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Stadium naming rights possibile
BY MARK CURNUTTE | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
ORLANDO, Fla. - The new NFL labor deal, which increased the salary cap $16.5 million over last year and $7.5 million ahead of original projections, will force the Bengals to find new sources of revenue.
One of the most obvious places to start would be selling the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium.
"We'll be thinking about a lot of things," Brown said Sunday, the first day of the NFL annual meeting. "We're going to have to adapt to this deal, and the best way to do that is find whatever revenue streams wherever we can find them."
Brown paid $5 million for the rights before the stadium opened. That $5 million went toward the Bengals' $44 million contribution to construction. If a company had wanted the naming rights, the next $11.67 million would have gone to the Bengals. Anything beyond that was to be split, with the county getting 30 percent and the team receiving 70 percent, according to stadium documents.
"Some things you have to assume we tried," Brown said. "It just doesn't do much good to dwell on this than we have."
The naming-rights question came up again earlier this month in Dallas, where NFL team owners met to discuss and then vote on a players' union proposal to extend the collective bargaining agreement. The owners, by a vote of 30-2 - Brown and Buffalo's Ralph Wilson were the nays - ratified the union proposal and adopted additional revenue sharing measures to help small-market clubs, such as the Bengals. The Bengals rank among the 17 lower-revenue teams in the league. The top 15 revenue producers will share limited profits with the other 17 clubs.
But one of the contentions by high-revenue teams, such as the Cowboys, was lower-revenue clubs like the Bengals don't work hard enough to create revenue.
At one point during the often contentious negotiations, the Boston Globe reported, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones mockingly offered to buy the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium for $5 million. Jones said, "I can double that in about five minutes, Mike." Brown, reportedly, did not respond.
"I don't remember that; I really don't. I don't have any recollection of it," Brown said of the reported exchange with Jones. "If I had, I could have rejoined, 'I tell you what, I'll pay you 5 million bucks for yours. Let's swap.'
"Half of the teams (in the NFL) don't have naming rights to their stadiums, and probably for a lot of different reasons. Some of it is due to the fact is it isn't easy to sell naming rights in some markets. Others have legal commitments. Dallas hasn't sold naming rights, just to pick an example at random."
Another idea being discussed is possibly to sell the naming rights to the playing field inside Paul Brown Stadium.
"I guess all those things are possible," Brown said.
"I haven't sorted them out to that extent. Heck, the good news is we have so many millions of blades of grass, so we have great opportunities."
Success on the field, coupled with a second-year uniform re-design that appeals to younger fans, improved Bengals' merchandise sales in 2005.
"It's done well. The fact we had a good year, by our standards, it doesn't necessarily mean by NFL standards it was exceptional," Brown said. "It certainly went well up the chart from where we had been.
"We had an exciting team. I'm proud of what they did. We had some players (wide receiver Chad Johnson) who caught, not just the fancy of Cincinnati, but the whole country. So we had lots of sales. I have to ask myself am I really against this touchdown demonstration stuff and River Dancing? He's just smarter than I am."
LINK
BY MARK CURNUTTE | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
ORLANDO, Fla. - The new NFL labor deal, which increased the salary cap $16.5 million over last year and $7.5 million ahead of original projections, will force the Bengals to find new sources of revenue.
One of the most obvious places to start would be selling the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium.
"We'll be thinking about a lot of things," Brown said Sunday, the first day of the NFL annual meeting. "We're going to have to adapt to this deal, and the best way to do that is find whatever revenue streams wherever we can find them."
Brown paid $5 million for the rights before the stadium opened. That $5 million went toward the Bengals' $44 million contribution to construction. If a company had wanted the naming rights, the next $11.67 million would have gone to the Bengals. Anything beyond that was to be split, with the county getting 30 percent and the team receiving 70 percent, according to stadium documents.
"Some things you have to assume we tried," Brown said. "It just doesn't do much good to dwell on this than we have."
The naming-rights question came up again earlier this month in Dallas, where NFL team owners met to discuss and then vote on a players' union proposal to extend the collective bargaining agreement. The owners, by a vote of 30-2 - Brown and Buffalo's Ralph Wilson were the nays - ratified the union proposal and adopted additional revenue sharing measures to help small-market clubs, such as the Bengals. The Bengals rank among the 17 lower-revenue teams in the league. The top 15 revenue producers will share limited profits with the other 17 clubs.
But one of the contentions by high-revenue teams, such as the Cowboys, was lower-revenue clubs like the Bengals don't work hard enough to create revenue.
At one point during the often contentious negotiations, the Boston Globe reported, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones mockingly offered to buy the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium for $5 million. Jones said, "I can double that in about five minutes, Mike." Brown, reportedly, did not respond.
"I don't remember that; I really don't. I don't have any recollection of it," Brown said of the reported exchange with Jones. "If I had, I could have rejoined, 'I tell you what, I'll pay you 5 million bucks for yours. Let's swap.'
"Half of the teams (in the NFL) don't have naming rights to their stadiums, and probably for a lot of different reasons. Some of it is due to the fact is it isn't easy to sell naming rights in some markets. Others have legal commitments. Dallas hasn't sold naming rights, just to pick an example at random."
Another idea being discussed is possibly to sell the naming rights to the playing field inside Paul Brown Stadium.
"I guess all those things are possible," Brown said.
"I haven't sorted them out to that extent. Heck, the good news is we have so many millions of blades of grass, so we have great opportunities."
Success on the field, coupled with a second-year uniform re-design that appeals to younger fans, improved Bengals' merchandise sales in 2005.
"It's done well. The fact we had a good year, by our standards, it doesn't necessarily mean by NFL standards it was exceptional," Brown said. "It certainly went well up the chart from where we had been.
"We had an exciting team. I'm proud of what they did. We had some players (wide receiver Chad Johnson) who caught, not just the fancy of Cincinnati, but the whole country. So we had lots of sales. I have to ask myself am I really against this touchdown demonstration stuff and River Dancing? He's just smarter than I am."
LINK
