Dondio. Super Bowl sixties all set. You got the Patriots back again, you got the Seattle Seahawks back again. The Bengals are not back again. The Bengals. It's been five years since our Bengals went to the Super Bowl, and Nick Lache has had enough. He just dropped this song on social This is Brown in the name of Joe Barrow. Won should take your bends and go selling my brown, sell my crown on the phone, say well, damn damn Lache,
that's baby making music. That's not a distract. That's baby making music.
You got there, Well, maybe we killed two birds of one. Don make some babies and pissing people off. Wow?
That there you go. Well, wow, how did I How did I come into the storm?
Well?
It was because the Bengals suck. That's how you were born. That's how.
Hey, something something good should come out of them at this point.
What's going on? Where are you right now? You're out in La.
I'm out in La, Okay.
So you're smart because it's too damn cold to come here and do this live right.
Yeah, I'm talking to my my family back back east and it is absolutely freezing cold. So yeah, I'm not I'm not jellings.
Yeah, missing, we're jealous here. We got snow today too. So how they hell? Nick Lache, how did you become the de facto voice of a long abused Bengals fan? How did this happen?
I'm a long abused Banks fan. You know. It's it's been I guess, about forty five years since I first started watching the Bengals, and I've been on the same you know, roller coaster that everyone else in that city has, and man, I don't know, it just felt like enough's enough. It's it's uh, you know, we've been so beat down in the fan base, and I feel like at this point, most people they're just like, well, I guess that's just the way it's going to be for my life, and
we'll get them next year. And I just I feel like it doesn't have to be that way, you know, And I think people have started to lose hope, and even worse, I feel like eventually the players start to lose hope, and you get you get the Carson Palmer situation where players, you know, just want out. It's just it doesn't have to be that way. And and so I just was trying to find a fun, kind of
interesting way to express all that dissatisfaction. And I love writing writing music, It's what I do obviously, so figured this is a good way to kind of get my get my feelings out. Brick cathartic on it.
Yeah, therapy, Yeah, you have an opportunity that most of us don't. All right, So it's not the first time. I mean, I've been around long enough to remember the nineties and that that dire straight when fans were showing up to games with bags of their heads asking Mike to sell the team. Then what's changed in those last thirty years?
Nothing? Nothing's changed. I mean I think every now and then, and I said this in my in my post a few weeks back, when you know, when they announced they weren't making any changes to any of the personnel, to the coaching staff, to you know, Duke Tobin was coming back. I mean, I said, this is ridiculous. We have totally accepted losing, and our ownership is not interested in winning. I mean, I think it's just purely what bigger sample size do we need at this point than you know,
the thirty five years that he's run this team. I mean, it's absolutely we've had eight winning seasons, eight in thirty five years. Yep, I mean you can it's just dumb luck. And I said that, I said, every now and then we catch finding in a bottle, might make a super Bowl, might win a playoff game, and it keeps us as a fan base on the hook. But I think we have to start to demand more. I mean, this is a football rabid city. We all know that we love football.
We love our Bengals, and unfortunately our Bengals don't love us back. And that's you know, that's an abusive relationship, quite honestly, and and he needs to be called out for it. I mean the proof is then everyone did in the analytics these days, right, it's all a numbers game, and the numbers Mike Brown is a Loser's he's a He's a historic loser. I didn't realize the Bengals set an NFL record for the fewest games needed to reach
two hundred loss. I mean it's historic losing that we've all been witnessed to and quite frankly, have financially supported for the thirty five years. Meaning people can you know, they're harder money. They take their harder money go out to sit in the cold and watch what he refuses to improve as a product on the field, and it just it's it's ridiculous.
Well, but I will say this, I think you're looking, Nick at the wrong damn scoreboard. So the best stretch, arguably in the Mike Brown tenure, was the Marvin Lewis here six Way had six wild card appearances in seven years, but six eliminations in those wildcard games never advanced. But you're looking at the wrong scoreboard. The value of this team, Nick, is five point five billion with a buff of an
initial investment I think of eight million dollars. That's a sixty nine thousand percent return since nineteen sixty seven, or twelve point four percent annually. That's better than the market average of ten percent. Are you looking at the wrong scoreboard.
No, I'm looking at the right score which is why I'm saying sell the team and take your five point nine or whatever it is billion, and walk into the sunset and let someone else take over the team who's interested in winning and interested in creating a winning culture for the people of Cincinnati. That's what we deserve as a fan base, That's what the Bengals deserve, The players deserve You've shown clearly you're not interested in providing that
you know and in establishing a winning culture. Mike Brown's not interested in doing that. He's interested in the numbers you just dropped. He's interested in what the team's worth. So sell it and walk off into the sunset and let another ownership group come in who can try and do it a winner in Cincinnati. I know everyone's worried if Mike Brown sells the team that the Bengals are leaving Cincinnati. I don't think the NFL is interested in the Bengals leaving Cincinnati. It's good for the NFL to
have a team in Cincinnati. It's good for the city. It's not There's plenty of other ownership groups that could come in, build a winner and keep it right there in Cincinnati. It doesn't have to be one of the others.
The moment to well, Cleveland needs a football team, could we move to Cleveland.
Wow, they've got a football team that may be even worse than ours. Sad again starts Yeah, the minute we start comparing ourselves to the Browns, we're in really bad stage. So you know what the bottom line is, we have a probably not probably in one hundred percent. We have the most incredible quarterback in the history of our franchise
who's in the prime of his career. And what I'm afraid of, and I think what the people is the status should be afraid of, is that he's going to get frustrated to the point of saying, you know what, I can't take this anymore. I want to win and it's not going to happen here, and I want out. And I think we saw shades out a little bit this year, you know, even though he would deny it, but uh, this is the this is the prime moment. I thought, like many people did, that when he came
he's a perfect quarterback for our team. Iile kid. And since that, I thought the whole thing was going to change. That finally the Bengals going to find a way to redefine who they were as a franchise. And here we are, you know, four or five years later, feeling like the same thing is happening all over again, and it's just it's it's really sad, honestly. It's just after the people who have supported this team, you know, so passionately and loyally for for decades and put through the same cycle
of futilities. It's unfortunately all.
Right, Nicklas, do you want you want to buy this is? If that says, are you trying to leverage him so you can squeeze and help buy this team? Maybe not, just because I mean, you've got that ridiculous love is blind money. I get that, the ninety eighth agreement, ridiculous ten seasons. Now you're gonna shoot at You're you're a multi uh I don't. I can't even count that high. You got all this money, You're gonna buy this team.
You're gonna get some friends together, and this is about the leverage and Mike brownout so you can swoop in and save the day.
I wish that was the case. I wish I had anything close to uh to the money would take to buy an NFL French No, of course not. I'm a fan. At the end of the day, I'm a fan and I want to see this team win. I've been through the heartbreak. I've been, I've been at the playoff games. I've seen the futility. I've been you know, been to the Super Bowl. I've watched it all happen. I'm a fan and I would love to see this horrible cycle
that we've been living in as fans. I'd like to see it change, and I think that never gonna change as long as Mike Brown is the owner.
What makes you think somebody somebody else comes in and buys it. I don't know, private equitor, what the hell it is? Uh? And it's not you're involved in this thing. I mean, it could be they want up moving the team, or maybe careful what you wish for it. Maybe it does get worse. Is that possible.
I don't think it's possible for it get for it to get worse. Honestly, I think you know you can. You can luck yourself into a playoff appearance every few years. I don't think that that's I don't think that's a fear of it getting worse. But I do is think that. And I think people in Cincinnati are a right to be a word, you know, worried about this, that someone would come in and move the team. I just don't
think that's gonna happen. I've I've got strong, strong feelings that the NFL does not want to see the team move. I don't know if the NFL would would mind and that ownership change. I mean, look at Buffalo. You know, they've they were sold. Rob Wilson you know, passed and they sold the team and now they're building a new stadium and the team's you know for a playoff you know, contender. So I mean it doesn't mean the team has to move. Cincinnati is a great football town. I mean, look, my god,
we've supported a team that's been horrible. We've been selling out that's staying for for decades on on horrible products that are being craded out in front of us. I mean, what more do you need to see, you know, as an owner than that. It doesn't mean the team is moving and leaving Cincinnati. If the ownership changes.
Well, I'll say this Nick also what they watch.
But that's what they want to think though, right, I mean, it's in your base, you know, mentality like hey, well yeah, do take the team. Don't We don't care what it looks like, just don't take our team. Don't take our team. I think that's that's kind of what we've been, you know, like a bludgeon into into believing it's not it's not necessarily the case.
Here's what here's why I don't think that's true. Right, there's the art Modell Rule with basically said when Art Modell moved, the moved to Baltimore and then subsequent win a Super Bowl to tell you how curse Cleveland. Maybe the state is with professional football. I don't know, but they enacted the artmdal so meaning if you take public money that you've got to give them six months to get a Ohio ownership group together to buy the team at fair market value. That's what it says. So they
just took public money. By the way, seventy four percent of the money to redo pay Corps is from the tax payerge the other twenty four twenty six percent it is from the Bengals in the NFL. So kind of a minimal investment right there. But you know, only in Cincinnati we celebrate we're getting screwed, but we're getting screwed last than we did in the nineteen nineties with that horrific stadium deal.
Yeah, I mean, I've got the best stadium do in the league. They I mean, up until about ten years ago, when the NFL implemented a floor to the salary cap, the Bengals were spending less than anybody else in the league. Because of the revenue sharing. They're making all kinds of money and they're not even pumping it back into their own roster. It wasn't until the NFL changed the rule to force teams like the Bengals to actually spend the
money on their players that they even did that. I mean, there's no more evidence we need to see that this ownership group does not care about winning. They simply don't. They care about all the numbers you illustrated earlier with the team's worth so great. I mean, what a phenomenal investment you inherited. Take it and run. Let somebody else come in who cares about winning?
Uh? Nick Lashey, do you think that the Bengals care about Cincinnati, care about the fans?
I mean, what evidence do you see that? How active are they in the community? I mean, what about all the great foundations they know? Don't I don't think they care about Cincinnati all. I mean, and if they did, it would be about more than just money, right. Yeah. I mean, this team is a part of the fabric of the city and everyone in that city wants to see him win. Everyone but the people who need and want to see them win, and that's the owners.
Yeah. Well, I'll say this. I had a council member Mark Jeffries late last week on my show and we were talking about it. Kind of I didn't see this coming, but we're talking about one of his initiatives is youth football in the city. As you know, it's very expensive to rent fields at CPS because of crime. You have to have armed security and you're run it from CPS. No youth football teams can afford that. You don't have
that in the suburbs. You got that in Cincinnati. So he brought up the fact that you know the Reds obviously with the Reds Community Fund and the Urban Youth Academy does great. FC's doing that with youth soccer. And then he brought up the Bengals and said, look, the Dallas Cowboys at the top of the league, nine million dollars a year. They give back to the city of Dallas, to the community. The Packers do about a million and a half, My Bills do about a million. One Seattle
does six hundred and sixty two million. Cincinnati last year thirty thousand dollars. In the year before that in twenty twenty three was zero. Now, granted, you can do charitable donations and they're very generous when I understand privately they don't want the they don't only want the attention, They just want to do it from from a philanthropic perspective as opposed to getting credit. But when you're poning up the money where for a stadium, you've kind of got
to make the effort. You kind of got to make it known that you're doing these things. How isy would be for them to lean into youth football in Cincinnati, as the Reds did with baseball and FC would do with soccer. To your point, there's some ammunition here.
I think it's an incredible point it's made, and it's one that a lot of people pay attention to you. I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of criticism of the Reds, and but baseball and football are two totally different animals. You know, the structure of those sports is totally different. The banks have absolutely zero excuse. They're making billions and as I said in my post a few weeks back, billions on the backs of hard working Cincinnatians and they're going out there and spending their
money on supporting this team. We've made this family billions of dollars and what have they given back? To the community and the city that's doing that and supporting them, it's next to nothing. I mean, they don't care. I can't say it any more clearly. They simply don't care. They don't care about winning, and I don't think they care about the city of Cincinnati. I think the evidence
is in everything you just said. I mean, they care about making the money, and they've done it time and time again, and we've supported it time and time again.
Nick Lache, You're not the first person to say, hey, sell the damn team already, and I'm load to tell people to do with their own damn money, because at the end of the day of tickets, I think we are like twoe point two percent off season ticket sales year over year, which is, you know, it doesn't sound like much, but in the NFL world, it's a lot, a little bit of a dropping. Some of the teams are doing that as well. People are still showing up for the product. Isn't that the issue?
That is the issue? I mean, I think then people are scared to say, hey, we're gonna we're gonna you know, we're gonna vote with our pocket but you know, so to speak, and we're gonna boacout the team and we're not gonna show up well, and then he's gonna take the team away. He'll move the team to San Diego and we lose our team. That's the that's the fear based model that we're operating in year in and year out. And I think it's time that we kind of have
to demand more. I mean, we have to have an expectation of winning, or an expectation of at least running up front. Our scouting department is the smallest in the league. I mean, we we clearly showed we can't evaluate talent. We can't evaluate college talent. We can't even evaluate our talent. I mean, look at wwarth a few years back. A guy who loved Cincinnati wanted to stay here, and Mike Brown told him he thought his best years were behind him.
You know, go ahead, sign somewhere else. He goes on times with the Rams, there's a perennial hall pro and wins the super Bowl multi of the year. We can't even evaluate our own talent. It's a joke if we if we spend no money to that, I shouldn't say we they spend no money to invest in the scouting department. That can start to evaluate or coaching staff. But we just accept losing just another year to day. It's just it's nuts.
Well, the good news is Reds Baseball is not that far far away. You got your Haino Suarez back in the lineup. But the bullpen looks good, the rotation looks good. You got depth in the outfield, you got depth in the bench. Better days are ahead for the Reds and the Bengals. Is that what you're saying?
You know what I mean, it's there's all nothing but hope on the horizon, right, I mean, it's like that when baseball season start. But gosh, I mean, at the end of the day, the great baseball town, it's also great football town. And and this city deserves they deserve more again, man, I mean, Brown family has made so much money on the backs of Cincinnatian's great. Good for you. Let somebody else come in and buy the team who
cares about winning? Because it's clear to me, and I should be clear to everybody that the Brown families simply just not so, you know, I mean, if you care about Cincinnati, prove it. You know.
Why why should they listen Nick? Why why should they listen to you.
Oh, I'm absolutely shured're not listening to me, nor will they listen to me, you know. I mean, there's no one to can force themselves. Sure they can, you know, continue to do what they do, and they probably will, but it's not right. Don't don't pretend you care about Cincinnati, you know, pretend you care about the city of Cincinnati and all those things, when this is how you operate a team that means so much to the people of Well.
It's not just the It's not the Bengals. I mean, the Reds were suffering. Who saw what happened in La you watch those games live Nick Lache and getting swept. But hopefully this year they do better. But again we don't know what the season is gonna wind up coming to. For what's gonna happen at the end of the season. I guess I should say, do you see, Bearcats aren't very good? Xavier is getting better, but not very good. All our hopes and dreams right now are centered on
Oxford and the Miami RedHawks and the undefeated team. Everyone's going nuts or Oxford the only the only like like feel good moment, and n FC is gonna start a vander May wind up leaving that he may get bought away by bigger teams, slaw, by bigger fish. That's a problem. And so I look around and go, damn Cincinnati sports sucks right now. It's it's tough to be optimistic, to
be safe for the Reds. We're always optimistic here. The biggest you know what the biggest sports news was the last week is the fact that our boy John John had a half court shot at the Miami game.
I asked him what what AI for? He used to the school that went off, and he he claimed to me that it was it was the actual footish. But hey, let me give a quick shout to my my red Hawks before the summer of ninety five to joy ninety degrees and start my musical career. But the year before that, I was at Miami and I was the athletic trainer for men's basketball and we went to the tournament, won
of the first round games, a great team. Guys who know Miami knows, like Devin Davis, Jimmy Mahafe and Derek Crops, and so it's great to see I know everyone knows the wall the Zerbeak heres, but it's great to see Miami basketball back on the on the maps, the shout out to those guys are killing me.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And of course the legendary that would have been legendary Charlie Coles back in the work in the day, well.
Hurt hurbs sendak. Look at this, Look at this coaching roster. It was Hurt Sdick, Sean Miller assistant, Charlie Coles assistant, and the fat model was the restricted earl coach.
Yeah.
At one point all four of those guys were D one head coaches. Is unbelievable.
And now you got Travis Steele leading them to glory. We'll see what happens with the uh with of course the tournament coming up. Uh, he's Nick Lache. Uh. And again you go to our our social fee, go to the seven hundred w W seven hundred w W or if you follow Nick on social Uh. The video and the song are out there, and of course, uh, I just played a clip of it, will probably play a little bit more when you leave. Nick Lache is demanding, he is demanding the Bengals be sold or else or else.
I can't wait to hear what the or else is.
I'm encouraging, I'm encouraging and again, you know it's a it's a tall, tall order, probably won't happen. But man, at some point, I think that the fan base, we as a fan base, have to we have to demand a little more. It's just I mean, it's just abusive at this point, and and they don't teem to care. So maybe maybe this little this little diddy I wrote.
Away from people, no no more, no more sacrificeing than Nick Las, our brother. I appreciate you checking.
In, man, Thanks, yeah, thanks for having me.
God it's hard. It's hard to tell people what to do with their own damn money. But if your name has Cincinnati in the front or back of the jersey, uh, there's a debt, yo, I think to the community. And Nick is pissed off, and I love it. Sloany seven hundred ww