Sports Town?

[ready2go]

Can we call Cincinnati a sports town...

The Reds are a game in first and 8 games above 500 this late in a season since 1990 and seem to have trouble drawing over 15,000.

The Bengals were leading the Division all last year and had to rely on bigger company's to buy out the remaining tickets, to allow for televised games.

The Cincinnati Cyclones continue to dominate their league and the place is less than half filled until the Kelly Cup.

The Cincinnati Commandos (some probably have no clue who they are) play at the Cincinnati Gardens and are currently 9-0 in the CIFL. They draw around 2500 a game in an 11,000 seat arena.

What's the deal? Economy, lack of interest

 

[ImmortalIconForever]

This city is still recovering from many many seasons of bad baseball and football. Read some of the reds thread and after the ugly loss to the Braves people were in melt down mode. TV has also hurt people going down to the reds games. The only games not on are the business day specials. I'd rather sit at my house and not worry about getting stuck next to some loud mouth that has no idea what he/she is talking about with his/her beer belly hanging out from under their 1995 Barry Larkin jersey like LivingLegend. No one in this area cares about hockey. That's a fact. Sorry for the 3 hockey fans on this board. Arena football is too close to Canadian football for me to care.

 

[Little Danny]

ImortalIcon, great post.

I think a lot of people are wanting for the other shoe to drop with the Reds. Like it or not, the team has been bad for a very long time. I know there have been one or two decent seasons, but this team really hasn't been a consistently good ball club since about 1995. The organization has made a lot of mistakes over the years that has cost them dearly. The team has had a few years were they start out strong out of the gate, only to falter as the lack of depth reared its ugly head. One other thing to consider, major league baseball is not selling out in any market except for a few-- New York, Boston, Philly, Chicago---- the teams with the large payrolls stockpiled with All-Star players and guys sitting the bench who would start basically everywhere else.

The Bengals are a whole other issue. First what I said above applies. The Bengals have been so bad for so long. Second, the teams owner is a pompous horse's behind who has done the region no favors and refuses to change his ways. Everyone knows it. It is hard to give money to a franchise when you have those factors.

As far as the Cyclones and the Commandos, I agree with the above. Not enough hockey fans in town and as far as the Commandos go, good thing they have former Bearcat stars on the team or else their attendance would be even worse. The crowd would consist of players wives, kids and parents. No offense, but this league is not going to ever have large crowds in any city.

 

[swg]

Cincinnati is definitely a sports town. Problem I see is that the teams have been so awful as of late that the fans have been beaten down.

The Bengals have recently gone through fans boycotting and pulling shenanigans to protest the awful draft/lack of GM/winning. I do think they are on the right track.

The Reds are doing wonderful right now, and have the look of a team that believes. This would not be the case with Dunn and Griffey, but the pitching is coming together.

UC has been great in football, and awful in basketball. Problem? The football coaches keep leaving and the program has to 'prove' itself every 3 or so years. UC fans LOVE basketball more than football, although I do think that is changing. It takes time to build a fanbase that was generally apathetic towards that program for many years.

The biggest problem I see right now as far as attendance is the economy. If that gets fixed, you'll see attendance numbers rise as the fans want to see a winner.