Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Kontak
Ted Turner was born in Ohio.
And may I ad that Jim Backus, AKA Thurston Howell III, was also.  |
Thurston Howell III was, admittedly a smart guy, but...
Despite owning just 10 percent of the team at its inception, Paul Brown utilized profits to buy out minority owners during the franchise’s early years. Then in 1983, he sold 117 of his 118 shares to investor John Sawyer (while still retaining control of the team), with the proviso that Mike and Pete Brown could buy back all of Sawyer’s shares for $25,000 apiece as early as March 1, 1993. The deal also called for the Bengals to funnel all of the team’s profits from 1984 to 1993 (a total of $66 million) to its shareholders—which meant Sawyer and Knowlton got most of that money. Ten years later, when the magic date rolled around, the Brown family purchased 329 of Sawyer’s 330 shares for just over $8 million—less than a quarter of their value at the time—and assumed majority ownership. In 2011, according to Forbes, the Browns paid $200 million in cash to Dutch Knowlton’s estate for his 30 percent stake, giving the family more than 500 of the 586 franchise shares.
Two decades after his father’s death, Mike Brown ensured that what happened to his father would never happen to the family again. It was the epitome of family loyalty, the quintessential example of a son’s willingness to fulfill his father’s utmost desire, even if it perpetuated the team’s failure on the field. Still, it paid off. In August, Forbes calculated the franchise value of the Cincinnati Bengals at $990 million.