Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - New Paycor Stadium lease framework APPROVED | Bengals staying up through at least 2036

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Cincinnati Bengals are staying put for at least 10 more years. Let's break it down. You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Locked on Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Jake Liskow, he's James Rapine, and we've been hosting the Locked on Bengals. on Bengals podcast collectively, well, going all the way back to 2016.

Starting point is 00:00:41 And I don't know how many years that is. I can't count that high, but I'm glad you're here. Hope you're already in every day or if you're not an everydayer of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. All you have to do is hit that subscribe button on YouTube or anywhere you get your podcast. And that'll help you not miss an episode. You'll get those notifications.

Starting point is 00:00:56 It'll be in your feed when we publish those episodes. So if you want to be in every dayer, that's all you got to do. You can also join the many listeners out there that make Lockdown Bengals there. first listen, and we appreciate all of you who have those great listening habits. And James, today we dive into the agreement that has been sort of agreed upon. The framework of the lease was approved by the Hamilton County Commissioners on Thursday. So the lease itself, not fully formally agreed upon, but the framework is in place. The major things are agreed upon. We're going to break everything down that we know about this agreement that will keep the Bengals in

Starting point is 00:01:38 Paycor Stadium through at least 2036. Yeah, it's huge. And it's a letter of intent. They had a memorandum of an understanding in April. Now it's a letter of intent. Here's why this is different, because I think that's the first thing because people that have been following this remember what happened in April. The reason this is different is because they're basically punning on that June 30th death line. So both sides are serious about this. It's done. I'm comfortable saying that because it is. And it was voted on. 2.0. We're going to get into all the details like you said. But 2.0, 1 abstained. This was something that if you heard through the grapevine throughout the week, like, oh, well, there's some hope. There's hope. We'll see if it gets done. We'll see if it gets done.

Starting point is 00:02:26 and then our locked on Bengals insiders found out, I would say, early Thursday morning before everything. And I know one of the commissioners, the county commissioners made fun of the media outlets that said it was done like 15 minutes before it was done because it was done. And so I think that that's funny. But look, this is, it's huge news. Why is it huge news? Well, we can go a bunch of different ways, but this is a lot of.

Starting point is 00:02:56 on Bengals. So let's look at it from a, a, a, a Bengals perspective. The Bengals are staying in Cincinnati. That's one that really wasn't in doubt, but now there is no doubt and there, there is no 1% or, maybe if this, this and this. And so that's a beautiful thing. And two, I do think that being downtown, being where they are, it is, it's an awesome experience. And I, I like the game day experience. I like everything about the tailgating outside and then being able to hit up the banks, which I've been a bunch of different pregames recording at the banks or live broadcasting at the banks. And then you roll from there to different tailgates and then into the game. So I think that's a beautiful thing. I love that it's downtown. And so high level stuff,

Starting point is 00:03:52 but the Bengals staying in Cincinnati, that's huge, huge news. Yeah, not having to move. nobody has to deal with that headache is the predominant win here for the team, right? The team didn't want the sweeping large-scale renovation project that would approach a billion dollars, and the team didn't want to deal with putting up all the money that the county would have wanted the team to put up as part of that project as well. but the priority for the Bengals, the way I read this, in the way that I understand and the way that I'm interpreting the things that were agreed upon in this framework agreement on Thursday

Starting point is 00:04:35 is that the team's number one priority was just that they didn't want to move. They want Paycor to have necessary updates, not necessarily a ton of aesthetic changes, not necessarily all of the additions, and the practice facility and all these things. And we'll see what specifically ends up being agreed upon when we get a better read on the specifics of what will happen as part of this new lease agreement.

Starting point is 00:05:03 But the priority for the team was simply staying put, staying in their stadium and addressing things that they felt necessary to address. And that is ultimately what I think provided the outline to the first. framework that was agreed upon on Thursday when you read between the lines a little bit. For sure. And this whole time, you've had a, on the political side, you've had a county that has been told for decades how they got their butt kicked in the 90s with the first deal. And so some of the details that we share, you'll see the differences. And it's very clear why that they did not want to, you don't want to hear that you got.

Starting point is 00:05:50 your butt kicked again because you've heard it for three decades even if they weren't in the roles that they're in they've heard it everyone's heard it i was four or five years old when this stuff was being negotiated last time guess what i've heard it over and over and over and over again about how the county got its butt-wooked in negotiations with this stadium deal and and so the bengals were always going to have to bend some but they didn't they weren't asking for a brand new stadium. They didn't want to switch counties, which if you leave downtown, that's exactly what you would be doing. They didn't want to go across the river to Kentucky. They didn't want to do those things. And Hamilton County, when it comes down to it, and this is why this was voted the way it was today

Starting point is 00:06:36 on Thursday. This is why it didn't get to that June 30th deadline. Both sides wanted to stay together. And was it ugly at times publicly and privately? Absolutely. But when it comes down to it, if you have two parties that want to be together, sounds a lot like the Bengals and Trey potentially. Usually you come to an agreement. And so it's good that they were able to get this done. Now you got to put it all in writing essentially and sign it. And once you do that, then you're good to go through at least 20, 36. You said 10 years. it is 10 years on top of this year that they were at ACOR Stadium. So that's awesome.

Starting point is 00:07:19 And there's a chance that this 11 years ends up being 21 with the five two-year extensions that are potentially on the table for this current lease, which under the current lease, the one that expires in a few days, the Bengals could have said, and this was their leverage, they could have really gotten ugly here. They could have said, we'll pick up the. the two-year option, and then we'll pick up another two-year option, and then another two-year option, and do that and kick the can down the road with that current lease. They didn't. And so to negotiate that way is an example of the Bengals clearly wanting to be in Cincinnati, clearly not

Starting point is 00:07:59 wanting to move and wanting to stay put, and also do right by the county and the fan base. Yeah, I think the reason that that's doing right by the county and the taxpayers and Hamilton County and the fan base to some degree, because there will be people out there to look at this and say, well, the county's still paying more than the team. And the Browns are getting state money and Haslam is putting in $1.2 billion or whatever the price tag is in private money that he's put together for the new stadium that the Browns are going to get. but the priority for the county was getting out of the current lease. And so this isn't a lease extension per se. This is a new lease. They're not extending the terms of the original lease while they are extending the period of time that the Bengals will be in Paycor Stadium. So we can dive into some of those details, start to talk about some of the specifics here and why Hamilton County prioritize what they prioritized,

Starting point is 00:08:57 why they end up agreeing to this two to zero with one abstention, which let's be real. That's a two to one. The abstaining counselor did not want to vote for this and has been the dissenting vote in previous votes, as I understand it. So irrelevant, the politics part of this really at this point. But some of the bits that Hamilton County is getting out of this, I think, are relevant because they were germane to the negotiation. So we'll get into some of those details coming up next.

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Starting point is 00:10:59 been discussed at numbers in the $850 million range, as I recall it. I didn't look that up, so maybe that number isn't exactly right, but certainly significantly more than the ultimate agreement. The agreement on Thursday is a $470 million renovation of Paycor Stadium, the county contributing $350 million, and the Bengals contributing $120 million. This works out to the 75-25 split that you'll see mentioned if you go see articles about this. The Bengals' will be paying rent for the first time in their history of using Paycor Stadium. The county will get a lot more control over the events happening in that stadium, which was a big priority for them and something that they wanted to get into this new lease.

Starting point is 00:11:46 And there is a cap on the county's expenditures in this version of the lease as well, which was another priority for the county where if you look at the, county commissioner quotes, there were issues where the team could ask for certain upgrades to maintain market standards that the county felt was an unrestrained liability in the previous lease. And James, you mentioned there are, like the current lease and the next lease, a set of five rolling extensions, I believe. And the first of those extensions could become automatic if the Bengals hit a certain revenue threshold and they become a top 24 revenue team in the NFL, as such that one of the commissioners was even calling it, I think, a 12-year lease because they assumed

Starting point is 00:12:40 that that first option would automatically vest at some point between now and the end of this lease. And we'll see about that. And it's just got to be one year from my understanding. So it's not like for the length of the lease, they've got to be 24th or better, right? It's just if they're top 24 at any point, that's how I understand it, which is going to happen. They have Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase, two of the six biggest stars in the league. I mean, where are they now? I don't know.

Starting point is 00:13:11 24th, that would be the highest that I can remember them ever being. And if they were ever going to do it, this would be the time. But to your point, but they haven't done it yet with those guys. Yeah, I think. Well, it's revenue versus value. So the revenue part of it, they might have. You don't know. Do we know that?

Starting point is 00:13:30 I guess we don't know for sure, but I, I guess we don't know for sure. That's the bottom line there. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm looking. I just did the NFL revenue by team. And it's not like there's a year by year breakdown. So there's not like a public NFL published report.

Starting point is 00:13:49 That's for sure. There are numbers out there that you can't find and whether or not they're accurate is a question. But yeah, when I saw that, I thought, oh, well, that's going to get exercised and picked up. And by the way, hopefully it does. Hopefully it does. Because now we're talking 2038 when Joe Burrow is winning another MVP and has played for nearly two decades. Yeah. And is Aaron Rogers age season.

Starting point is 00:14:14 That's old Aaron Rogers is now, right? Pretty close, yeah. But you certainly hope that he ages like Brady, not a round. Yeah. It was referred to as a 13-year lease in the mind of one of the counselors. Like I said, they were comparing the lease to the deals that we've seen in Baltimore, which isn't a deal with the county, technically speaking. There's a different spending authority, stadium authority in Baltimore in Maryland that pays for that stadium.

Starting point is 00:14:45 But the county really, I think, comes out ahead here. And they needed to, to your point earlier, talking about what they've taken. on the chin for the last several decades on the original lease agreement for the original at the time Paul Brown Stadium that turned into Paycor Stadium. They get a lot more control over the events happening in the venue, which seems like a pretty significant priority. And again, that capping of the exposure of the county, the quote, is there's predictability to the investment the county is making, which is something that didn't exist in the current,

Starting point is 00:15:20 in the current lease, the old lease allowed the Bengals to come in and ask for enhancements relative to the market. So we had this undefined liability. That's something that keeps you up at night. This is capped. That's a great benefit to the county. So a couple of major benefits for the county here where the expectation would be if it's managed properly,

Starting point is 00:15:38 you'll see a lot more events happening in Paycor than we see in the current world on the current lease where the Bengals have controlled that a lot more tightly than I think we'll see in the future. Yeah, it's up to the county, but they should be having, I mean, high school football, multiple concerts. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do. If you can do concerts like that, you could do, heck, you could do basketball if you wanted to. And people are like, what, outdoor basketball?

Starting point is 00:16:05 You could. And so there's a lot of different things you could do. And hopefully they do because that needs to happen. Like, that's something that needs to happen and should happen. And there should be events there more than regularly. It shouldn't be like, oh, remember that Luke Holmes concert last year? Or remember when Taylor was here? Like, you can count the events on one hand, essentially, that you remember and that are like

Starting point is 00:16:34 big events that are non-Bengals games. That does need to change some because at best, what are you talking? You're talking nine home games in the regular season, one to two preseason games, and then a couple playoff games, three playoff games max. in a best case scenario annually. Like, that's two. Get a few more dates. Is it two?

Starting point is 00:16:59 I mean, if you're a wild card team to get the first one, then you can't get two more. So if you get a buy in the first one. You could if there's an upset, right? Well, no. I don't think a wild card team can play the second round at home. Can they? Yeah, if they're the three seed and then the two seed loses to because the two seed doesn't get a buy.

Starting point is 00:17:20 Oh, yeah. You're right. You're right. There's a world. I was thinking wild card not, not through, yeah. It's unrealistic, which is the point is it probably is two or even one game, you know, even if you go on a deep playoff run. And so it would be nice to have more events. You're right. I should not have jumped into correct you. I did not think all the way through that. So the opportunity for more events at Paycor Stadium, the elimination, hopefully, imminently of a distraction, this isn't entirely done yet. it's all but done at this point that like we said the major things were all agreed to the financial terms the scope of work the concessions the team has made to the county the split of who's paying for what the major things are ironed out but while the bengals have pushed back the deadline they're not requiring the letter of intent to be complete at the end of the month on june and 30th for that two-year rolling option to kick in.

Starting point is 00:18:20 They're not exercising that option or anything, but it's not entirely done. Ideally, this gets done imminently, and then we just don't have to talk about it for 10 years. But it's only 10 years. I think that ideally, this is something that would have been, we don't have to think about this for a generation, 20, 30 years, right? Like we can pass a generation through here, but instead we're going to be talking about this again in 10 years, or at least the Cincinnati Bengals while and Hamilton County well. I don't know if you will be the listener. Hopefully you're still with us here on lockdown Bengals in 10 years. But I think that element of it is the last interesting element to me here to discuss.

Starting point is 00:19:05 And I don't know if there's anything else that you want to jump in on as well, James. But let's talk about the term of the lease here and what we should expect in terms of final. things going forward when we can officially put this thing to bed coming on next. Today's show is brought to by game time. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a ballgame with friends or family? Maybe it's game day. You suddenly realize that you want to be in the stands. You head down to the banks.

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Starting point is 00:20:21 redeem code L-O-C-E-D-O-N-N-FL-N-FLact-on NFL for $20 off download the game time app today last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed so we get a 10-year lease extension here James which like I said means we're likely talking about this again in about a decade and I mean what are your thoughts there let's just start with the length of the lease what when you saw 10 years and that's where this thing ended up. What's your impression? I think a couple of things. One, the first lease was so long. And it's easy to do when you have a brand new stadium. But Hamilton County certainly felt locked, locked in it. And there were things about that lease that, one, that they, a lot of things that they didn't like. But the Bengals could say, oh, well, you need to do this to keep

Starting point is 00:21:18 our stadium up to standard or this or that or this or that. And so to change that, that's no longer the case. They max out at the 350 million mentioned. But if you're the Bengals and you're locking into that, well, what if the stadium doesn't work for you in 10 years? What if stadiums feel even more different than they do now? And you realize, all right, it's time to build new or it's time to go that router. It's time to put plans together for that. I don't think you want to lock yourself in to a 25-year lease. And that's what it was. And I get it. It's different when it's a brand new stadium versus now. And so I think that that's why. Doesn't mean that they'll do that. Maybe they'll get another 10 years out of it. But I do think that that's something, unfortunately, that when you look big picture,

Starting point is 00:22:12 is going to be on the horizon. Doesn't mean it's going to happen. All these updates and upgrades could get it there and be able to make it sustainable long term. But I haven't ruled that out, especially 10 years from now. If you think about it, just put it in perspective 10 years ago,

Starting point is 00:22:30 Andy Dalton and AJ Green, they're getting ready to dominate the NFL and have an awesome 2015 season a few months away from starting 8-0. And so you put that perspective time-wise. It feels like it's going to be forever. But then you blink and it's here. So it would not shock me at all if we're having this discussion 10 years from now where it's like, yeah, new stadium.

Starting point is 00:22:54 It probably needs to go somewhere. They probably need to. I could see that being the case. And I do think that's why it is what it is from a length standpoint. I wonder also if there's an eagerness to figure out a future state involvement and hoping that that can be sorted out in the next 10 years after seeing the state contributions to the Cleveland Stadium project, which apparently is going to be challenged legally. I was reading about this today, that the state agreeing to pay, I think, $600 million

Starting point is 00:23:26 toward the Browns project, but then there's a group that will continue, I think, to challenge legally the state giving that money to the Brown. So we'll see what happens with all of that. I don't know if that's exactly finalized, but I do think that the state's involvement with a potential future larger project with the Cincinnati Bengals is something that the state is aware of and something that I think the Bengals in the county are probably aware of when it comes to a larger scale of discussion in the future. No doubt. I would expect to hear about that. I think the state is going to be a part of this renovation, a significant part. and that Browns deal is going to get done.

Starting point is 00:24:08 600 million is going to go toward that new stadium. I would be shocked if it didn't. I expect that to get done regardless of the legalese and the mumbo-jumbo that goes into it from a posturing standpoint. But there's also like 400 million in state funds that are kind of set aside right now, according to the Ohio budget, or other similar projects. So the Browns get 600 and there's 400 sitting there. I don't think all 400 is going to go to the Bengals and their renovations.

Starting point is 00:24:39 But their original proposal, if you look back a few months ago, it's like an $830 million renovation of Paycor Stadium. You do the math and you say, all right, well, $350 from the county, $120 from the Bengals, you're at $470. You can get there. You can get to that $800 plus million number with state funding. And so would not shock me if that's the next piece. The Bengals in Hamilton County, they wanted to iron out their issues.

Starting point is 00:25:08 And next year when all of this stuff starts working construction-wise, I'm sure they plan to have the state involved and have the state budget working in their favor. Both parties. We'll see if that happens. But I think that's going to happen in 2026 is their plan, even if they haven't announced anything or tried to officially petition for that money. And I'll be curious to see in addition what specifically is on the to-do list here. For Paycor, I think that some of the documents are out there that outlines some of this.

Starting point is 00:25:40 I have not seen them yet. I don't know if you've seen a real list of to-dos yet. I know that the escalator project is something in the short term that's on the list, but I don't think that's to do with this new lease. So that is the remaining curiosity for me. And then the other thing here, James, is that this isn't officially done. I don't think that it's something that you have to worry about anymore. To your point, this is all but done.

Starting point is 00:26:10 This is like that several day period when it was a couple of days, right, where we knew Jamar and T were done. Maybe it's only 24 hours that felt like a couple of days before the agent and T and Jamar had dinner with Jordan Schultz. And then it was like officially done or whatever. Jamar had to get back into the country. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:32 So like it's similar to that. But when do you think officially done from a timeline perspective here? We can expect to just not have to think about this for the next 10, 11 years. Oh, I think certainly before camp, I mean, I think that they'll sign everything. I think it's literally just about getting it all on paper and having the lawyers go through every single word and read it up. All of that. You don't kick the deadline out and throw the deadline out.

Starting point is 00:27:04 the window if it's not done. Yeah. From that perspective. Because that's, that's the leverage on both sides. You're like, well, we got to get this. Are we going to get it done or we not? You know? And so, no, I think now it's just like, you go to buy a car and you're like, oh, you

Starting point is 00:27:20 agree to the price. But then you have to deal with all the things. And if you're financing, you got to go through the finance guy and you got to talk like, that's what they're doing. It's just a really, really expensive car that there's a lot of, a lot of fine for it to read through. Doesn't even have an engine, doesn't have wheels, can't go anywhere. This is a bad car.

Starting point is 00:27:41 I want to take it back. Can I get a new car with wheels? Anyway, the Bengals now, hopefully. A lot of cement. Can, yeah, you know what? Actually, I'm going to spend a minute on this. One of the more disappointing things to me about this is that like the aesthetic upgrades don't seem to be part of this project at all.

Starting point is 00:27:59 And if there's one thing that I was hoping would come out of this is, like, like there are these giant cement walls on the exterior of paycourt. I was hoping that something could be done with that, you know? Like put something and the team still good. I don't know. The team doesn't seem to want to, but doing something to make it pretty. It would have been nice. Have you ever heard of it?

Starting point is 00:28:24 Concrete jungle, baby. I have. I have. Hopefully, on a football note, this means that whatever resources the front office was putting toward this negotiation. are less taxed and in the next month before training camp opens before we're talking about our training camp observations some contract done yeah i i i knew it i've gotten so many of the now can they focus on tray i i think it's what i mean they obviously can do both to some degree

Starting point is 00:28:56 but i do think that like they they need more manpower for the contract stuff i i the the the John Martin E thing is the example. Right. I mean, that seems that way. That's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. We've got an offseason topic coming to you in our next episode. Unless there's breaking news,

Starting point is 00:29:18 we're going to try to take a stab at a too early, end of June, 53-man roster prediction. That's coming to you in the next episode of Lockdown Bengals. Until then, thanks for listening. Ho-Day. And have a good one.

Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - New Paycor Stadium lease framework APPROVED | Bengals staying up through at least 2036

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