Stadium victory at hand
Bengals, county close to win-win
BY GEOFF HOBSON
and LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati EnquirerThe Drive started on the Bengals' goal line. Nov. 4, 1993.
That was 1,300 days ago, when The Enquirer reported club president Mike Brown's first threat to move the team if his stadium situation didn't improve: "If we can't get something going here, maybe that's a direction we're going to have to think about going."
In the Stadium Game, there have been some last-ditch, fourth-down plays. A few memorable goal-line stands. Even a sideline pattern to Baltimore that stopped the clock from running out.
All indications are that some time this week the Bengals and Hamilton County will break from a victorious huddle. The NFL team's 30-year stadium lease with the county is expected to be unveiled as early as Tuesday, as negotiators complete final details of a 66,965-seat facility scheduled to open in August 2000 on the river between Central Avenue and Elm Street.
"It's safe to say the vast majority of the work is finished," said Hamilton County Commission President Bob Bedinghaus, architect of the March 1996 half-cent hike in the county sales tax that funds new football and baseball stadiums. "It's not safe to say we've completed our negotiations. There's an awful lot of work yet to do over the weekend."
Bengals director of stadium development Troy Blackburn, who along with club lawyer Stu Dornette has handled the negotiations, said Saturday the discussions have moved off construction costs and on to "construction process. We're early in the design, and I think we've decided we'll make budget decisions as we go."
The club's prized canopies atop each side of the stadium, an estimated $5 million item, look like they make the cut. The Bengals have reduced their size.
The roof "originally went behind the seating bowl, or down all the way to the bottom of the facility where people don't sit," Mr. Blackburn said. "If it doesn't serve a purpose for the fans, we don't need it."
Gary VanHart, the county's public works director, said Hamilton County keeps getting closer to its goal of a $240 million price tag for the stadium, but he declined to say where the design price stands.
Earlier this month, Mr. VanHart said the Bengals and county were $48 million above the county's $240 million target, which includes the cost of the stadium, parking and stadium plaza. The $240 million does not include land acquisition, design fees or the cost of moving utility lines on the site.
City Manager John Shirey's recommendation that the city needs to hike the admissions tax from 5 percent to at least 5.5 percent and possibly 6 percent will be discussed, but won't blow up the deal. The tax increase is designed to help the city keep its promise to pay $5 million annually for repairs to city schools.
Mr. Brown is on the verge of savoring his biggest accomplishment since taking control of the club nearly six years ago after the death of his father, Paul Brown.
"It's a deal far from being an 80-yard bomb. It's more like a 15-yard pass over the middle," Mr. Blackburn said. "We needed it. We're very pleased to have it. It's far from being a financial bonanza for us. It's an average NFL deal, but we felt we couldn't ask our fans or this community to come up with anything more than average. This met our first priority: Staying in Cincinnati." John Williams, president of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, said the lease is worth two victories.
"We're keeping a major league team that bears the name 'Cincinnati,' " Mr. Williams said. "And thousands of citizens have revitalized this community as we try to bring it to the river. It's helped create a major-league attitude. "
County and team officials say key elements in the lease won't be much different than what's in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two sides signed last September.
The MOU specifed the financial goals the sides had to meet before a lease could be signed. Since September, they have selected NBBJ architects, designed a European-style sideline-seat stadium with open corners, formed three seat campaigns, decided on and then refined a site, and created a construction budget.
It's fitting that Mr. Blackburn, 30, son-in-law of Mr. Brown, is in the negotiating trenches. He was born the year Mike Brown and Mr. Brown's father, NFL Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown, signed the original Riverfront Stadium lease.
That's when the franchise cost about $7 million, not much more than the cost today of those controversial canopies.
But when Mr. Brown set June 30, 1995, as a deadline for a stadium proposal from local governments, the Brown legacy in Cincinnati was in jeopardy. It was Mr. Bedinghaus who crafted the sales tax plan as a way to keep the home team at home.
The MOU between the city and county, in which the county became landlord of then Riverfront Stadium instead of the city, was reached in dramatic fashion. It passed Cincinnati City Council as the clock struck midnight, allowing Mr. Brown to crumple up a terse two-line press release:
"Thanks for your support."
"Goodbye."
Nearly two years later, Mr. Brown and Mr. Bedinghaus are presiding over another deadline. This one is the absolute must: a lease by June 1 - Sunday - or the tax is repealed.
Last week, the Bengals' lease sailed through votes of the NFL's finance committee and 30-member ownership. Only Raiders chief Al Davis recorded his customary abstention.
"It seemed to me the government officials had a great understanding of the situation and Mike did the job putting it all together," said Bud Adams, a finance committee member for seven years and the Houston Oilers' owner who is taking his team to a new stadium in Nashville. "Absolutely it shows the league understands what it takes to keep a team in a small market," Mr. Adams said.
The Bengals and Oilers play in the AFC Central Division, which has enough new real estate to be re-named the Century 21 Division. New homes are being built in Cincinnati, Nashville, Baltimore while the Jacksonville Jaguars are in the third year of a rebuilt Gator Bowl.
Owners say they need new stadiums to create non-shared revenue to fund their teams in an economic system with a rising salary cap. And the AFC Central stadium deals are pretty similar when it comes to non-shared revenue:
The Bengals have 104 luxury suites (from $45,000 to $134,000), and 7,600 club seats ($995, $1,595 and $1,995) with a $150 seat license fee. They'll pay a little more than $1 million a year in rent for the first nine years and then none the rest of the way.
The Oilers have 137 suites in Nashville (from $50,000 to $125,000), and 13,000 club seats (from $995 to $2,495). Rent: $3 million per year.
The Jaguars have 75 luxury suites (from $50,000 to $80,000) and 11,000 club seats at $1,537. In five- and 10-year increments, rent goes from $250,000 in the first five to $1.25 million in last five.
The Ravens have 99 suites between $55,000 and $200,000. The 7,900 club seats go from $1,075 to $2,975 with a $1,000 seat license fee. No rent.
Mr. Brown could have had the deal in Baltimore, going as far as to make a June 8, 1995, visit to Camden Yards, adjacent to the site the Ravens will begin use in 1998.
Ravens owner Art Modell got $68.4 million up front from seat license sales, some of which went to a relocation fee and legal expenses stemming from the move from Cleveland. And the Oilers got $28 million up front.
James Gray, assistant director of the National Sports Law Institute at Marquette University, studied the MOU and said the Bengals have landed comparable deals in their market.
"In those relocation situations, like Houston to Nashville and Cleveland to Baltimore, the dollars are bigger because you lose potential expansion. This was a deal to keep a team home. How much is it worth to the community? We've seen towns that lost teams try to get them back and are paying three, four fives times what it would have in the first place."
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Regional effort fills seats May 25, 1997