Injury/Practice Report: Cincinnati Bengals At Indianapolis Colts

With eminent domain the city would then own the Bengals. They might choose to make it publicly owned like the Packers or maybe they’d keep it outright and just hire proper management. No idea. And if we’re completely honest, probably nobody in the local government has the stones to try it. Especially not for merely losing seasons. It might happen 10 years from now when the county is in danger of going bankrupt from Mikey Boy’s greediness in his stadium lease. But until then it almost certainly won’t happen.

But let’s pretend it did. In that case, considering the city owned it and that they seized it with eminent domain, they couldn’t turn around and sell it. That simply wouldn’t hold water, Mike Brown could then sue and almost certainly win the team back in court. So the city or Hamilton County or some other local government agency would be stuck with the team forever. The team would have to stay here in Cinti, and you wouldn’t have to try to find another team to root for.

The best case scenario I can see would be that Hamilton County or Cincinnati (or even the state of Ohio) threatened to seize it, passed it, drew up the paperwork, and gave Mike five days to comply with a list of demands or they’d execute it, and then at the last second Mike Brown relented and did what he should have done 20 years ago (hire proper management for his team and become basically an absentee owner). This would avoid messy court challenges and also figuring out what to do with the team once the government owned it, but if he ever tried to revert to his old ways the precedent would have been set.

Second best scenario was they went through with the paperwork and then made it a government-owned corporation — somewhat like the Packers — and sold off about 40% of the team in non-voting stock (to make sure Mikey couldn’t try to buy the team back) to raise the money they need to fix the stadium up and turn the company into a genuinely profitable industry without needing to dip into Jerral Jones’ pocketbook for handouts.

Third best scenario is that Mike Brown sold the team to somebody else. The team might move then, but at least we be rid of the moron. But realistically if the new owner tried to move the team the fact that the thread of ED forced out one owner would make it very difficult for him to try to move. Not impossible, but it would make it difficult and also make him hesitant and likely to at least TRY to find a compromise first. So even then the odds would be in our favor to avoid losing the team.