Politician slips in language to a bill at 1am so that the Bengals can save almost $10 million dollars in taxes
The new stadium has brought virtually nothing economically back to the city and therefore the stadium debt continues to account for more than almost 20% of Hamilton County's yearly budget. Did I mention that the lease agreement says that the stadium must be in a state-of-the-art condition? This means that every few years, Mike Brown will demand any number of new toys for his stadium, like a new scoreboard, and taxpayers are mandated to pay for them. Whenever this subject gets brought up, the…
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The absurdity of non-disclosure agreements, sports and taxpayer money
The San Antonio Spurs want a new arena. That isn't new or shocking news. But if you want actual news on this subject? Good luck. For the last year or so, the Spurs and city officials have kept every possible detail out of public view if it pertains to a new arena. No discussions. No interviews. Just silence. Now, will taxpayers end up paying quite a bit? Sure. But they won't know about it until a deal is done first. How can this be legal? We are talking about taxpayer money. We are talking…
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Cincinnati Bengals seem perplexed why local residents didn’t want to give them $300 million for stadium fixes, even after the team said they would give just $50 million
The Cincinnati Bengals are frustrated with Hamilton County on the lack of progress with lease negotiations. The Bengals need to sign a new lease rather soon because their current one runs through 2026. The Cincinnati Enquirer got emails between the team and city showing how displeased both were with the other side. The team believes that there may not be any “political will for any deal” according to their Vice President. They point out how the city gave the team just $39 million for repairs to…
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Is FC Cincinnati threatening that either they get $26.4M in public money or they won’t follow through on their agreement?
We know that FC Cincinnati has plans for an entertainment district, a 150-room hotel tower, 450+ apartments, 85,000 square feet of commercial and retail space and up to 600 parking spaces. Last year, FC Cincinnati asked the city to make major changes to the stadium agreement. The team wanted additional land to be deemed as “planned development” and for the boundary of the development to be increased further north. FC Cincinnati also asked the city to sell and vacate a number of properties…
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Cincinnati apologizes for wrongly evicting thousands in the 1950’s. Didn’t FC Cincinnati just do that?
A full year had not even passed since FC Cincinnati's housing promise, when the Cincinnati Enquirer found out that at least 20 people were, in fact, being displaced by the new stadium. Many more would follow, and the above two examples are ones of many that I could write about. The kicking out of the 99-year-old woman caused so much local anger that FC Cincinnati decided to keep her building in their plans, rather than destroy it. But FC Cincinnati doesn't do good things like that without…
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