Bengals have turned Cincinnati on its ear going into Super Bowl 56: Doc's Morning Line
Thirty thousand fans showed up for a Bengals pep rally at PBS Monday night. That’s hard to believe. Or, maybe not. I wasn’t here for Super I in ’82; I was around for Super II, and I’ve said since that was the most excited I’ve ever seen the city, for any event. Until now.
This tops that, probably because of social media. For better or worse, we’re more connected than ever. And this is an extraordinarily easy team to love. The ’88 group had personalities as visible as this one. It had a huge-time QB, a quotable coach. It even had a dance.
Griddy or Shuffle?
What it didn’t have was Instagram and TikTok documenting watch parties and all heaven breaking loose at every bar in town.
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Something else I don’t recall Super II in Miami having: Ticket prices through the roof, and an almost 100 percent chance Bengals fans will be priced out of the market, secondary or otherwise. Read this and weep:
If you’re a high-roller without a few dozen rich friends, you can still show out and snatch up front-row seats at the 50-yard line — right behind the Cincinnati Bengals' bench — for $62,095 each. If you’d rather be behind the Los Angeles Rams' sideline, you can get as close as the 14th row in a VIP section for $52,829.
According to StubHub data, its Super Bowl LVI tickets tripled last week, with the cheapest “get-in” seats hovering around $6,000 each (after fees) on Monday. The cheapest get-in seats on TicketIQ were listed for nearly $5,600 Monday. As of late last week, the average of all Super Bowl ticket sales on StubHub was around $8,900.
StubHub has seen sales in California outpace Ohio and Kentucky (where most Bengals fans live) by 85 percent. 27 percent of all secondary ticket purchases on the site were from California. Ohio has accounted for only 11 percent, with Kentucky coming in at 4 percent. (Yahoo!)
That says a couple things about Ohioans, Cincinnatians in particular:
We’re smart.
We’re cheap.
Cincinnati folks know how to squeeze a buck. I say that with all due respect and love and with an informed opinion on the subject. You know anybody else nicknamed Johnny Thinwallet?
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It has been interesting hearing fans howl about the ticket prices, as if stupid-high prices haven’t been a part of this game for a quarter century at least. The social media posts – including one by Chad Johnson – lamenting that “regular fans’’ can’t go to the game, well, when was the last time the Big Bowl was for regular fans?
This year, it’s worse. LA fashions itself a high-rolling, Look At Me town. Of course, it’s going to be harder there to secure tickets. Figure in the cost of getting there, staying there, getting around there and eating there, and Being There involves robbing a Brink’s truck.
The NFL produces a wonderful product. This postseason has been amazing. But it’s like we media heathens say about our industry: You don’t wanna know how the sausage is made.
In the NFL, the bottom line is the bottom line. If you want to know the reason for any decision the league makes, follow the dollars. Why would it be different on the league’s ultimate stage?
Is it worth it? I mean, “regular fan’’ isn’t simply selling a couple pints of blood to fund the experience.
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Economics 101: A product is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. That’s true for a house, a frying pan, a pro football player or a Super Bowl ticket. You might think your 2010 Ford Escort with 200K miles on it and no rear windshield is worth $12.80. If the best you can get is 12 cents, that’s what it’s worth.
If you’re priced out of a Super ducat on StubHub, thank Fred next door, who just dropped $6,000 for a seat in Row Z.
And, indirectly, the NFL, which is all about the Benjamins.
I went to one Super Bowl as a fan. I think it was 1983, Redskins-Raiders in Tampa. My dad bought me the ticket for Christmas. I think he spent $150 for two. Total. That was a long time ago.
Now, then . . .
How is it, in 2022, some people still can’t (or won’t) pronounce correctly the name of the local paid professional football club?
It’s Bengals.
Not Bangles. They were a girl group.
Not Bingles. He was Bing Crosby.
Beng-als. Thank you.
THAT’S 8 HOURS ERIC BIENIEMY WILL NEVER GET BACK . . . The New Orleans Saints have informed defensive coordinator Dennis Allen that they are hiring him as their next head coach, sources told ESPN's Adam Schefter on Monday.
Allen, 49, will replace his longtime boss, Sean Payton, who stepped away two weeks ago. This will be Allen's second stint as a head coach after he went 8-28 as coach of the Raiders from 2012 to 2014.
A day earlier, the Saints spent eight hours interviewing KC offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.
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MEANTIME . . . The Houston Texans hired Lovie Smith. Smith was previously an NFL head coach with the Chicago Bears (2004 to 2012) and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2014 to 2015). He joined David Culley's staff after being fired after five seasons as head coach at the University of Illinois.
Smith has an 89-87 record as an NFL head coach and was the 2005 AP Coach of the Year. Smith, who is Black, joins the Miami Dolphins' Mike McDaniel, New York Jets' Robert Saleh, Pittsburgh Steelers' Mike Tomlin and Washington Commanders' Ron Rivera as the league's only minority head coaches. (AP)
Well, it’s good to see that a Black coach can get recycled, too.
But I really wish someone would explain what’s “wrong’’ with Eric Bieniemy.
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MADDEN LIKES THE MEN. In the official Madden '22 simulation of Super Bowl LVI, the Bengals knock off the Los Angeles Rams, 24-21, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and it is Burrow, the second-year quarterback out of LSU, who becomes the game's Most Valuable Player.
MAYBE YOU DON’T CARE, BUT IT IS NEWS . . . Pitcher Andrew Miller, a member of the MLBPA’s executive board, said this about the “ongoing’’ labor “talks’’ in baseball:
For example, service-time manipulation has come to the forefront. This hyper efficiency of teams trying to maximize everything instead of putting the best team on the field for the fans is a problem.
Could not agree more. It’s no different than tanking. And it suggests MLB’s whole economic system needs to be changed. Players who are good enough to make a roster should be on the roster. If you want to fiddle with service time, OK. That’s odious, too, but it doesn’t impact directly the quality of the team on the field.
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Fans pay major-league prices to see the best. Not the best an owner thinks he can afford. I don’t see clubs cutting prices on $10 beers. Do you?
And finally . . .
WHAT IS YOUR MOST CHERISHED bit of Bengals memorabilia? I wish I’d kept stuff from the years I went to Washington Redskins games with my dad. I didn’t. Not even a program. Tell me what you’ve managed to hold on to for decades.
TUNE O’ THE DAY . . . Haven’t visited this one in awhile. Never gets old.
Hun-nay, hun-nay. . .
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bengals have Cincinnati energized ahead of Super Bowl 56
