Cincinnati vs. Detroit

No, this post will not focus on who would win a turd-bowl-to-end-all-turd-bowls between these two sorry franchises (fortunately the world will be spared from having to watch this disgusting matchup - thank you scheduling gods).

Rather it is to highlight that the example of Detroit will only take Cincinnati so far when it comes to trying to force change.  For whatever reason (blackmail, knuckle-dragging, fear of admitting a mistake, perhaps even personal friendship) the Ford family was reluctant to fire the completely overwhelmed and incompetent Matt Millen for many years.  Eventually the circumstances became so dire the Ford family took action.  The incessant complaining of fans, the persistent losing, and the public embarrassment for the family crescendoed to a peak that could no longer be ignored.  And changes were then made.

Well, those set of factors have been going on in Cincy for as long as I can remember.  And look where that has gotten us.  Nowhere. 

Detroit had it easy compared to us for one big reason:  their ownership already subscribes to the idea of hiring outside football professionals to run the franchise.  They simply had to fire their GM and hire a new one.  It did not even take an organized, centralized, and focused effort to force change.

A centralized campaign is exactly what we will need in Cincinnati (maybe just the minimum) to have any hope at forcing change.  People have pointed to Detroit as a potential sign of promise for us.  This is naive.  We face the battle of convincing the Brown's outside help is needed in the first place.  And if they have not gotten the message yet, one wonders what exactly it will take.

Project Mayhem is that first step.  Haphazard, random acts of protest will do nothing.  Get involved.  Spread the gospel.  Contribute ideas.  We will listen.  And we will take this team back.

Comments

[Paul]

I admire your effort, but Project Mayhem won't help. Protests won't help. Walkouts won't help. Public anger at the way this franchise has been run for the past decade-plus has been no secret. Mike Brown has known exactly how the fans and the city feel for years now, but it hasn't motivated him to give a damn about making the necessary changes in the front office.

And obviously until the fans start to affect his pocketbook he won't care. So stop buying season tickets. Stop buying parking passes. Stop showing up at the games and buying concessions. And stop buying merchandise. Period.

It amazes me how many fans gripe and moan about the team then turn around and buy season tickets year after year. Hello? Where's Mikey's motivation to change?

[Scott Ricketts]

And to top it off, Mike won't make public appearances because he knows how the city feels about him. He's obviously very comfortable being a rich, highly despised, douchebag. Our only real hope is that he, and the Blackburns all die simultaneously in a charter plane accident where the flight crew miraculously make it out okay. Maybe then, with no one able to take over running the franchise, the NFL will sell the team to someone who genuinely wants to win.

[Bronzed Boomer]

I have a few ideas:
1) Instead of writing letters to Mike Brown, we should write letter to the sponsors of the Bengals (BW3, Ohio Lottery, National City, Miller, Greaters) informing them that if they continue to sponsor the Bengals that they will lose your business. I have already boycotted said companies, unless I am forced to drink Miller Lite, but will not pay for it.
2) Mike Brown Sucks bumper stickers. They sell them on mikebrownsucks.com, but for like $5. I am sure you can have them made much cheaper then that and then plaster them everywhere. Image what the city would look like with 20,000 of those things plastered all over the place.
3) Find mike brown's home address, can't be that hard to come up with(a search of the hamilton county PVA sight has three addresses shown for Mike and Nancy(which I believe is his wife's name), I have to believe his is the 4950 Drake Rd. address.) and have people protest outside of his house day and night. Maybe setup some sort of rotation, I will do Monday evenings, because it is not illegal to protest, so he couldn't just call the cops on you.

I am sure if I thought about it a little bit more I could come up with some better ones.

[Southern Illinois Douchebag]

You want to read something really interesting? Check out the Forbes list of NFL Valuations.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/10/nfl-team-valuations-biz-sports-nfl08_cz_kb_mo_0910nfl_land.html

[Sleeping With Bieniemy]

@Paul and Scott Ricketts - remember this is only week 1 of Project Mayhem. The goals are twofold: both disrupt and affect Mikey's pocketbook. This task happens to be focused on disruption. Others will focus on the pocketbook. We have nothing to lose by trying so a defeatist attitude, while understandable, is not one we advocate. There is evidence Mikey makes changes when his revenue stream is jeopardized. After 2002 he gave into his daughter and hired Marvin following a 2-14 season and massive season ticket cancellations loomed.

@Bronzed - again, thanks for the ideas, we are just in week 1 but sponsors are definitely on our radar. We will not publicly list his address (trust us, we've had the opportunity) as the consequences make us a little nervous.

@Southern Illinois - got that valuation section of Forbes bookmarked, we posted on it a while back such as this post here: http://whodeyrevolution.typepad.com/whodeyrevolution/2008/09/like-latrell-sp.html

[MikeBrownDelendaEst]

Looks like you're onto something Bronzed Boomer, except according to this that's just the lot and not an actual street address:

http://propertyshark.com/mason/oh_hamilton/Reports2/showsection.html?propkey=33355590

Of course the actual mailing address is on that link as well, and if you google it the 3rd hit is a comment on a WDR post from 15 days ago where somebody had already posted it, so I'm not sure why Bieniemy is being squeamish now. The rest of the top 5 reference political contributions which spell the matter out pretty clearly such as this one:

http://city-egov.cincinnati-oh.gov/Webtop/ws/election/public/contributions/Record;jsessionid=8B9F65C863997C3687CA344F0F813097?rpp=25&upp=0&m=54&w=NATIVE(%27candidate_code+%3D+%27%27BER%27%27+and+election_year+%3D+2007%27)&order=CTYPE

[MikeBrownDelendaEst]

Oh, and guess who lives next door:

http://propertyshark.com/mason/oh_hamilton/Reports2/showsection.html?propkey=33355764

[TO]

http://www.myd.govt.nz/ayv/haveyoursay/aotearoayouthvoicestoolkit/actionguide9holdacreativedemonstra.aspx

[Sleeping With Bieniemy]

Guess I didn't realize we had it on a post...oh well...