The Bengals hoped new Paul Brown Stadium would boost attendance in 2000. Instead, Cincinnati is flying in the face of NFL attendance records.

        The NFL has set attendance marks the past two weeks, thanks to the Bengals.

        Thanks to the Bengals having been on the road, that is.

        The NFL had advance sellouts for all 30 of its games the past two weeks. That is the first time the league has had 100 percent advanced sellouts in back-to-back weeks since 1974, when it started tracking such things. It was also just the third time overall for 100 percent sellouts.

        The Bengals? They have sold out just one of five home games, and that was a no-doubter Sept. 10. That was the debut of 65,600-seat Paul Brown Stadium, and the Ohio rival Cleveland Browns — always a sellout here — were in town.

        The Pittsburgh Steelers, another annual sellout game, visit Sunday. Bengal spokesman Jack Brennan said the team is “optimistic” that the game will sell out by Thursday at 1 p.m., in order to avoid a local TV blackout. Teams must have a sellout 72 hours before kickoff for a game to be televised locally.

        “We would like it to sell out, but in order to get sellouts we're going to have to have a winning team,” Bengals President Mike Brown said. “We've been too long without that, and we know that.”

        The Bengals (2-9) have the second-worst record in the NFL to San Diego (0-11). Coming off the losingest decade in NFL history (52-108 in the 1990s), the Bengals have eroded their fan base to these degrees:

        • Of the six NFL teams to open new stadiums since 1997, the Bengals are the only one not to sell out the whole season, i.e., every seat sold for all games. The other new stadiums since '97 are Baltimore, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Tennessee and Washington.

        • The Bengals' sellout ratio is 20 percent this year (one sellout in five games). The NFL sellout ratio is 86.1 percent, with 149 of 173 games having been sellouts.

        • The Bengals, despite a two-game winning streak at the time, drew only 54,759 for their last home game, Nov. 5 vs. Baltimore. There were more than 10,000 empty seats.

        “That was a little disappointing,” Bengals defensive tackle Oliver Gibson said. “I think we're a talented team with some exciting players, but you've got to win.”

        What about other bad teams? They are selling out, for the most part. The Chargers, 0-9 at the time, sold out their Nov. 12 home game vs. Miami.

        The Chicago Bears, 2-8 entering last Sunday's home game with Tampa Bay, sold out despite the prospect of frigid temperatures.

        The New England Patriots, 2-8 entering last Sunday's game with the Bengals, have sold out 69 straight home games.

        Greg Aiello, NFL vice president of public relations, said the Bengals' new stadium could be a factor in luring free agents. But that won't sell more seats.

        “The biggest driver of attendance is the team on the field,” Aiello said. “In our system, losing is built in. Somebody's got to lose. The good news is that, in our system, teams have the opportunity to improve quickly with the draft and the salary cap.”

        Yet the Bengals have not been able to take advantage of that system, which theoretically helps the bad teams get better. The team's losing tradition hasimpeded the signing of blue-chip free agents, most of whom seek winning teams.

        “We're very disappointed by how we've performed,” Brown said. “And yet, our attendance is higher than it's historically been, because of a bigger stadium.”

        The Bengals are averaging 61,062 fans per game, which is a team record almost by default. Their old stadium, Cinergy Field, had a football capacity of 60,398. Since Paul Brown Stadium has about 5,000 more seats than Cinergy had, the Bengals have topped their old home capacity four times this year.

        But the fact remains that there has never been a game where every seat in Paul Brown Stadium has been filled.

        For the first game, the official count was 64,006 vs. the Browns. That figure is “tickets distributed,” and does not reflect actual turnstile attendance.

        This Sunday, even if the game sells out, there figure to be pockets of empty seats. Pittsburgh always brings a few thousand fans to Cincinnati, regardless of either team's won-lost record. But both the Bengals and Steelers (5-6) are riding three-game losing streaks, and cold weather could be a factor.

        “Whatever I see or hear from the fans, it's no surprise,” Bengals linebacker Takeo Spikes said. “We want to win for them, but we really haven't lived up to expectations.”

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