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Money maker Stadium will push Bengals near top of NFL in revenue
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Keeping the Cincinnati Bengals in town through 2027 is turning out to be a $800 million proposition for Hamilton County. The expense is the result of one of the most generous stadium leases in the NFL, according to an analysis by The Cincinnati Enquirer. Although the Bengals play in one of the NFL's smallest markets, its lease of the new Paul Brown Stadium that opened Saturday night will push the team to the top third of the league in revenue, analysts say. "They've got a pretty sweet deal," said Terri Lynn Ritenour, sports business analyst for market research firm Paul Kagan Associates in Carmel, Calif., which tracks NFL revenue. And the county's $800 million estimate does not include: the $70 million the county paid for the land; site preparations; cost overruns, which currently total $46 million; and future enhancements to the stadium, the newspaper reported. Much of the expense of the $450 million stadium is being paid for by a half-cent sales tax increase approved by county voters in 1996. Most leases awarded since 1994 give teams 100 percent of net revenue from tickets, advertising, concessions, club seats and suites, and nearby game-day parking. But unlike other leases, the county, not the Bengals, will pay for year-round stadium maintenance -- an estimated $200 million during the next 25 years. While the team will pay $11.7 million in rent the first nine years of the lease, the county may end up paying the team $29.4 million during the last nine years when it picks up the cost of game-day operations. The Bengals' aim in stadium negotiations in 1997 was clear. "On a conceptual level, the thing we tried to do was ... make sure that we had access to the new revenue streams. It did no good to build a new stadium and not get the revenue," said Troy Blackburn, the Bengals' director of business development. Hamilton County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus said the team's concern is it will always operate in a smaller market than other NFL teams. The Bengals signed their lease in 1997 at a historical apex in the NFL when teams were relocating and the league was expanding. The next year, a new, richer NFL network television contract was signed and cities tightened up, expecting teams to pay more for the cost of stadium construction. "I think Cincinnati is in the last group of stadiums, with Baltimore and Tampa Bay, Nashville and St. Louis, that are heavily government oriented," said John Moag, managing director at the investment firm Legg Mason Wood Walker in Baltimore and former chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority. "Those days are coming to an end," as the public demands teams pay more of stadium costs, he said. The Bengals call the lease a fair deal for taxpayers because it carries few of the more onerous conditions of leases in other cities, such as the promises of sold-out games in Oakland. "When you shake it all out, and I know it's not popular to say it," Blackburn said, "but this is a pretty fair deal here in Cincinnati for the taxpayers ... and it's a deal that doesn't make us rich but it allows us to run an NFL team here and compete."
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