This is an opportunity to make the Bengals' new home more accessible to the people paying for it, the taxpayers. It could open up the stadium to other events, break the stranglehold Mike Brown and his Bengals have on the place and make the facility more responsive to the community at large. Ever since construction started on the Bengals' money pit, Mike Brown has wanted to manage the stadium. And Hamilton County officials were ready to let him operate the facility. That's the trend among cities in the National Football League.
Teams run new publicly financed stadiums in Nashville and Cleveland.
It's a matter of control and economics. The team controls where it plays and how much it pays to make the place look good. And we know Mike Brown likes control. The deal hit a snag this week when the county asked the Bengals to run stadium-management projects through the public bidding process. Public bidding for goods and services is required by state law in Ohio for government-run and publicly owned facilities.