Mike Florio ,
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Customers who showed up for Sunday’s Ravens-Bengals game got more snow on their seats than points on the scoreboard from the home team.
The failure to clear the snow from all seats — an apparent violation of league rules — has become a significant story, for a couple of reasons. First, most teams take great pains, and spend potentially significant money, to remove snow from the stadium before a game. Second, if any team were cheap enough to not do that, it’s the Bengals.
Said the team on Sunday, in response to a request for comment from PFT: “Seat aisles were prioritized and are in good shape. Seats are easily wiped off and ushers are equipped to help there.”
The NFL apparently is prepared to give the Bengals a pass for not passing a broom or a shovel or a brush over the seats before customers arrived. Hamilton County commissioner Stephanie Dumas, however, is not.
“ We need to do a better job for the next time ,” Dumas told David Ferrara of the Cincinnati Enquirer . “I don’t like it myself.”
She is one of three commissioners who represent the county, which owns the stadium, in negotiations with the Bengals, who lease it. “It’s our stadium,” Dumas said, “but it’s the Bengals’ responsibility to make it a good environment for people coming.”
League policy makes that clear. Regardless of whether the NFL scrutinizes or punishes the Bengals, it’s bad business to expect fans who are already braving the elements to have to clear snow and/or ice from their seats.
But, of course, it costs nothing to do nothing. Every year, NFL teams issue an open call for folks to show up (at an hourly rate) to do the work. The Bengals apparently did not do that, or otherwise make any effort to comply with the requirement to clear snow from all seats,
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