I’m not overly fond of the Cincy Enquirer these days due to their lack of UC Bearcats coverage and over coverage of Xavier/UL/OSU/UK/Mineaswell cover UM, OU, UD, and UT with this logic BUT today Doc did a great thing and gave us a glimpse into what working with Manager of the Bank Ray Harris is like. Shockingly, it looks sucky.
original article here
“I think they didn’t want to play downtown. We made it really clear we’d do virtually anything for them.’’
Cincinnati athletic director Mike Bohn disagreed: “It was a transaction with them, not a partnership.’’ Bohn and Harris also disagreed on what constitutes reasonable rent. Harris said U.S. Bank’s ask was “minimal.’’ Bohn said NKU’s ask was far less.
Harris also suggested that “certain factions’’ didn’t want to take UC basketball downtown because fans might see how much nicer it was on the river, and not be happy with the renovations uptown at Fifth Third Arena. “Maybe if they were used to coming downtown, they wouldn’t like their options’’ on campus, Harris said.
Here is the deal, the company that owns US Bank is The Nederlander group, and they don’t want to put a cent into the building. They would rather UC do it. They have always been trying to push us to dump hundreds of millions into an arena we do not own or would not even be primary tenants of. Instead of trying to keep a good relationship with us, they torched it last year. So now that UC has a bit of money to spend while we rent an arena , they think they can come crawling back to us with their pee arena? No. That isn’t how business works. Ray has the nerve to even go on the offensive here and call out our non-existent beautiful arena. Listen, Ray, UC has poured millions into the Clifton Neighborhood and I realize you probably don’t get up there often since your own arena is perfect, but Clifton is great. The new 5/3 arena should absolutely TERRIFY you, because between the Fraction, Cintas, BB&T, and I would imagine the Nutter Center, you are going to be starving for events. It’s a pity that a building on our beautiful riverfront has to rot like this, but it isn’t UC’s fault. The owners have plenty of money and could easily bring it up to normal human standards but they just want to whine and blame UC for this. Fine, but UC should never play there again. You dug your grave US Bank and you’re about to lie in it. If UC was adding a Hockey rink to our new arena you bet your ass we could steal the Cyclones from you too.
