is unacceptable, then we’ll consider that a badge of honor.
And we’ll consider the opinions of dissenters and out-of-town transplants given a press pass as worthless as a MASN press conference.
The death of William Donald Schaefer really hit home for me last week and gave me a reason to reflect and think about what WNST stands for and where our bar stands for excellence. Upon further review, we stand for virtually every premise Schaefer stood for – local, loyal, deeply provincial – and Baltimore always comes first. What’s good for the city is good for the state. And much like Schaefer became a target for abuse, I too, have detractors. If you want to piss someone off anywhere in life, just try to change something. Change – even for the better – is hard on everyone.
But I don’t just talk the talk. I walk the walk. I live at the Inner Harbor. I pay exorbitant city taxes. I’m completely committed and vested in the community as a business owner. I spend 90% of my life talking Baltimore business with Baltimore business owners and have committed to a new plan for my company in finding creative ways to stimulate commerce to grow my company and employ more Baltimoreans. From my front window, I have witnessed the economic depression downtown has felt since nearly three million people have avoided Camden Yards and don’t go to the Inner Harbor anymore to watch Orioles games on summer nights. That’s REAL damage. And if Willie Don were 30 years younger, I’d like to think that he would’ve been publicly at Angelos’ throat to fix this mess for the community.
But who knows? In this era when former Baltimore police commissioners from New York who are convicted felons not only come back as civic heroes but they’re converted into a morning radio personality and “star” by an out of town corporation, I’m not really sure of anything these days.
Maybe Schaefer would’ve been happy for the Democratic campaign contribution from Angelos and coughed and looked the other way – like virtually everyone in the current administration. But I’d like to think differently…
Meanwhile, our competitors who have split profits with Angelos for the past four years, have the audacity to brand themselves “The Fan,” but they are anything but homegrown “fans.” Their “stars” are all out-of-town broadcasters, or pairings of out-of-town broadcasters with former WNST employees, and their “journalists” spend as much time in social media and mobile trying to replace “All My Children” when the soap operas finally disappear as they do covering sports and disseminating real information, news or cogent analysis.
Our competitors are about everything BUT Baltimore sports fans — corporate entities designed to make as much money as possible and in any way possible. They’re not set up or designed to tell you the truth. They’re not designed to bring you an expert viewpoint, which comes from a lifetime of living local sports knowledge. They’re designed to make money, which in some cases suppresses the truth from a business standpoint.
When it’s convenient (re: profitable) to be in business with the Orioles or the Ravens, it’s all warm and cozy at corporate headquarters and the “journalists” on the air find no fault with the franchise no matter how poorly the performance is, on or off the field. But when the company is essentially fired or “released from the contract” or the “term runs out” involving the two local sports franchises, it becomes “Uncensored radio and “How the home team is screwing Baltimore.”
But I get it. I really do. We’ll never succumb to it.
And we’ll never be muted from telling you the truth, or sued into silence.
We’re doing some great work here at WNST.net and don’t plan to allow these “off the field” issues to quell our thirst for bringing you Baltimore’s most authentic and informative platform for sports conversation in our community.
If this is a “State of WNST” update, please allow me to drone on for a quick minute about Brian Billick and his involvement at WNST.net and what he stands for. (I’ll also plug that Brian is so community focused that he last night you could’ve still come out, shook his hand, taken a Facebook picture, asked a question at Padonia Station in Timonium as we did our Coors Light Post-Draught Chalk Talk with the one dude in town who sports the jewelry we’re all still chasing…)
More than three years ago, when Billick was released from his duties by the Ravens on New Year’s Eve 2007, I reached out to him about my dream and vision of what WNST.net could be in the era of the internet and mobile technology and how he could be involved. Brian’s only reason for becoming an investor and owner at WNST.net was
