By Mark Curnutte
Enquirer staff writer

GEORGETOWN, Ky. - Coach Marvin Lewis has received a contract extension worth an estimated $2 million over the four-year span of the deal.

Bengal's head coach Marvin Lewis gathers his team around him during training camp at Rawlings Stadium on the campus of Georgetown College Monday morning. (Enquirer photo/STEVEN M. HERPPICH)

Bengals president Mike Brown approached Lewis at the end of the regular season and offered to renegotiate and extend the coach's contract, Lewis said Monday at the team's training camp.

Sources told the Enquirer that Lewis has received a new four-year contract, erasing the original four-year deal he signed when hired in January 2003.

Lewis is now under contract as Bengals coach through the 2007 season. He confirmed the deal but would not reveal its value or duration.

The original contract paid $1.5 million a year, a source said, and the new deal is believed to pay Lewis more than $2 million.

"It was very positive and very gracious and flattering to me, wanting to renegotiate and extend the contract," Lewis told the Enquirer. "He just felt like that the two of us could make this thing work long term. My family was very excited, and it was an easy decision to do."

Brown said he did not understand the news value of upping Lewis' deal.

"He had done such a fine job. He accepted the extension," Brown said.

Brown said management did not have specific expectations for Lewis, who had not been a head coach previously on any level.

"When it was all done, he had come in and turned our team around and won the community over and we're very pleased at how he had done," Brown said. "We were very pleased in how he has done it."

Giving Lewis a big raise and extending his contract are moves that will be popular with the team's fans. Many fans consider Lewis to be the team's savior and worried that he would leave Cincinnati before his contract expired.

There was talk earlier in the offseason in Pittsburgh, before Steelers coach Bill Cowher signed a contract extension, that Lewis - a native of the Pittsburgh area and former Steelers assistant - would be a logical choice to possibly succeed Cowher.

Under Lewis in 2003, his rookie season as a head coach, the Bengals were 8-8. It was just their second non-losing record since 1990. They also set a single-season home attendance record of 479, 488 that should fall this season, and were in playoff contention until the season's last day.

The supply of single-game tickets for the first six games of 2004 is exhausted, and the only seats that remain for the first six home games are wrapped in season-ticket packages.

A ticket department executive said that the team would sell out its entire home schedule in 2004 before the regular-season home opener Sept. 19 against Miami.

That would be a first since 1992, when all eight games at Riverfront Stadium sold out. The Bengals could easily reach the 520,000 mark in home attendance, which would be a new record. Bengals merchandise sales also have increased both locally and nationally.

In short, Lewis is making the Bengals a lot of money.

Lewis also said Monday that the organization has made several other inside moves that "fly under the radar" to help promote winning. He said there has been "a change in philosophy in our coaches' contracts ... we have been able to keep our guys here."

Lewis would not say which coaches received renegotiated or new contracts, but did say they were offensive coaches.

Players greeted news of Lewis' contract extension positively.

"It means they support him. It's pretty obvious," defensive end Justin Smith said.

Offensive tackle Willie Anderson saw the big picture.

"It makes me very happy to hear that," said Anderson, an eight-year veteran. "The organization, the city, we need him."

Lewis has immersed himself in community programs and started his own foundation for impoverished children.

"He goes into poor neighborhoods and lets children touch the hand of the Bengals coach," Anderson said. "That's huge."

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E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com

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