Hamilton County reveals deal to pay $64.5m for initial Bengals renovation, with way more to come

The Cincinnati Bengals stadium negotiations have been a weird one: Lurking beneath the talks is the fact that 1) the Bengals’ lease is historically awful for Hamilton County, which is on the hook for any upgrades needed to keep the stadium “state of the art” and 2) the lease expires next year, but the team owners have the option to extend it for five more two-year terms if they want. So a lot of the haggling has been about how much in stadium renovations the county is willing to pay the Brown family for to make the old lease go away.

So this development yesterday is just plain weird:

Chris Wetterich of the Cincinnati Business Courier (via Sports Business Daily) reports that the Bengals and the league will foot the bill for $120 million of improvements, with Hamilton County picking up $64.5 million. The $184.5 million project is described as the “first phase” of a potential $830 million overhaul of the venue…

The short-term deal to improve the stadium is separate from whether the Bengals will exercise their right to extend the current lease, or whether the two sides will strike a long-term agreement.

On the one hand, given the terrible lease, the Brown family kicking in almost two-thirds the cost of upgrades isn’t so bad a deal — though 100% of the benefits from the “renovated suites and lounges, better concession areas, and improvements to the stadium plazas” will go to the team, and about half the team’s cost will be covered by the NFL’s stadium fund. On the other hand, with the lease about to expire anyway, Hamilton County really has no reason to honor the lease terms at this point, since the Bengals owners declaring them in breach of contract and canceling the lease would if anything be doing the county a favor. So what we have is the county handing over $64.5 million for upgrades so the Bengals can boost their profits — plus another $16 million in “maintenance, operations, and capital repair obligations” — in exchange for absolutely nothing, as the Brown family hasn’t agreed to either a new lease or tearing up the old one.

On top of this, there’s that eventual $830 million overhaul, which will paid for by reply hazy, try again later:

As of the execution of this MOU, the County and Team anticipate that the primary funding and financing sources for the Stadium Renovation and Modernization Program will be comprised of fair and equitable contributions from: (i) County; (ii )Team/NFL; and (iii) State of Ohio, in the general context of reasonably comparable funding structures in other NFL peer markets and shall also take into consideration the funding commitments made by the Team and County throughout the term of this Agreement.

The agreement, which will be voted on by the Hamilton County Commission next week, is just a memorandum of understanding laying out the general outlines of a stadium plan. So it’s not entirely clear what the county would actually be agreeing to here, and how much of this is just the Bengals owners and the NFL putting their best foot forward in hopes of winning a lucrative deal for a more substantial renovation from the county. (And from the state of Ohio — the MOU emphasizes that “the Team and the County agree to work together to seek additional funding and financing sources from third parties for the Stadium Renovation and Modernization Program.”) Either way, for the county to agree to anything without the Brown family agreeing to either cancel the old lease or agree to a new one (“Nothing in this MOU is intended to, nor shall be deemed orconstrued to, alter the terms of the Lease or Earlier MOUs”) is a bizarre negotiating tactic by the county — maybe there’s another shoe yet to drop, but right now this looks like county commissioners handing over $80.5 million in exchange for no concessions from the team owners, which is … I’m going to go with “not great.”