CINCINNATI (ENQUIRER) – Negotiations between Hamilton County and the Bengals grew tense and deteriorated over the summer, emails and letters between the county administration and team obtained by our partners at the Cincinnati Enquirer revealed on Friday.
Bengals management this past summer accused the county of defaulting on the lease for Paycor Stadium and broke off talks with the county, according to correspondence that was first reported by the Cincinnati Business Courier. This jeopardized the possibility of extending the current lease and future plans for the team to make millions of dollars in renovations to the 25-year-old stadium.
The county administration, in response, accused the Bengals of breaching the lease when it sold the naming rights to the stadium to Paycor without consent from the county.
While later correspondence indicated the county and Bengals have since continued talks, the kerfuffle was a major snag in negotiations for a new lease between the Bengals and Hamilton County for the county-owned stadium. The lease will expire in 2026.
The Enquirer previously reported tension between the two sides in August 2023, with emails showing the Bengals were not happy with the county’s slow response to start lease negotiations.
What happened in July
The latest revelations show the relationship between the two reached a boiling point in July when Bengals Vice President Troy Blackburn revoked prior offers made by the team and said the county was in default of its 1997 stadium lease.
Blackburn, in a series of letters and emails to County Administrator Jeff Aluotto in July, slammed the county for not making the team any offers on a new lease or lease extensions in six years of stadium discussions.
He said the county was late in providing reimbursements for $15 million in expenses and maintenance to the stadium as required by the 1997 lease, putting the county in default.
As a result, Blackburn said the team “will work to unwind its stadium renovation plans.”
“We are also suspending any ongoing discussions with county representatives, which have proven useless,” Blackburn wrote in an email to Aluotto on July 26. “We are simply out of time.”
The correspondence doesn’t detail what unwinding the renovation plans meant, though Blackburn wrote in the July 26 email that “all prior offers made by the team are revoked and withdrawn.”
The team announced in May it planned to invest $120 million in upgrades to the stadium. Those renovations appeared to be a go as of December when the team asked for, and received, a sales tax break from the Ohio General Assembly for these renovations.
Hamilton County and Bengals met weekly
Aluotto, in a July 11 email to Blackburn, said the county had been responsive to the Bengals and had met weekly with the team since January. He also said the Bengals had been slow to provide information on repairs and upgrades needed to the stadium.
“You’ve expressed a concern that the team feels like the county is unresponsive to team communications,” Aluotto said. “I will take careful note to ensure quick and direct responses to all communications in the future, however, I simply do not understand that position.”
The county accuses the Bengals of violating the lease
In a lengthy letter to Blackburn on July 31, Aluotto explained that the county wasn’t in violation of the lease, saying the section requiring reimbursement was “unenforceable.” The letter didn’t detail how it was unenforceable, saying “we do not desire to get into a legal battle over this topic.”
To emphasize his point, Aluotto said the county could also accuse the Bengals of a lease violation over the team selling the naming rights of Paycor Stadium “without obtaining the county’s advance written approval and consent.”
County believed Bengals were asking too much
Aluotto, in an email to Blackburn on July 31, lamented that the county and team were “talking past each other.”
He expressed additional concerns from the county.
The Bengals, in 2023, proposed the county make $300 million worth of improvements to Paycor by the end of 2025. In return, the Bengals would extend the lease another five years through 2030.
The county administration responded that what the Bengals were asking was too expensive for too little in return.
“The county believes we owe it to the community to assess a longer-term deal and more strategic transformation of the stadium,” Aluotto wrote to Blackburn on July 31.
County and Bengals resumed meeting
As for what this means for the current state of negotiations, it’s not clear. It appears the county and Bengals resumed talks and were meeting on a weekly basis as recently as October, according to emails between the team and county.
There still appears to be angst between the two sides.
The county isn’t making enough improvements to Paycor Stadium and “has not shown the willingness to fund needed repairs,” Blackburn wrote Jan. 9 in a letter sent to the county with the team’s $158,526 rent check.
Blackburn said the situation “stands very much at a precipice.” He ended the letter with a hopeful tone.
“We hope that we all have it in us to find ways to make progress,” Blackburn wrote. “The community deserves that.”
Bengals respond
The Enquirer reached out to the Bengals for comment. The team responded Friday morning in a statement that the Bengals’ goal is still to extend the lease.
“Over those decades, there will naturally be areas where the parties agree and areas where the parties disagree,” the team said in the statement. “The Bengals’ goal for many years has been to extend the lease and to keep the stadium competitive in the NFL. We believe that this is an area of agreement among the parties, and the team will continue to work to achieve these goals.”