Stadium revenue may boost Bengals' staff Saturday, November 21, 1998
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Bengals President Mike Brown said he will consider expanding the staff of the club's football operations when revenue from the new Paul Brown Stadium starts to flow.
The stadium is set to open for the 2000 season, but the Bengals have already beefed up the business side of the NFL's smallest front office. Brown said the football staff also may grow.
"The revenue from the stadium is going to allow us to do things we've thought about doing in the past," Brown said.
"There are some things we've always had in mind, and maybe we can do some things we haven't done before. It will free us up. I'm not making any promises, and this kind of thing is premature. We'll see what happens in 2000."
Brown has indicated this season he's, "not going to fire myself as general manager," even though he has been skewered for eight straight non-winning seasons with almost the same football staff.
The Bengals have come under fire in the 1990s for having just four full-time football staffers who aren't coaches. They include just two full-time scouts because the club relies on their coaches to look at college and pro prospects. TheBengals are one of the few teams that don't divide college and pro scouting.
Brown said he might want to get his coaches some help but also defended his philosophy.
"It's what a lot of teams in this league do, and I think it's a good philosophy," Brown said. "They're good judges of talent." Brown didn't want to be specific about possible positions, but adding to the football staff wouldn't necessarily mean just adding employees.
The stadium revenue also may allow for an extensive offseason workout program or a recruiting budget to lure free agents. That dovetails with possible plans for an indoor practice site next to the stadium.
Brown sounded as if he's softening on the idea of bringing in people to help him on the football side, but he still considers the number of scouts and personnel people in other organizations, "a red herring."
"I don't think you can correlate numbers to performance," Brown said. "There are teams at the bottom with us who have huge staffs. And then you have teams like Minnesota (9-1) and Oakland (7-3) who run things comparable to us who are winning."
The 1-9 Carolina Panthers have five full-time scouts, plus a director of football administration and a manager of football administration. The 2-8 Redskins have four college scouts and two pro scouts. The 2-8 Colts have four directors (pro player personnel, college scouting, pro scouting, player development) under a director of football operations.
"We've got pretty much the same information everyone else has," Brown said. "We know who's out there. Our mock drafts for at least the first round or two are like everyone else's."
Brown has often looked around Spinney Field lately and been amazed at the expansion of the business side of the Bengals. Until the move into the new stadium, some employees must share offices.
Since Hamilton County voters in March 1996 passed a half-cent sales tax to build the stadium, the Bengals have hired nine full-time employees to handle the demands of a new facility.
At the end of the 1995 season, the Bengals had only a marketing director, two controllers and a business manager. Now they have a director of stadium operations, a community relations director in charge of selling premium seats, a director of corporate sales - marketing and a director of group sales - corporate entertainment.
"For the first time in club history, we've got products to sell," said Troy Blackburn, director of stadium operations. "The hiring was a response to the volume that has to be sold and trying to build relationships with corporate customers and sponsors."
