Despite being around since 1968, the Cincinnati Bengals are the seventh-youngest franchise in the NFL. Since their inception, though, the league has seen the Raiders, Colts, Cardinals, Rams, Oilers and Chargers all change their locations; the Rams moved twice and the Raiders moved three times over that span.
Now, there’s a chance the Bengals could dissociate from the city of Cincinnati, though that chance may be fairly small.
Tuesday, The Athletic’s Paul Dehner Jr. detailed the situation between the Bengals and Hamilton County. The two parties are currently negotiating the lease for Paycor Stadium, where the team has played since the 2000 season. This story has risen to the forefront of recent news due to an important upcoming decision deadline for the Bengals. By June 30, the Bengals will have to agree to a lease offer from the County or exercise an option that extends the current lease for two years.
The current lease doesn’t expire until June 30 of next year, so the team is, of course, guaranteed to have a home for the 2025 NFL season, but the team is seeking to make changes to the stadium that would require an updated lease agreement.
The Bengals are hoping to make upgrade to their home of the past 25 years, and renovations don’t run cheap these days. Recent years have seen two comparable renovations to downtown stadiums that didn’t require new construction: an $800M renovation that tied the Panthers to Charlotte for 20 years, and a $489M renovation that tied the Ravens to Baltimore through 2037.
In these deals, a good portion of the funding is provided by the cities or states — Charlotte contributed $650M, while the Ravens only contributed $55M to the project, $35M of which was reimbursable. The Bengals are teaming with the NFL to contribute $120M through a G-5 loan, a loan that allows the Bengals to borrow NFL funds as long as the team matches the loan with their own funds. They want to contribute it to a project that will allow them to renovate their two club lounges, their concessions, and all of their 132 suites.
Dehner posits that if the Bengals can’t agree to a deal with the County, the G-5 loan could be end up going to waste, and if things unfold in this fashion, the Bengals may decide to explore the concept of moving cities.
The team’s executive vice president Katie Blackburn, daughter of team president Mike Brown, didn’t rule out that option, though she emphasized that the franchise would prefer to stay in Cincinnati with the ability to make the abovementioned renovations.
If a new lease agreement isn’t signed by next Tuesday, the team will exercise the two-year extension options that works on a rolling basis, extending the current lease, one the team is unhappy with, for two years over and over until a new deal is signed or the agreement is terminated.
In order to terminate the lease to move to another location, though, the Bengals have to let the County know by Dec. 31 of the second year of the extension (six months before each extension’s expiration date) that they intend to look elsewhere. During that six-month period, the Bengals must give the County, any individual in the County, or any group of individuals in the County the opportunity to purchase the team, as Kelsey Conway of the Cincinnati Enquirer reveals.
However unlikely it may be for the team to change cities, Brown’s father, former Browns and Bengals head coach, owner, and co-founder Paul Brown, located the franchise in Cincinnati because of its centrality to large neighboring cities like Louisville and Lexington in Kentucky and Columbus, Dayton and Springfield in Ohio. The “Louisville Bengals” or “Columbus Bengals” may sound strange to the ear, but their close vicinity to the team’s current location (combined with existing bases of dedicated collegiate fans) could bode well for their chances of landing an NFL franchise.
The County exchanged two offers with the Bengals in April, but both showed wide gaps between the two parties’ desires in terms of contribution, length, and type. In the months since, the two sides have worked to bridge that gap, establishing a memorandum of understanding that tentatively puts some terms in place for the renovation project.
The last day that the commissioners of Hamilton County are meeting before June 30 is Thursday morning. In this session, the commissioners could initiate a vote on one more potential agreement to offer to the Bengals. From there, the Bengals will make the decision to sign the new lease offer or move forward with the first of a potential several two-year extensions.
If it gets to that point, there will be a close watch on just whom the Bengals’ top brass is communicating with moving forward.
