Cincinnati — The Cincinnati Bengals will have new digs to begin the season.
The team debuted its new locker room on Tuesday, completing a huge project that began in January.
Longhorn Locker Co., which was contracted for the project, has remodeled locker rooms for teams ranging from the Dallas Cowboys to Longview High School, one of Texas’ most prestigious programs.
Though the materials and looks change from team to team in football, the basic technology remains same. Coaches share the same philosophy at all levels, from grassroots to professional.
“They want to cater to how they run their programs,” Sam Allen, the company’s founder, told ESPN. “They want the locker room to match their culture.”
The functional upgrades to the dressing room should not be disregarded among Cincinnati’s restorations. Each locker features equipment for drying helmets, gloves, and gear overnight, which was formerly done at Paycor Stadium’s loading dock during the summer months.
According to James Weiss, vice president of sales at Longhorn Locker, the Bengals receive approximately 240 cubic feet of airflow each minute to cool their shoulder pads.
The Bengals were long overdue for a new locker room.
When the NFLPA released its study of all 32 NFL teams earlier this year, Cincinnati received a D+ for their locker rooms. The survey identified a dearth of charging connections for electronic devices at each locker. That was fixed in the new space. Each locker contains
Elizabeth Blackburn, the Bengals’ director of strategy and engagement, stated that player feedback surpassed the survey results.
“It’s really more about the day-to-day conversations that our coaches and football [operations] staff have in person with the players,” Blackburn said at a press conference on Tuesday. “So we’ve got a really good pulse on it.”
Before Cincinnati’s new locker room was finished, the squad was divided among several auxiliary locker rooms during offseason workouts and training camp.
Now, the entire roster is back in the same area.
Coaches and players were overjoyed with the upgrades.
“The more we continue to invest in stuff like this, the more comfortable the players are going to be,” quarterback Joe Burrow told the team’s website. “We are going to enjoy coming into work. I’m pretty pleased with it. It is quite an advance. Credit goes to ownership for bringing this all together.
