Because I can't do it any more justice, the full text of a post by JJ Cooper at FanHouse:
If the Bengals needed any more evidence that Mike Brown is lining his pockets at the expense of the team's success, here it is.
Mike Brown is one of the worst owners in the NFL. Dan Rooney is one of the best, but guess which one gets paid more?
As has been reported for a while, Mike Brown has made a bonus of at least $1 million in each of the past 18 years on top of his salary. Brown and four other members of his family earn salaries of at least $700,000 a year. Altogether the family received $50 million from 1994-2000.
Those salaries are for running one of the most inept franchises in football. The Bengals have had one winning season in Brown's 18 years of running the club. On the other hand, Rooney has made $2.2 million over the past year and a half, which became public when he accepted the ambassador post to Ireland. To break that into a yearly salary it's $1.5 million. He will get a little less than $1 million as severance as he heads overseas.
It's hard not to feel for Bengals' fans. They're stuck with an owner much more concerned with cashing checks and running a jobs program for his family than with winning football games. There are other Rooneys who work in the Steelers front office as well (Art Rooney II and Art Rooney Jr. both work on the staff), but the team's football operations are run by Kevin Colbert and contracts are negotiated by Omar Kahn. With the Bengals, most decisions are kept all in the family.
I know this will be shocking information to many of you. Our Mike Brown, more concerned about money than having a competent staff around him? No! And Dan Rooney, that rapscallion, doesn't make nearly as much? It must be a lie!
How dare anybody complain about a generous family man just trying to make a decent, honest living on the backs of non-millionaires who cut other things out of their lives to afford buying into a piece of ineptness.
Welcome to the Blackout jungle baby!
Posted by: kotw65 | July 10, 2009 at 12:19 PM
How can anyone call Mike Brown inept? After all, he's got all of the Bengals' sixth and seventh round picks signed to deals - that doesn't sound very inept to me. Of course that means none of the impact players the fans have been raving over have been signed, including players that could be very vital parts of our offense, namely T Andre Smith and TE Chase Coffman (let's face it - Luigs isn't starting game one this year, and most likely, neither will Rey or Michael Johnson).
Posted by: Wyatt | July 11, 2009 at 02:26 PM
Mikey and Katie don't even get serious about conract negotiations until after the start of training camp. Mikey considers this his ultimate negotiating tactic and he most likely has Katie Blackburn on a very short leash so even if she thought she had a deal in place Mikey would nix it. Don't you wish you got a million dollars for being a failure 65% of the time.
Posted by: ItmightbeJB | July 11, 2009 at 07:15 PM
As long as people keep buying tix to the games(along with overpriced refreshments and parking), and as long as people continue to buy Bengals gear, Mikey will continue to go about businessas usual. That stadium should have a majority of opposing-team fans in it on game day. THAT would get SOMEBODY'S attention!!
If his revenues were next to nothing, then maybe the NFL owners(or whoever) would revamp "revenue sharing", and quit rewarding him(and other loser owners)for poor business practices.
Then again, the gubbermint would probably just bail him out.........
Posted by: Eddie | July 12, 2009 at 11:15 AM