We can argue about whether 2000 was the first year of the new millennium or the last year of the old one, but it was, unmistakably, the Year of the Bengals. Which isn't to say, of course, that it's been a good year.
Nor has it been an unusual year in kind for the Bengals, though it's been an extraordinary year in degree. That's because the Bengals not only treated us this year to another terrible football team, but their opening of Paul Brown Stadium revealed itself as a public-works nightmare raising questions that touched on several fronts of Cincinnati life.
Cost overruns on the stadium probably will jack the final price in excess of $460 million. Having been gifted so lavishly by Hamilton County consumers who underwrite the stadium with a sales tax, the Bengals have responded with another cheap effort. If the team weren't already enough of a joke for rolling out a bad team at millions under the salary cap, the organization's incompetence at maintaining the stadium playing surface elicits groans throughout the NFL.
Every day, just when you thought the Bengals couldn't slap their public any harder in the face, along comes another. It's not even comical any more to consider that the Reds had to play on that rock-hard turf this past summer because the Bengals were worried they might have played an exhibition game at Cinergy Field. After all, we now know how much the Bengals really care about the condition of their playing surface.
The Paul Brown Stadium field already was a mess by November, but the Bengals decided against resodding it, figuring they could nurse it through the season. And a fine job of nursing they did. They decided against covering it with a tarp before last weekend's snow storm because they were worried about smearing the painted yard lines.
Great. Build the Bengals a $460 million palace on prime real estate and the public's dime, stipulating that pretty much all they have to do is maintain the field. Then the Bengals can't even handle that much, so Cincinnati's jewel on the riverfront goes out on national television as a cow pen.
But that's just the most recent story, which is like so many others involving the Bengals, their stadium and the taxpayers who feel so utterly cheated. Sports fans already knew at the end of last season that their expenditure would be wasted on a poor team, which had actually declined in the nearly four years since the 1996 vote approving the county sales tax.
The fans didn't know it could get worse. Who could have predicted it would get worse?
What changed this year was widespread consciousness as to what the expenditure really meant in the larger picture. If it were just a matter of laying out $460 million for a poor football team, the situation could be improved simply by improving the football team. In 2000, the issue went deeper.
In short, the Bengals' persistent failure made citizens ask if the political order that held the team's hand is at all accountable to the public. It made citizens ask if they were ultimately paying enough attention to the way their community is run.
In particular, citizens had to wonder if it's wise to bankroll a private entertainment business and neglect the schools. And it raised other issues of a more abstract nature, such as the obligations of a private enterprise that's heavily subsidized by the public.
The public's answers came on Election Day, when Hamilton County voters ousted Bob Bedinghaus and voted in their first Democratic commissioner in 36 years, Todd Portune. It didn't break the Republican Party's death grip on local politics, but it sent a clear message of outrage at the power structure's complicity with the Bengals.
And, in Cincinnati, voters passed a 6-mill levy to keep the school district in the black for four years. It won't clean up all the schools, but it was recognition that a community that bankrolls football teams and neglects schools has lost its way.
The extent of the stadium boondoggle first came to light within days of the most thrilling local event of the past athletic year, the Reds' acquisition of Ken Griffey Jr. on Feb. 10. News that the football stadium's price tag would be about 12 percent higher than anticipated, up to $450 million, brought the city back to reality with a thud.
Continuing stories of cost overruns due, in part, to lack of oversight by the county solidified the suspicion that Bedinghaus was in the Bengals' back pocket. After positioning himself as an unlikely hero by pushing through the sales tax to preserve the Bengals with a new stadium, Bedinghaus undercut himself by negotiating easy terms for the team and then failing to watch costs.
The Bengals' administration of the stadium hasn't been seamless, either. A group of season-ticket holders has filed a class-action suit against the Bengals, claiming they didn't get the seats they'd paid for in Paul Brown Stadium. The suit claims that the highest-priced zones of seating were oversold, so it seeks damages of $300 to $500 per seat license for a total of several million dollars.
For one-half cent on every purchase they make in Hamilton County, those who are fortunate enough to enter the stadium are privileged to see bad football on a bad field from a bad seat. And those who can't enter the stadium are treated to a laughingstock of a football team and a stadium.
Looking against the backdrop of stadium negotiations when assessing Mike Brown's control of the football operation, it becomes as clear as sunlight that he isn't going to budge. Brown's meek, mild-mannered countenance belies an extremely tough dealer.
He maneuvered to put up the stadium despite friction between the city and the county. The Brown family fought the IRS against charges that Paul Brown's estate owed an additional $40 million and won the case in tax court.
So Brown has prevailed against the tides of city and county power politics and won in tax court. He's nothing if not tenacious, and it's hard to believe that after fighting through all that he's going to back off the football operation just because millions of fans want him to.
It's been 10 years since the Bengals have been good, and only once in that time have they won half of their games. This year they were bad, and in the same way that they're always bad. As was the case with David Klingler in the early 1990s, they sent out a young quarterback without support, guaranteeing his early demise.
Four months ago, Akili Smith was the quarterback of the future. Today, he's a museum piece and there actually is clamor the Bengals should go forward with Scott Mitchell, a journeyman who first made his mark with the Detroit Lions only to be replaced after he handed the Bengals a game some years ago.
This year, after a decade of futility, Cincinnati football fans finally are saying they've had enough of the Bengals. If he chooses, Brown can say the Bengals don't need a new general manager so much as they need new players. He can ignore the obvious, which is that it's the general manager's job to bring in players and if the Bengals have bad players it's because they have a bad general manager.
He can ignore all that. And the public can ignore the Bengals. In 2000, that has begun, mostly because the citizens can no longer ignore the Bengals' tortured relationship with the community. ©
