BY GEOFF HOBSON
and ANNE MICHAUD
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The Reds threatened a lawsuit Friday if they don't get a new stadium on the riverfront.

''If they don't treat us equally with the Bengals, I see a lawsuit coming,'' said Reds General Manager Jim Bowden.

''I think that's the next step in the process. We're doing our homework on that right now ... We want a site west of the Roebling Bridge. If that doesn't happen, we could move to Northern Kentucky or Indianapolis.''

Mr. Bowden's threat of a lawsuit is based on the so-called equal treatment clause in the Reds' lease that binds the club to Cinergy Field until 2010.

The clause says that the stadium's co-tenant - the Bengals - shall not get any lease terms more favorable than the Reds do. The Reds say the lease was broken when the city, the former landlord, gave the Bengals more financial subsidies and a way out early. The county disputes that.

Triggering the threat was the agreement announced Thursday between the county and the Bengals to locate a $180 million football stadium between Central Avenue and Elm Street on the riverfront.

The site that both teams wanted just west of the Roebling Suspension Bridge is being left open for other development, county officials said Thursday. The Bengals are discussing with the county a written agreement that no other stadium could be built between theirs and the Suspension Bridge.

Commissioners Bob Bedinghaus and John Dowlin said the idea that the Reds have been treated unfairly compared to the Bengals is ludicrous.

''They started out on an even foot,'' Mr. Dowlin said. ''We said, 'The first one through (negotiations) gets the best choice.' They (Reds) did not negotiate very actively, and if there is a best choice on the riverfront, they caused it not to be theirs by their own inaction.''

Mr. Dowlin, who favors a baseball stadium at Broadway Commons, said the county is prepared to negotiate with the Reds.

''Time has been their enemy, and the professional planners have been their enemy, and the Coliseum deal has been their enemy,'' he said.

The Coliseum was sold this week and will be refurbished, making it less likely that the site could be used for a baseball park.

Mayor Roxanne Qualls said there wasn't much value in the Reds' public posturing.

''Locating the football facility was successful because none of the parties negotiated through the media,'' said Ms. Qualls.

Turfway Park owner Jerry Carroll, who has been linked in the past to Reds president Marge Schott's hints about moving the team to Kentucky, said there are no plans for a new baseball stadium in Northern Kentucky.

''I haven't spoken to Marge since Christmas, and I don't know what she means about the possibility of moving the Reds to Kentucky,'' Mr. Carroll said. ''But I am certain that there will be no baseball stadium in Northern Kentucky.''

Mr. Carroll has talked with Mrs. Schott in the past about the feasibility of a baseball stadium in the area of Turfway Park.

''I don't think taxpayers in Hamilton County would think much of paying all those tax dollars and having a Reds stadium in Kentucky,'' he said. ''I also don't see the kind of financing (in Kentucky) that would be needed. I'm not aware that state officials have ever even been approached.''

Mr. Bowden's statement came a day after Reds' principal owner Marge Schott told The Enquirer she might move the team to Northern Kentucky if she can't get her team a stadium on the river.

''I feel 81 games is quite a big thing in this city,'' Mrs. Schott said. ''There's no reason they can't build a 45,000-seat stadium (on the river).''

The county hasn't ruled it out. Along with Broadway Commons, it is considering the Coliseum site, a renovated Cinergy Field and a spot wedged between the Coliseum and Cinergy.

Robert Starkey, Major League Baseball's stadium consultant who is a member of the Reds' negotiating team with Hamilton County, said the Kentucky side of the river is an option.

''Everything is in play until you have a lease,'' Mr. Starkey said.

National League vice president Katy Feeney said it is her interpretation of Major League Baseball rules that the Reds are allowed to move to bordering counties within their ''circuit,'' without needing approval from other club owners: Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont in Ohio; Boone, Campbell and Kenton in Kentucky; and Franklin and Dearborn in Indiana.

Moving to Indianapolis, where the Reds have a minor-league team, would need the consent of other club owners.

Indianapolis might not be a fruitful place for the Reds. Patrick Early, president of the town's Capital Improvements Board, said, ''We're a small market, too, and we have our hands full just keeping the (NFL) Colts and (NBA) Pacers.'' Reached in Milwaukee Friday night, Acting Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said he had yet to review Mrs. Schott's remarks.

''It's up to the club where the park goes,'' said Mr. Selig.

A new stadium lease has to be approved by the NL and the Commissioner's office, no matter where the facility is. Plus, Mrs. Schott's two-year suspension from MLB stipulates she can consult in stadium negotiations, but Managing Executive John Allen has the final say as well as the authority to sign the lease.

If Mr. Allen and Mrs. Schott can't agree on a lease, the dispute is to be brokered by NL President Leonard S. Coleman Jr.

The Reds' threats of leaving echo similar warnings before taxpayers approved a half-cent increase in the county sales tax to finance stadiums.

In fact, teams' threats to pack up and move are often effective, said Marc Ganis, president of SportsCorp Ltd. in Chicago, which advises both teams and cities.

''Usually the end result is the team gets close to what it wanted in its home territory and it doesn't actually have to move,'' he said.

But the Reds situation is different in that they could end up without a taxpayer-supported deal like that in Hamilton County.

''It's not a very credible threat,'' Mr. Ganis said. ''You'd have to be completely irrational to give up a fully taxpayer-subsidized stadium within 30 miles of where you might be looking. The market doesn't change that much, and you'd have to reinvent the wheel.''

Commissioner Bedinghaus agreed.

''If these facilities could be built privately, they would already be built,'' he said. ''I don't see any other public entity standing up with $250 million in their pocket.''

John Fay, Terry Flynn and Laura Goldberg contributed to this report.

REDS ARE READY TO PLAY HARDBALL

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SCHOTT THREATENS TO MOVE IF REDS AREN'T ON RIVER Feb. 14, 1997