Attendance Problems in Cincinnati!

[Shawn]

Looks like only about 48,000 were in attendance in Cincinnati this week, a TV blackout for the local fans (possibly a good thing) but alarming considering this was only the 1st home game of the season. Can't blame the fans for being upset and disinterested in the team, but what do you think will happen at this point? Could the entire season be blacked out/not sold out? Will this force ownership to make some big changes, or perhaps become even cheaper??? I'm sure the fans would like a chance in ownership, but of course that is easier said than done, and you never know with the Mike Brown ownership group.

[MilwaukeesBest]

Bucs game was blacked out week 1, and also this week. Pretty pathetic there hasn't been a televised game on here in years. Not that I care, I am a fan of the other Bay

[BradyT]

I cant really on the blackout problematic.. but I´m just glad I got the NFl Game Pass so I can watch every game for sure anyway..

[drobes]

I would love to see Mike Brown forced to change his ways but not selling out seats isn't going to have much of an impact.

I saw an analysis a month or two ago that claimed that sellouts were way over-rated in the NFL. The difference in annual stadium generated revenue from the best (Dallas) to the worst (Oakland) was only $10 million dollars. Comparatively many NFL teams choose to be $20 million or more under the salary cap.

With the revenue sharing deals in place and the massive television rights that are split across all 32 teams, the way to make money as an NFL owner isn't by putting a great team together and packing the stadium every week, it's by not paying your players up to the salary cap and pinching pennies on coaching staff, training facilities, etc. Sad but true...

I dug up the link to article: http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/i ... aying-wins

[skip]

I would love to see Mike Brown forced to change his ways but not selling out seats isn't going to have much of an impact.

I saw an analysis a month or two ago that claimed that sellouts were way over-rated in the NFL. The difference in annual stadium generated revenue from the best (Dallas) to the worst (Oakland) was only $10 million dollars. Comparatively many NFL teams choose to be $20 million or more under the salary cap.

With the revenue sharing deals in place and the massive television rights that are split across all 32 teams, the way to make money as an NFL owner isn't by putting a great team together and packing the stadium every week, it's by not paying your players up to the salary cap and pinching pennies on coaching staff, training facilities, etc. Sad but true...

I dug up the link to article: http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/i ... aying-wins

One facet ignored by this article is revenue from merchandise and advertising. This is a HUGE moneymaker for clubs like Dallas and Pittsburgh but teams like the Bills or Bengals do not enjoy the same kind of profits. There was an article in Forbes from a couple seasons back which had the reported numbers of NFL franchises (without access directly to the books). The average profit for NFL teams was roughly $20 million across the board when subtracting their expenses from their gross income. Dallas was about $120 million (the only one over the $100m figure) and a few other clubs also saw large profits. At least 2 clubs showed losses. A number of clubs were in the $10-ish million range or lower. If every club spent up to the salary cap there would be a number of teams in the red. Pretty amazing for a league that has such massive revenue as a whole. From a game standpoint spending a little less may (or may not) make a team less competitive and we can point to any number of places where teams can probably make financial adjustments that would satisfy the casual observer. But always keep in mind that the owners are in this for profit. It's a business.

[melish1631]

I can remember when the Sporting News ran an article regarding the Bengals and their frugal ways...Not sure if it still is this way but I remember that they had no scouting department, their coaching staff did their scouting! I think this sums up the franchise as a whole....player behavior is an even bigger issue! The Queen City is a mess again!

[bigcsr67]

Mike Brown runs his team like a small town family business.... He needs to get with the program.....horribly ran franchise,