NFL owners approved new ownership rules Tuesday that will allow private equity firms to buy passive minority stakes in franchises, The final vote was 31-1, with the Cincinnati Bengals as the lone dissenting vote.
This is far from the first time the Bengals and the Brown family, which owns the team, have gone against the grain. Cincinnati’s frequent votes against NFL proposals are almost always based on two rationales: preserving the status quo or concerns about keeping up financially with big-market teams.
The Bengals did not respond to a request for comment.
The Brown name is NFL royalty, thanks to Paul Brown, who was co-founder, coach and namesake of the Cleveland Browns, before he co-founded the Bengals in 1968 and served as their first coach. Mike Brown inherited control of the team after his father’s death in 1991. Mike’s daughter Katie Blackburn, who is a Bengals executive, represented the team at the NFL owners meeting in Minnesota.
Brown has taken abuse from many big-market owners who argue he has not done enough to maximize revenue, from employing a small sales staff to not selling stadium naming rights until 2022, when Paycor replaced Paul Brown on the venue façade. The Bengals were the least valuable ($4.71 billion) and had the third lowest revenue ($554 million) in Sportico’s NFL team valuations published earlier this month.
In 2006, the Bengals and Buffalo Bills were the lone dissenting votes in the collective bargaining agreement between players and owners. The deal introduced a revenue-sharing system to support low-revenue teams, but Brown and Wilson felt that smaller markets would still struggle with the spike in player costs that resulted from the CBA.
Brown has been a regular opponent of video officiating review based on the delays it brings to the game. The Bengals were one of three teams to vote against the return of video review in 1999—it had been discontinued after the 1991 season following a six-year run. In 2019, Brown was the lone no vote when the NFL expanded replay review. “I just vote with my conscience and how I see it,” Brown told reporters at the March 2019 owners meetings. “I’m not trying to be offensive. I understand if someone else doesn’t want to go my way.”
In 2015, the NFL voted to suspend its blackout policy, which prevented home games from being broadcast if the stadium was not sold out. The 31-1 tally once again found the Bengals on an island. Brown said he voted against the policy due to the revenue-sharing component of sharing visitor gate receipts, which he thought hindered low-revenue teams.
The Rams’ move from St. Louis to Los Angeles was controversial and mired the NFL in a court case that resulted in a $790 million settlement for the city of St. Louis. Yet, the 2016 NFL owners’ vote on the move was 30-2 in favor of it. Arizona and Cincinnati were reported to be the nays in the room, although Brown denied he voted against the move.
Ironically, the Bengals would seem to be a good candidate for private equity investment. The Browns are not wealthy outside of football and bringing in a passive PE investor could provide liquidity for the family as it faces potential estate issues. Paul Brown originally owned 10% of the Bengals, but the family’s stake increased over the decades and reached 97% in recent years.
Mike Brown turned 89 last month and wants to keep the team in the family, but the estate tax bill has skyrocketed, as the minimum price of an NFL franchise more than doubled over the past four years. And now opening the doors to private equity will likely drive NFL franchise values even higher.
With assistance from Eben Novy-Williams.