Cincinnati Sports: A Love Story Written Entirely in Tragedy
Let's get one thing straight before we begin. Cincinnati is a great city. It has chili that defies categorization, a skyline that photographs beautifully, and fans so loyal and passionate they should probably be studied by sports psychologists. And for decades, those fans have been rewarded for their loyalty by watching their teams find entirely new and creative ways to lose.
We are talking about dropped balls, shattered knees on the second play of playoff games, personal foul penalties with 22 seconds left and a lead in hand, and a Super Bowl that slipped away courtesy of a questionable holding call. If Hollywood pitched this script, it would be rejected for being too on the nose.
So let's talk about it. The curse, the culprits, and the company Cincinnati keeps in the grand fraternity of cities that sports history seems to enjoy tormenting.
First, the Curse: What Exactly Are We Dealing With?
The official lore traces Cincinnati's modern misfortune back to one August evening in 1989, when Pete Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent ban from MLB for betting on games. It was the moment Cincinnati lost its greatest player, its greatest symbol, and apparently its luck for the next three and a half decades.
The "Pete Rose Curse" is the tidy explanation. But the Bengals have their own mythology running parallel, courtesy of a January 1991 playoff game when Bengals linebacker Kevin Walker tackled Los Angeles Raiders running back Bo Jackson, dislocating his hip and ending his football career. That game was the first of eight consecutive postseason losses for Cincinnati, and the Curse of Bo Jackson was born.
Two curses. One city. Zero championships since 1990.
The Greatest Hits (Or Misses, Rather)
You want a timeline? Buckle up.
In 1965, the Reds traded Frank Robinson to the Baltimore Orioles. Robinson then won the Triple Crown and the MVP award in his very first season with Baltimore. Cincinnati fans watched from home.
In 1972, the Big Red Machine, one of the most talented rosters in baseball history, lost Game 7 of the World Series at home to the Oakland A's. The score was 3-2. Home field. Game 7. The Reds lost by a run.
On January 8, 2006, the Bengals finally ended a 14-year playoff drought with a home Wild Card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. On the second offensive play of the game, Steelers defensive tackle Kimo Von Oelhoffen rolled into Carson Palmer's knee. Palmer had torn his ACL, MCL, meniscus, and dislocated his kneecap. The Bengals lost 31-17. The Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl.
In 2013, the Reds were favored in a winner-take-all playoff game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Starter Johnny Cueto composed himself on the mound, wiped his brow, and then dropped the baseball. The resulting home run swung the momentum entirely. Pittsburgh won. The moment earned its own section on Wikipedia's Pittsburgh Sports Lore page. They titled it "The Drop Heard 'Round the World." Cincinnati was not consulted on the name.
January 9, 2016 gave us what may be the single most painful moment in the franchise's history. The Bengals, trailing the Steelers by 15 points, mounted a miraculous fourth-quarter comeback and took a 16-15 lead with 22 seconds left. Then, linebacker Vontaze Burfict hit a defenseless Antonio Brown over the middle and drew a 15-yard penalty. Then, cornerback Adam Jones got in the face of Steelers assistant coach Joey Porter and drew another 15-yard penalty. Chris Boswell kicked a 35-yard field goal to win the game. Steelers coach Marvin Lewis went to 0-7 in the postseason. Cincinnati went home.
And then there was Super Bowl LVI. February 13, 2022. The Bengals, led by Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase, held a 20-16 lead in the fourth quarter of their first Super Bowl appearance since 1989. The Rams scored late. A holding penalty on linebacker Logan Wilson that gave the Rams a reprieve on what should have been fourth-and-goal from the 8-yard line will reportedly be discussed at Cincinnati dinner tables until the sun goes cold. Final score: 23-20, Rams. Three times in that Super Bowl run, Burrow was within one possession of a championship. The city got none of them.
Misery Loves Company: Other Cities That Know the Feeling
Before Cincinnati fans spiral too deep into their own despair, it is worth acknowledging that the city is part of a proud and woeful tradition of American sports suffering.
Cleveland held the title of most cursed sports city in America for a long time, and with good reason. The Cleveland sports curse stretched 52 years without a major championship, from 1964 to 2016, during which the city's teams combined for 147 seasons without a title. The Drive. The Fumble. The Shot. The Decision. Cleveland checked every box. The 2016 Cavaliers, down 3-1 in the NBA Finals, finally broke it. Cleveland exhaled. The rest of Ohio kept holding its breath.
Buffalo has been at this since 1901. The Buffalo Sports Curse traces back to the assassination of President William McKinley at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, the same year the city lost its shot at an American League baseball franchise. The Bills went to four consecutive Super Bowls in the early 1990s and lost all four. That is a specific kind of agony that no other fan base in NFL history has experienced.
Boston had the Curse of the Bambino, stemming from the 1919-20 sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees, after which the Red Sox went 86 years without a World Series title while the Yankees won 26. Chicago Cubs fans endured 108 years under the Billy Goat Curse, placed by a tavern owner whose goat was ejected from Wrigley Field in 1945. Detroit Lions fans have been suffering under the supposed curse of Bobby Layne since 1958. The Lions have never appeared in a Super Bowl.
So yes, Cincinnati has company. The fraternity is large. The dues are paid in heartbreak.
The Uncomfortable Truth: Is It Actually a Curse?
Here is where things get a little less fun and a little more honest. The curse explanation is satisfying. It gives Cincinnati fans a villain that cannot be fired, sued, or voted out. The problem is that a more straightforward explanation exists, and it lives in the front office.
On the Bengals side, Mike Brown's ownership has been criticized for decades for refusing to hire a general manager, running football operations himself despite a long record of poor decisions, and ranking second on Yahoo Sports' list of worst NFL owners in 2009. He is one of only two NFL owners who hold GM-level powers over their team, the other being Jerry Jones in Dallas. Brown collected a general manager bonus every year since taking over in 1991, during a stretch that included some of the worst football in franchise history.
Former NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith put it plainly in a public appearance: if an owner is going to operate on a tight budget, they need to be smart enough to play Moneyball. A cheap owner who is also a poor evaluator of talent is, in Smith's words, a horrendous combination that only generational talent can hope to overcome.
The Bengals' brief Super Bowl window with Burrow and Chase proved Smith's point exactly. Generational talent got them to the Super Bowl. The supporting infrastructure around that talent could not sustain the run. Since the 2022 Super Bowl, the Bengals have missed the playoffs entirely, while the Rams have accumulated three playoff wins in the same span.
Over at Great American Ball Park, the Reds have their own version of this story. The Castellini family purchased the franchise in 2006 with promises to bring championship baseball back to Cincinnati. Since then, the Reds have not advanced past the first round of the playoffs. In 2022, team president Phil Castellini responded to angry fans by asking, "Where are you going to go?" and suggesting the only way to make the franchise more competitive would be to move it out of Cincinnati. He later apologized. The fans did not fully accept it.
The curse is real in the hearts of the people who have lived through all of this. But the root cause has a name, an office, and a salary.
The Verdict: A City That Deserves Better
Cincinnati is not uniquely unlucky. Buffalo lost four straight Super Bowls. Cleveland went 52 years. Boston waited 86. The curse narrative is a coping mechanism, and an understandable one. When your quarterback gets his knee destroyed on the second play of his first playoff game, you need something to explain it that goes beyond football.
What separates Cincinnati from cities that have broken their curses is not the intensity of the suffering. Cleveland got its Cavaliers title. Boston got its Red Sox. Chicago got its Cubs. Those moments happened because ownership invested, management made sound decisions, and talent was surrounded by structure that could sustain success.
Cincinnati still has Joe Burrow. It still has Ja'Marr Chase. It still has a fan base that shows up with a loyalty that borders on irrational given the evidence. The question is whether the front offices surrounding that loyalty will finally give those fans something that lasts longer than a single magical playoff run.
Until then, the curse lives on. And Cincinnati fans, bless every single one of them, will keep watching.