Bengals Beat Podcast: Bob Bedinghaus and the stadium deal

Cincinnati Enquirer

This season marks the 50th of football for the Cincinnati Bengals, five decades filled with highs, lows, dynamic personalities and innovations that changed the face of the National Football League. The Enquirer brings you the 50 most influential people in Bengals history through various forms of media, bringing you the names and untold stories that shaped this franchise over its first half century -- good, bad and ugly.

As part of The Outsiders portion of Bengals 50 project, Paul Dehner Jr. sits down with former Hamilton County Commissioner and current Bengals Director of Business Development Bob Bedinghaus to re-visit how the messy process of building Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park evolved, what he views as misperceptions of the deal, why he staked his political career on the issue, his one regret, and, of course, the popular replay holograms.

Here are a few samples:

Bedinghaus on the primary misconception of how it went down:

"One misperception is that the Bengals weren't going to leave town. I am firmly convinced the Bengals were going to leave town. And as we've watched over the decades several teams have left town ... Had it not been Baltimore there would have been other opportunities for this team to leave."

On inevitably becoming the face of the oft-maligned stadium deal and sales tax:

"That's fine. And I was perfectly comfortable with that. Becuase once I made the decision this was an issue I was going to take on there was no question I was going to be the face of it. And I was happy to have my political career rise and ultimately fall on that decision. As I gave speeches throughout the community during the time period I was very clear with people I understand what I am taking on here is touching the third rail. Everybody would be saying to me you're doing nothing but giving money to millionaire team owners. I said, 'Well, you can think of it that way, I happen to think of it differently, that this is an opportunity for us as a community to take advantage of millionaire team owners to make our community better."

On his view of seeing his time in politics end due supporting to the stadiums:

"There have been hundreds of county commissioners that came before me and probably dozens -- maybe a dozen -- country commissioners that came after me. I'm pretty proud of the fact I made more of an impact on this city than any of them did. I'm pretty proud of that. I think that's a good thing. Ruined a political career, but hey, what the hell."

This marks the first of five podcasts comprised in our Bengals Influential 50 project. They will roll out each Tuesday during the course of the next month.

How to listen: