Paul Brown Stadium is a football stadium located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the home of the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League. It opened on August 19, 2000. Bucking a recent trend, the city decided against selling the naming rights of the new stadium to a large corporation and named it after coaching legend Paul Brown, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who founded not only the Bengals in 1966, but also the Cleveland Browns in 1946.
In 1996, Hamilton County voters passed a one-half percent sales tax increase to fund the building of two new facilities for both the Bengals and the Major League Baseball Cincinnati Reds. Previously, the Bengals and the Reds shared occupancy of Riverfront Stadium/Cinergy Field, but both teams complained that the aging multipurpose facility lacked modern amenities and other things necessary for small market teams to survive.
Paul Brown Stadium was built first. After the Bengals moved into Paul Brown Stadium a large section of Cinergy Field was removed and the field was sodded with natural grass. The partial demolition was done to facilitate the construction of the Reds' Great American Ball Park. Paul Brown Stadium is located on approximately 22 acres (89,000 m²) of land and has a listed capacity of 65,535. The Bengals are the sole tenant. They played their first regular season game in Paul Brown Stadium against their intrastate rivals, the Cleveland Browns; the very first game in the facility was a pre-season game against the Chicago Bears.
Paul Brown Stadium also houses the Bengals' administrative offices and training facilities. In addition, there are three smaller practice fields nearby. Two are sodded with natural grass while the third is equipped with FieldTurf.
As a convenience for fans, for a nominal fee, several local busing companies offer round trip transportation to Paul Brown Stadium from designated locations throughout the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. One such example is the Cincinnati Metro's Jungle-to-Jungle Express, which originates at Jungle Jim's International Market in Fairfield, a suburb of Cincinnati.