In the team's "strongest stand to date," Bengals Dir of
Stadium Development Troy Blackburn said yesterday that the
club will not commit to a lease agreement with Hamilton
County for a new stadium "unless a proposal to increase city
admissions taxes is killed," according to Lucy May of the
CINCINNATI ENQUIRER. Blackburn: "The team can't afford it,
and our fans can't afford it. We will not sign any deal
right now unless we have this resolved" (CINCINNATI
ENQUIRER, 3/25). On Sunday, Bengals President & GM Mike
Brown "criticized" the city for its plans to increase the
city's admissions tax and extend its earnings tax to
visiting entertainers and sports professionals. Part of the
tax would be earmarked for school funding. The City Council
majority coalition's plan calls for the tax on tickets to
"for-profit" events to go from 3% to 8.85% between 2000 and
2019, and also would require visiting entertainers and
sports professionals to pay the city's 2.1% earnings tax
this year. Brown: "Any kind of new tax that will affect
attendance by adding more to ticket prices will put us right
back at the bottom of the peg where we are now." Under the
current tax, the charge on a $10 ticket is $.27; with the
tax at 8.85%, the charge on a $10 ticket would be about $.79
(Allen Howard, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 3/24).
BULLY PULPIT: Mike Brown writes an op-ed piece in
today's ENQUIRER. Brown, on the admissions tax: "It's
clever politics, perhaps, to put the sports teams in a
position where they may appear opposed to legitimate school
funding. But an honest look at this plan reveals that it
simply wouldn't work" (CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, 3/25).
