WDR has been making the rounds with all the heavyweights of Cincinnati media this week, with an appearance earlier tonight on 700 WLW Sportstalk with Paul Daugherty (1/15/09, Hour 1), a Q&A with 1530Homer's C. Trent Rosecrans, discussed at length on Lance McAlister's show, and even a mention on The Bill Cunningham Show (1/15/09, Hour 3, about 21 minutes into the segment).
Why mention all this? Well our latest Project Mayhem task is maybe the most important task to date. The COA argument tonight brought up tonight on Doc's show was valid (we will discuss more in depth later on this week): what about the season ticket holders who are selling their seats to "speculators" who will buy the COA's at a tidy discount? These prospectors are hoping the Bengals 'restore the roar' back to the 8-8 days of 2006...in order to start selling single game tickets at a profit when the stadium sells out again.
WDR's short take? While there are a few ticket brokers out there taking the leap, we have enough inside intel to know that most scalpers don't want anything to do with Bengals COA's right now...and the fact that COA holders MUST BUY THE TICKETS ASSOCIATED WITH THE LICENSE is enough to scare people off until the Bengals show some real progress. Guys...outside of the Steelers or Browns games next season...tickets will still be available on the street for 25% (or worse) of face value. Not that attractive for getting a $300 discount on a seat license.
Bottom line: This is much ado about very little.
I must say I read your site today and have come to the conclusion that this is the most doom and gloom site I have ever been on. I do not believe for one minute you give a rip about this team, I mean read your own crap, it is awful. My guess is your intentions are to reep the benefits of the suckers who buy into this trash that it will change anything, it wont, and if you believe that the Bengals get anything more than a laugh out of this, than you are only fooling yourself. Good luck with this gloomy cause, you will need it.
This is nothing more than a web site for haters, here is a suggestion since you don't even live in Cincy......become a Redskin fan! I am sure you already are though...
Posted by: Tony D | January 15, 2009 at 08:19 PM
Tony D, you may be surprised there are fans of the Bengals living in other cites. Many are displaced Ohioans, but some may actually chose to be Bengals fans without any ties to the team or city (these people are know as self-masochists).
On the contrary to your post, I'd say this is a very optomistic website. (If you want a doom and gloom site try Bengals.com) At least this site is acknowledging the faults of the organization and taking steps to improve upon them. Granted, there is a good chance they won't have any effect, but because there is a small chance they will, you have to try. As a fan, you have two options {note: if uncomfortable with gay sex metaphors stop reading now}...1)bend over and let Mikey give it to you, without any lube, like he has been for 18 years or...2) stand up, punch him in the face, and make him get on his knees for YOU (strawberry shortcake anyone?). After all, you paid for his house and give him a multi-million dollar allowance every year. Shouldn't he do something for you once in awhile? Like, I don't know, provide a team that can compete on a weekly basis? Develop an offensive line to protect the most important person on the team? Get to the playoffs more than once in 18 years and actually win a game?
Tony D, I'm going to guess you are a fairly young Bengals fan, perhaps you got on board during our fantastic 8-8 run or maybe even our playoff appearance. But for those of us who remember the worst franchise of any major sport during the 1990's (look it up) this is the only way we can think of to actively help our team to improve. If you don't like it, then don't visit the site, but make sure you bring a piece of leather to bite down on when Mikey comes calling next season.
Posted by: The Real Tyke Beasly | January 16, 2009 at 12:25 AM
I can respect and appreciate your comments.
It may surprise you that I have been a season ticket holder since 97', I have not missed a home game since PBS was built, and I have spent thousands on merchandising, therefor I have earned my opinion. My only point is this, you must be miserable as a Bengals fan, and you don't even live there, so why not just forget about something that even you know that you have no chance of changing, and cheer for a new team? I hate the losing as much as anyone, believe me it has cost me a fortune, but at the end of the day, it is I that choses to root for this team no one is making us. I love the Bengals and the NFL, but also realize who owns this team and how they operate their franchise, it is all part of the territory. You act like you have some birth right to ths team, well that just doesn't exist.
I will leave you with 2 questions:
#1- where were you from 2003-2007?
#2- What is going to be your stance when the Bengals due to a soft schedule, a return of Palmer, a 2nd year under Zimmer, and healthy team all the sudden win 8-10 games again? I have a sence you would really hate to see that happen, wouldn't you?
Tony
Posted by: Tony D | January 16, 2009 at 12:49 PM
i´ve got to agree with tony d - where were you boys when marvin came in and immediately turned things around and then went to the playoffs where you´d be a fool to not realize that we had more than a good chance of going as far as anyone until we were hosed by a goon? i´ve sat with you muppets in that filthy bar in d.c. and it was the most miserable afternoon i´ve spent watching the bengals in 15 years. and we won the damn game. just a bunch of ´displace ohioans´...good ridance. quit working for your g.o.p. biggoted bosses on and around the hill and get over yourselves.
we would all like to see the owner of this business deliver a better product. i personally don´t patron his business. you clowns have spent so much energy rallying people to poke fun at mike brown and for weeks i´ve been calling for an enhanced effort to actually do on-the-ground work to boycott his products. now you come up with on-line radio interviews for your own self-grandeur but i don´t see any of you buying plane tix out of season to come into town and do the dirty work of standing out in the chill to get mass protests organized against this turd of a company that has our (not your) city´s name on it...were you only interested in making the trek in to cincy to go to the games in person, buying the beers you say you can´t quit (look it up) and then piss and moan and act like you had the balls to boycott? where are you now?
it´s easy to slap some swill up on your site and say we are calling for a total embargo of all things mike brown, but when it comes to actually showing up like you thought was clever enough to do with urinal cakes and posters in indy you´re nowhere to be found. seriously, get your shit together if you want to be taken for anything more than some casual fancy-poopy-pants...somebody made a suggestion of a rally in fountain square - get on it. show up. i made a suggestion a while back of pulling a page from rudi and having people walk up to an absentee owner´s desk within view of pbs and have people in the community lay their unwanted bengals jerseys across it saying this one´s for a competent and powerful g.m., mike...
stop being little boys and step up to some grown-up level of leadership.
*and learn something about history, you dweebs - why is brown´s face on your t-shirts in the likeness of che? che was the revolutionary that you claim to want. again if you didn´t work for elephant dongs in d.c. you would know that the correct analogy you´re looking for is brown´s face over reagans...trickle-down-winning...christ that should have been obvious from day one...*
Posted by: raul castro - in many ways superior, but will never be as recognized as the original... | January 16, 2009 at 01:42 PM
raul, you do not patron his business, but you come on here to patronize the people who run this site and they are the ones who want to make a difference or are trying to make a difference??? I don't see you getting a ticket and going on a boycott to the stadium either. You use what you can that is at your disposal. I guess a message board is not the way to get the message out to the people of Cincy and the fans that attend the games? I guess using the local media is not getting the word out? I guess doing interviews on local radio stations is a place where nobody will listen? Well, how did you come to find out about this place, Pal???
If you boycott outside the stadium then the local police will have you removed and you will be arrested. How is this going to make a point or a statement? Yea, a criminal record is the way to go. Dufus! The only way to make a statement is to hit the man in his pockets, PERIOD! Wake Up! It is that simple except for a little dweeb (the name you like to call people) mind like yourself to understand.
If you don't like this place then don't come here! It is that simple. I am sure you will be back because you love to make condescending remarks about people you don't even know. It is just in you for sure.
Posted by: TigerJ@w | January 16, 2009 at 05:45 PM
Great reply TRTB...I think that younger fans, unless indoctrinated into Bengals douchebaggery as young children, are blissfully optimistic about 'next year', i.e. each year...I know; I used to be that way.
I only got to see one Bengals game as a child (and, only one later on at PBS, vs Titans) with my dad, and my friend and his dad...it was at old Riverfront Stadium, in '76 I think (you know, the field had the cutouts and coverings from when the Reds played there, during the Bengals offseason))...I think we had nosebleed seats, but I remember the Bengals won, and I've been a fan ever since.
This WDR site is great and so is its idealogy...this is evidenced by the subtle (or not so subtle) infiltrator comments, i.e. the anti-WDR propaganda, that crop up on the WDR site from time to time...
***Long Live The WDR***
Posted by: Hofbraunow | January 16, 2009 at 07:27 PM
TRTB: PS/btw, the game at old Riverfront was against the Jets
TJ: Great reply also
RAUL: I can't tell if you are being sarcastic (about using Reagan's profile for Paul Brown's face, instead of Che's)...but if you aren't, then I can tell you that I'm not entirely amused with the 'pseudo-commie' motif used by the WDR (it has gotten better around here, though)...
...my belief about young/'communists', especially those living in capitalist countries, actually possess (and are capable of increasing) less tangible---or immeasureable---forms of wealth, that cannot readily be controlled or allocated, by any other 'party' if you will, and that they are really capitalist pigs (notice I didn't say "capitalists") at heart...
PS WDR, I like the quote by Thomas Jefferson, on the WDR homepage header
¡VIVA!
:)
Posted by: Hofbraunow | January 16, 2009 at 07:53 PM
i don´t know about all this back and forth, but i have wondered for a while who is depicted on the wdr shirts...it looks like mike brown, not paul brown (i realize fathers and sons can look alike).
if it´s mike, the whole thing doesn´t make sense. if it´s paul, it´s kind of flat. are we really trying to make it back to paul brown? but really, i think it´s mike and i think you´ve just made a miscalculation on what you were trying to say.
to the guy about the reagan comment, i see where you were going. if mike brown is the evil one here, then his policies reflect more of what reagan tried to pull with his reaga-nomics than what che guevara tried to do with leading the people in a revolution against corporate-dictatorial forces.
to the guy who wrote about young communists and such - can you restate it. i´m having a hard time following it because of some misplaced modifiers and such. what are these less tangible and immeasurable forms of wealth, and how do they make someone a capitalist pig? for the record, i also personally feel that with all the energy we all use in thinking about something like this, that we try to remember that it´s really not the end of the world and that some people out there are fighting for real revolutions and ends to oppression. these are struggles that often get slimed in the our media as, ´leftist causes of radical liberal, communist-leaning rebels, thirsty for social experiments and anarchy´...remember that as you casually throw around screen names like red scourge and brosef stalin...
Posted by: the humanist | January 17, 2009 at 01:06 PM
Tony D...in responding to my post I believe you mistook me for Brosef Stalin, who runs the site and lives in DC. I was simply defending him and the website. I live in Ohio and have all my life. So to answer your question...From '03 to '07 I was in Ohio, watching every game. As for the second part of the question, I am glad you are so optomisic. I can only speak for myself, but I think the like-minded WDR moderators would agree. I would love to see the Bengals win 8-10 games again, and I do agree that the defense has greatly improved (if they didn't have to be on the field 80% of the game the numbers would reflect that). However, a healthy Carson isn't going to amount to much without an offensive line to protect him or to create a running game that the defense has to respect. And the aid of a soft-schedule will only mask the need for a competent football person making personell decisions. The manifesto is right on the money. I don't care if the Bengals win the Super Bowl next year (that would be freaking awesome), Mike Brown STILL needs to hand the football side of the business to someone else.
Posted by: The Real Tyke Beasly | January 17, 2009 at 01:26 PM
To the humanist: In what I wrote, about which modifiers are you confused?
As far as the 'alternate' forms of wealth I mentioned, if they were more tangible and/or measurable, I would be able to directly describe them to you...in the meantime, you either get the drift or you don't...
My point was that such people, who claim to be communists, aren't really communists at all, and have ways to subvert the very idealogy they claim to promote. Really, they just promote it as a way to control the masses...they are simply hypocrites and subversives, who are anything but interested in 'sharing the wealth equally'...
That's all I'll say about what I wrote; I'm not here to discuss politics, unless it directly supports the WDR
PS Brosef Stalin is an awesome name; I wish I would have thought of it...maybe I'll change my name to "C'mere Rouge", lol...doesn't have the same ring to it though :)
¡VIVA!
Posted by: Hofbraunow | January 19, 2009 at 12:24 AM