The Cincinnati Bengals will continue to play their home games at Paycor Stadium for at least another decade and potentially through the 2045 season. Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the franchise finalized with Hamilton County a new lease that keeps them in town on an 11-year extension through June 2036. The agreement comes with an option to extend through June 2046.
The new lease finalizes a process that has been ongoing throughout the offseason. The Bengals agreed with local officials in June to a $470 million renovation of Paycor Stadium along with the lease extension, but the latter required formal approval from county commissioners.
Paycor Stadium, which has been home to the Bengals since it opened in 2000, will undergo upgrades as part of the project. It carries a smaller price tag than the initial $830 million the Bengals proposed, and the county will foot the majority of the bill to the tune of $350 million. The team, with assistance from the NFL’s G-5 loan program, will contribute $120 million to the renovations. Stadium upgrades include improvements to the club lounges, stadium suites, concessions and scoreboards.
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Hamilton County commissioners approved the lease Thursday, but the Bengals had not yet agreed to the terms. Friday’s finalization is the last step and comes after the county’s 2-1 approval vote.
“The county has said that what we’re asking for is in the generality of what other NFL teams deals are in markets our size, and in situations approaching ours,” Bengals owner Mike Brown said on July 21, via the AP. “We think the stadium fits our needs, fits the community for size. It’s a nice stadium, it really is. It needs to be maintained. We want that to be the case moving forward, but what we’re doing is asking to go forward in a way not too dissimilar from how we have been going all these years.”
With one NFL team from the state of Ohio locking up its long-term home, all eyes now turn to the Cleveland Browns, who aim to leave their downtown venue to build an enclosed stadium in the suburbs. The state intends to use $600 million in unclaimed funds to help construct the stadium, but that plan received ample pushback and is the source of a lawsuit that claims it is “unconstitutional and unlawful.”
The Browns’ lease with Cleveland expires at the end of the 2028 season, and city leaders have been clear about their desire to keep the team at its lakefront home rather than to bid farewell in a move to Brook Park.
