The Cincinnati Bengals lease with Hamilton County in Ohio expires on June 30, 2026. They have two five-year options, the first of which must be exercised by the end of this June.
There is no guarantee the option will be exercised.
Executive vice president Katie Blackburn discussed the stadium situation at the NFL annual league meetings. She said they would prefer to stay in Cincinnati and play at Paycor Stadium, but they "will make decisions at the appropriate time."
Blackburn said they enjoy their relationship with the county, but there needs to be certain upgrades made to the facility.
"We love where we are," Blackburn said. "I'm a very big proponent of being in the downtown. I think that's a great thing for the city. I think [the] location [of the] stadium right now is good.
"Our stadium obviously needs to continue to be maintained appropriately and you want to keep it at a certain level that's important, just so that we are competitive with others. But you know, at the end of the day, were playing it one day at a time, and it's just, we have to see where it all goes."
Blackburn would not got as far as to threaten a move out of the city, but she did say the team can ultimately decide to whatever is in its best interests.
"We could, I guess, go where we wanted after this year if we didn't pick the option up," Blackburn said. "So you know, we'll see. Like I said, all these things will be done in due course. We are having discussions, and so we're hopeful that the county is thinking about it a lot too and wants to get it addressed in a way that would be beneficial to both of us."
Paycor Stadium opened its doors in 2000 and upgrades and renovations to the quarter-century old facility could exceed $1.25 billion.
"We've all been working really hard on looking at a lease extension and renovations that might be part of that," Blackburn said. "....It's just finding a way to bring it all together, make sure everyone is on the same page, and pulling it together.
"That we seem to have a lot of work to do to make that actually happen."
