You’ve probably heard the stories about the used jockstraps. Or the one about the $167,000 concession check that nearly sent the team to Baltimore. Maybe you’ve just seen the memes of a guy sitting alone in a golf cart, looking like he’s watching a game from 1954. Mike Brown, the owner and president of the Cincinnati Bengals, is a bit of a ghost in a league filled with media-hungry billionaires. Honestly, he’s basically the last of a dying breed: the "football only" owner.
While guys like Jerry Jones are out there building massive entertainment districts and selling everything but the kitchen sink, Mike Brown is just... there. He's at every practice. He’s in the film room. He’s the guy who still thinks a legal pad and a sharp pencil are the best ways to run a multi-billion dollar business. Some people call it cheap. Others call it a pure, unadulterated obsession with the game his father, the legendary Paul Brown, helped invent.
Mike Brown: What Most People Get Wrong
People love to label Mike Brown as the NFL's resident "Scrooge." And sure, if you look at the 90s, the evidence is pretty damning. We’re talking about a franchise that reportedly made players pay for their own Gatorade. There are stories of agents being taken to Wendy’s for contract negotiations. It sounds like a bad sitcom, but for a long time, it was the reality in Cincinnati.
But here’s the thing: Mike Brown isn't just hoarding gold in a vault like Smaug. He runs the Bengals like a family farm because, for the Browns, it is the family farm. Unlike 90% of NFL owners who made their billions in oil, real estate, or tech, the Browns don't have a side hustle. The Bengals are the business. Every dollar spent on a free agent or a new indoor practice facility (which, yeah, took until 2022 to happen) is a dollar out of the family’s pocket.
It's a "mom and pop" shop in a world of private equity firms.
That isolationist streak? That comes from his dad. Paul Brown was famously canned by Art Modell in Cleveland—a move that fundamentally changed how the Brown family viewed the world. Mike watched his father get pushed out of the very team that bore his name. Since then, the mantra has been simple: Total Control. They don't want outside investors. They don't want corporate consultants telling them how to draft a nose tackle. They want to do it their way, even if "their way" leads to a twenty-year playoff drought.
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The 90s: A Decade of "What Happened?"
The 1990s were rough. No, "rough" is too kind. It was a disaster. After Mike took over in 1991 following his father’s death, the Bengals became the laughingstock of the league. He fired Sam Wyche—the guy who took them to a Super Bowl—and hired Dave Shula. That didn't go well. Then came Akili Smith and the era of the "Bungals."
He was his own General Manager. Still is, technically. While other teams have massive scouting departments and analytics nerds with PhDs, Mike was often the final word on everything. This led to some truly bizarre records. In 2008, the Bengals became the team that took the longest to reach 100 wins under one owner. They also held the record for the fastest to 200 losses.
It was a period of stubbornness that would have broken most fans. But Mike didn't budge. He stayed in his seat, watched the losses pile up, and kept signing the checks.
The Turning Tide and the Burrow Effect
Something shifted about ten or fifteen years ago. It was "glacial," as some local reporters put it, but it happened. Mike started listening more. He gave Marvin Lewis a level of control that no previous coach had. He let his daughter, Katie Blackburn, and her husband, Troy, take over more of the day-to-day business side.
Suddenly, the Bengals weren't just the "cheap" team. They were the team that stuck by players like Adam "Pacman" Jones or Vontaze Burfict when the rest of the league wouldn't touch them. Mike has this weirdly intense loyalty to "his guys." He’s a Harvard Law grad who looks at a contract and sees a person, not just a cap hit.
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And then came Joe Burrow.
Watching Mike Brown hand a game ball to a local bartender after a big win in 2021 was... surreal. It was like seeing a statue come to life. The guy who was once the most hated man in Hamilton County was suddenly the architect of a Super Bowl contender.
The stadium finally got naming rights—becoming Paycor Stadium. They finally built that indoor practice facility. They finally started spending real, "aggressive" money on free agents to protect their franchise QB. The "New Bengals" look a lot like a modern NFL team, even if the guy at the top still wears the same coat he’s had since the Reagan administration.
Why It Matters Now
Mike Brown is 90 years old as of 2025. He’s seen the AFL-NFL merger, the rise of the pass-heavy era, and the transformation of the league into a global media behemoth. Through it all, he’s stayed in Cincinnati.
Think about that.
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While other owners were threatening to move to Vegas or LA, Mike stayed. He used some pretty hardball tactics to get the stadium deal in the late 90s—threatening to move to Baltimore—but he stayed. He’s a Cincinnatian. He cares about the "Queen City" in a way that a hedge fund owner from New York never could.
The Bengals are currently valued at around $4 billion to $5 billion. That’s a long way from the $7.5 million his father and his partners paid for the expansion franchise in 1968. Mike and his family have slowly bought out almost every other partner, owning nearly 97% of the team now. They aren't selling. Not now, probably not ever.
Actionable Insights for the Bengals Fan
If you're trying to understand the future of this franchise under Mike Brown and eventually his heirs, keep these things in mind:
- Look at the Family Tree: Don't expect a big "Sale" announcement. Katie Blackburn is the heir apparent. She’s already running most of the show. The "family business" model is the blueprint for the next thirty years.
- The "Bengals Way" is Consistency: They don't fire coaches every two years. If you're a coach in Cincinnati, you have job security that's unheard of in the NFL. They value stability over "shiny object" hires.
- Follow the Cash, Not the Hype: When the Bengals spend, they spend on their own. Watch the extensions for guys like Ja'Marr Chase. That’s where the money goes. They’d rather pay "their guys" than win a bidding war for a 30-year-old mercenary.
- The Stadium Battle is Coming: The lease on Paycor Stadium is a big topic. Expect the Browns to be tough negotiators. It’s not because they’re "cheap," but because they view the stadium as the lifeblood of the family’s wealth.
Mike Brown isn't going to change his spots this late in the game. He’s still going to be the guy who values a handshake and a player who works hard over a fancy marketing campaign. You might not like his methods, but you can’t argue with the fact that he’s kept professional football in Cincinnati for over half a century. In a league of transients, there’s something kind of respectable about that.