Opening day 2026 became Cincinnati's worst pitch | Opinion

There's no day more sacrosanct in Cincinnati than Opening Day. Hundreds of thousands of people descend on downtown, filling the streets with red and white. On this day, the Queen City reminds itself, and anyone watching, why it punches above its weight class as a sports and entertainment destination. March 26 was supposed to be that day again.

Cincinnati police instead had to close down The Banks by 8:30 p.m. SWAT officers advanced through crowds, as people were ordered to leave the city's premier entertainment district. The images and video footage of what followed spread quickly, and not in the way Cincinnati leaders would have liked.

I understand that what happened at The Banks was not just a response executed on the whim of some rogue interim police chief. Officers reported incidents involving chemical irritants, citizens using Tasers and skirmishes near Smale Park and Over-the-Rhine. Those are real concerns that law enforcement should absolutely respond to in a measured way, and that response can be difficult when dealing with crowds as big as Opening Day.

Cincinnati Reds fans navigate crime scene tape after police declared The Banks closed on Opening Day, March 26, 2026.

The cost of the optics

But difficulty is not the same as failure. Shutting down entire districts, deploying SWAT and issuing a citywide curfew raise serious questions about proportionality. No major acts of vandalism have been reported. The chaos that would justify that level of force was not on display. What was on display was a city reaching for its most aggressive tools at the first sign of friction.

These actions matter beyond Opening Day. Cincinnati has spent years positioning itself as a legitimate destination for marquee events. We watched FIFA snub Cincinnati as the host site for the 2026 World Cup, and the Sundance Film Festival did the same last year. We have nursed hopes of landing the NFL Draft, even as Pittsburgh prepares to host the football festivities in less than a month.

Every one of those conversations happens in the shadows of moments like what happened on March 26. Event planners and league officials do not evaluate cities on hotel capacity, world-class restaurants and entertainment spaces alone. They examine whether local leadership can manage a crowd without turning an entertainment district into a perimeter.

Leadership must match the moment

The frustrating part is that Cincinnati can do this. Opening Day has run, by and large, without major problems for decades. The infrastructure, spirit, and civic pride are all there. What’s missing is leadership that can ensure safety while also keeping the party going.

Cincinnati leaders owe residents and downtown businesses that look forward to and depend on events such as Opening Day a real accounting of what went wrong and what changes will take place before our next major event. Not a talking point in a press conference, but a full plan. This needs to happen to ensure Cincinnati can continue to be a destination for years to come.

Because the next time a major event is considering coming to Cincinnati, someone in that room will pull up footage from March 26. The question is: Will it be remembered as the night Cincinnati proved the critics right, or the moment the city finally got serious?

Wes Campbell, Oakley