00:00But how about this?
00:01And here's what I love about this as well.
00:02The Adam Schefter tweet comes out.
00:04A Bengals and Hamilton County have agreed to a new deal to modernize Pacor Stadium and keep the Bengals in downtown Cincinnati through June of 2036.
00:12Now, the one thing I always love is I never hear like the county, Joe, come to you down there.
00:17I don't know.
00:17Let's just say Miami-Dade County.
00:18Hey, Joe, you know, be great.
00:20Love where you live.
00:22What do you say?
00:23You put up 25 grand.
00:24We'll put up 100 grand.
00:25We'll fix up the place a little bit for you.
00:27And you're like, hey, man, sounds like a great deal at this point.
00:29Only in professional sports do the owners of a stadium that is owned basically by the community where the owner gets more money than what he pays out to upgrade the stadium.
00:38But in typical Bengals fashion, this was supposed to be, Joe, like an $800 million renovation that somehow got knocked down to $340 million, probably because the Bengals go, well, wait, if you give us like $500 million, that means we still have to come up with $300 million.
00:53We're not doing that.
00:54We'd like to come up with $100 million.
00:55The county goes, good, but we're not giving up that money either.
00:57So the Bengals, once again, go cheap on their stadium.
01:01Can't make it.
01:02Can't make it.
01:02And it makes sense to me.
01:03I can't.
01:04But not a shock at all, given the Brown family and this organization and how ridiculous cheap they are.
01:12And maybe the best part is, so you got a $470 million renovation of which the county is going to pay $350 million.
01:20Oh, and the NFL is going to toss in $120 million.
01:25So exactly what are they paying, Donnie, at this point?
01:29Do you remember, because I always love the old conversations that you go back because there's a batch of small market teams that every time the new CBA comes up, they sort of band together and say, it's not fair.
01:40We don't make as much.
01:41Now, understand this, the NFL is one of the first leagues where, like, God bless, like, the Mara family came and he goes, I could rule this entire league with an iron fist and take more money than everybody, but that's not for the good of the league.
01:52So Green Bay still stands because of what, 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago, the Mara family said, we must contribute to everybody's pool.
02:00It's why the Pittsburgh Steelers have a very good team, not on the verge of bankruptcy, because everybody goes in the same pool.
02:05And it's the same thing with the Cincinnati Bengals.
02:07But I always remember the fact where Jerry Jones would get so angry at the Bengals because the Bengals would cry poor.
02:12We can't afford this.
02:14We can't pay these salaries.
02:15And then Jerry Jones would go, you know, the name of my stadium is basically like AT&T Stadium.
02:20Like, I'm selling partnerships all over the place so I can make my team more affable, more affordable, and more liquid with cash.
02:26And then the Bengals are like, well, my dad's on the name on the stadium.
02:29I'm never selling that.
02:30And I remember Jerry Jones telling him point blank, give me a chance to sell the naming rights to your stadium and sit over there and be quiet.
02:36Like, it's just a matter.
02:37And eventually, you know why it's Paycore Stadium now?
02:40Can you take a guess of why it is?
02:41Why they finally said, oh, look, we'll sell dad's name off the stadium?
02:45Because they couldn't afford the Joe Burrow contract coming up.
02:47So they had to sell the stadium rights here to start to make money for that.
02:51It's so backwards the way they are.
02:52And I always say this again with the Bengals fans who might be watching out there.
02:55I feel bad for you as a fan base because all NFL fans want is a legitimate chance.
03:01There are billionaires and trillionaires out there that would buy that team in the drop of a hat.
03:06Like you see, like, let's just say, you know, Uncle Steve for the New York Mets or Balmer for the LH Clippers, which is coming like, I'm going to run this as just because it's fun.
03:14We're going to max everything out and have greatness.
03:16And all you have to worry about is my family works for the team, and they're not going to spend here for us.
03:21So, again, I feel bad for the Bengals.
03:22And it's just that you're hearing about the stadium deal goes right into it.
03:25Like, hey, it was supposed to be $800 million.
03:26Well, why not?
03:27Probably because the Bengals didn't want to chip in their share to make that an absolute state-of-the-art stadium.
03:31Yeah, well, and the other thing, too, was is prior to this, they never had – it was only one or two big concerts that people would go to that would be booked there.
03:45It was always predominantly just used for football.
03:49But now I think part of this deal is that you can expect a whole lot more uses in that stadium now that the county is ponying up $350 million.
03:59They're going to get their money's worth, which means a whole lot of Taylor Swift concerts coming to town.
04:04Yep.
04:04By the way, you bring up such a good point, too, because, like, even in Philadelphia, Jeffrey Lurie, who's a great owner here, the stadium is – again, hey, it's 20 years old.
04:11Oh, my goodness.
04:12It's – you know, we've got to build a new one.
04:13The link is beautiful.
04:14But the fact that everybody talks about domes is not necessarily because, oh, the fans like a dome because it's warmer weather.
04:20It's that that dome can be put in use 12 months out of the year.
04:22You have a cold-weather stadium with – oh, like, Taylor Swift isn't doing Cincinnati in February as a concert.
04:26If there's a dome stadium, Taylor Swift can do February concerts in Cincinnati just like everybody else.
04:31So that's always up on the agenda as well.
04:33They're not going to put a roof on that, but just food for thought on most of these teams now trying to go for those dome stadiums.
04:38Let's keep it in the NFL.
04:39Not a dome stadium down in Baltimore, but NFL suspending Justin Tucker 10 weeks for the upcoming season.
04:46He's not on a team.
04:47And, Joe, quite frankly, this says he will never be on a team again because if you are a ultra-talented player who could have been the best kicker in NFL history – and I'm going to tell you right now, Joe, if Justin Tucker the last two years was hitting 98% of his kicks like it felt like he was, they'd be on a podium going, like, unfounded issues, not convicted in the court of law.
05:07We disagree with the 10 games.
05:09We stand by Justin Tucker.
05:11But the simple fact is now he's not as good a kicker as he was.
05:14They cut him because the NFL told him, hey, psst, we're going to drop a suspension.
05:18Oh, we will never stand for this in our organization ever again.
05:22How about that?
05:24Yeah, I mean, it's just an unfortunate situation all the way around because, again, none of these accusations happened a year ago, Donnie, or anything along those lines.
05:36This happened when he first got into the league, and, you know, why was it tolerated then is beyond me, and how he was even able to continue to have that kind of career in the NFL is also mind-blowing.
05:50But, you know, he still is saying, I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't.
05:55There is no admission of anything from him, and yet the NFL is saying, yeah, we looked into it, 10 games, yeah, we're going to suspend you.
06:04Where there is smoke, Donnie, there is a whole lot of fire here.
06:09There is.
06:09And, by the way, like Justin Tucker, who, like, I mean, the stuff that's coming out of the allegations, very much like you saw from the allegations of Deshaun Watson.
06:17And Watson was, do you imagine, like, when that news broke on Watson, like what Justin Tucker was thinking in the back of his head, it's like, oh, my goodness.
06:23Eventually, this is going to catch up.
06:25I mean, it's like if you have a worker, it's like, hey, I work in a food processing plant.
06:28Like, hey, man, I take three to six steaks every single day.
06:31They don't know about it.
06:31Hey, Dave got pinched for the three to six steaks.
06:34You're like, well, I've been doing the same thing.
06:36You know your time is coming sooner than later at that point here.
06:39So he probably was made.
06:41Do you think, by the way, it was weighing on him while he was out on the football field?
06:44Like, he couldn't prepare.
06:44Like, sooner than later, a news story is going to drop that somebody is going to be after me and suing me, and my career is going to be in peril.
06:50It was one of the worst seasons he had was last year.
06:53So you got to wonder how much was that way.
06:56He knew it was coming, but he had to know it was coming at some point.
07:01My goodness.
07:02Yeah, he's out.
07:03I don't anticipate.
07:04And that was a guy that's probably on a trajectory to the Hall of Fame.
07:06Up in smoke.
07:07There's no shot that Justin Tucker, whatever he'd be eligible, feels like for the Hall of Fame now.
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