Mike Brown bleats about the Bengals being a Small Market team?  I can see why people dislike the guy.  Is he always blaming other people for his problems, his problems; and always taking credit for what other people do?  Is it really Cincinnati's fault that he doesn't make more money?  Not likely.

When Dan Snyder bought the Redskins, Fed Ex Field was part of the deal.  Except, it was called Jack Kent Cooke Stadium when he bought it; Cooke, the long-time and flamboyant owner of the team, had died just a few months before the Stadium was completed, and his son named it in his honor.  Sound vaguely familiar?  The WaPo approved of the honorific, saying how crude the trend was to sell the naming rights.  

But Snyder incurred a lot of debt when he bought the team, so he needed to sell assets and grow revenue.  Snyder is a marketing genius, that's how he made his money; no inheritance from his parents except his drive and genius.  Once the NFL approved his ownership bid, he spent maybe two seconds before deciding that honorifics don't pay his creditors.  Being a marketing genius, Snyder didn't feel constrained to look for a local company, say, the regional power company; or, as WaPo sniffs, "some drugstore" to which to sell the naming rights.  He found Fed Ex, a national company whose HQ is in Memphis, Tennessee.  What ties do Fed Ex have to the Washington DC area?  They deliver packages here.  

In addition to stadium naming rights, Snyder had added seats to the stadium, sold concession rights to national companies like Pepsi, Taco Bell, etc.  Look at the Stadium page on the Redskins web site; even that is a marketing tool to Dan Snyder.

What has Mike Brown done to generate revenue from the stadium his team plays in?  Oh, that's right, Brown doesn't own the stadium; it's the city/county/state that owns it; so it's someone else's problem.  But what about the Jets and Giants?  Curnutte's article mentions the planned Jets/Giants stadium as generating $25 million for the teams.  But the Jets and Giants won't own the stadium; that's something the taxpaying citizens of New Jersey get to fund.  Sound vaguely familiar?  The taxpayers pay, the state owns, and the Jets and Giants will get $25 million.  How?  The Jets and Giants worked out a deal to share the profits that come from the State selling the naming rights and all the other things the state does to raise revenue from the stadium.   There's nothing stopping the Browns from doing something similar, except the get-up-and-go to do it.

If I were a politico-wannabe living in Cincinnati, I'd use the Stadium as an issue to get myself elected.  Last year, if I recall, the Bengals spread some bad will by spending a few hundred thousand dollars on a new field and handing the bill to the city.  They had a contractual right to do that, part of that sweet-heart deal they got.  However, all that's preventing the City from selling the naming rights is some local regulation.  Campaign to change that regulation.  Someone should make that an election issue; campaign on that and on conducting a search for a national or even international company to buy the naming rights.  Foreign companies are looking to establish themselves in North America, and some want to raise their profile.  Find some of those companies and sell to them.  It's a gigantic billboard, and every time the Bengals are the national game--Sunday night, Monday night, the second game on Sundays--it's a national audience hearing the name of the Stadium-sponsoring company.  Al Michaels knows to say "Fed Ex field" as often as he can when he broadcasts Redskins home games.  And if I were a politico-wannabe banging the drum about the Stadium naming rights, I'd promise to keep every dime brought in through the naming rights, and not give any money to the Browns, who certainly don't deserve any!

But this gets into local politics.  And local politicians tend to think locally.  And it's harder to get a local politico committee to get behind the effort needed to find a sponsoring company. It'd be a lot easier for the Browns to find that national/international advertiser.  And to protect themselves against political activism aimed against them, they could work a deal with the city, to take the initiative in finding corporate sponsors for the stadium, including the naming rights.  Work out some split, the City and the Browns sharing the revenue from innovative marketing connected with the Stadium.

Maybe right now, however, the Browns might not know how to do that.  Ignorance is no excuse.  Here's free advice to the Browns: make an effort to get to know Dan Snyder.  He knows marketing.  Ask the NFL to set up a committee, to help "small market" teams like yours to identify potential sponsors for stadium naming rights, both national companies and international ones.  Maybe there's a company in China, or Japan; and a sister-city arrangement as part of the deal, something for the taxpaying citizens of Cincinnati and Ohio.  There's lots that the Browns could do to make money from the stadium, even though they don't own it.  

So don't believe Mike Brown on this small market stuff.  Why is Pittsburgh a small market for baseball and not football?; Same question for Kansas City?  Why is big city Los Angeles able to have a baseball team but not a football team?  The problem in Cincinnati isn't the market size; the problem is Mike Brown.