Thursday, September 30, 1999
Reds' postseason could cost county
It must credit Bengals for lost seats
BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Cincinnati Reds' run at postseason play has hit most fans in the heart.
It will hit Hamilton County in the wallet.
After baseball season every year, the county installs about 3,600 additional seats in the end zones of Cinergy Field for the Bengals.
It takes about five days to assemble the seats, and three days to take them out.
The county has to give the Bengals a credit against the team's rent for every home game it plays without the seats in place.
In 1998, that credit totaled $155,000 for three games. The team's rent for those games was $473,000.
The actual credit for each game is based on a formula that calculates the cost of each seat and the number of seats the county failed to erect multiplied by the portion of stadium capacity filled for the game.
With the Reds closing in on their first trip to the postseason since 1995, stadium management officials can't commit to the eight-day process of assembling and removing the seats.
That means they won't be in place for Sunday's game against the St. Louis Rams, and they might not be in place for the Oct. 17 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Suzanne Burke, director of administrative services for the county, said a decision on whether to install the seats for the Oct. 17 game will be made next week.
“We need to wait and see what the Reds do,” Ms. Burke said.
There is, however, a possibility that the Steelers game will be moved to Pittsburgh if the Reds are in the playoffs.
“It's the nature of the beast,” said Howard Jackson, managing partner of Stadium Management Co., which manages Cinergy Field for the county.
The county could be facing a different kind of problem if the Reds finish the regular season in a first-place tie with the Houston Astros for the National League Central title — a time crunch.
A tie with the Astros would mean a one-game playoff, played at Cinergy Field on Monday at 2:05 p.m., to determine the NL Central champion. That means stadium officials would have to convert the stadium from its football configuration to baseball in about 22 hours.
Mr. Jackson said it's been done in 12 hours, but that's the record.
“It's very tough to do,” he said. “We assign our crews to tasks on a computerized schedule, and (bad) weather could be a stumbling block.
“But we've done it before.”
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