Bill Cole and Nestor discuss the WNST Service and the history of breaking sports news in Baltimore. And when and how it’ll be soon be returning and better than ever…
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, oyster, roofing, company, thought, tech, crab cake, luke, orioles, ravens, game, baseball team, service, text, baseball, mako, fried oyster, nestor, sell, roof
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Bill Cole
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
I welcome home. We are W n s t tassel, Baltimore and Baltimore positive. It has been a while since I visited with my next guest, but we get and we got breaking news delivered by the W n s t tech service that’s coming back. But more than that, we have the Gold Rush $7 and I need everybody to come out and get these. I’m wearing my fade Lee shirt. If you missed the show on Friday the 23rd you’ll have another opportunity on the sixth of September to join me down at fadelies in Lexington market, cheatstros in this week. And then we have the last place teams coming in Labor Day. But do we have Orioles action? And we’re going to be doing this incredible oyster tour that I can’t wait for. You know, who would they say? He was a a courageous man who ate his first oyster. So I’m going to be eating 26 oysters in 26 days, 26 ways around the bay. All sorts of people have been hitting me back. Want to have an oyster with me. So I’m excited about that. It’s all brought to you by friends at Liberty pure solutions. Because they keep my water clean, they can keep your water clean. The oysters keep the bay water clean, and liberty pure is going to be a part of that. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care, keeping Luke out on the road from training camp to Camden Yards. Camden Yards training camp while I’m banned and this guy’s own roofs, even though it’s been very pleasant for late August, the roof things happening. Bill Cole and I got together for the first time this summer at Mako in Ocean City. And when I said, Mako, like, Chris Pike is like double A MC, no, no, no, no, no. Different kind of Mako. Bill Cole was Cole roofing. He is my try to explain this to people out on the bay in fagers Island. I said he’s my own Slee. And everybody that had seen, you know, the the movie with the Nero got it. But how are you man? Welcome back from the beach and what is Mako? You will tell people what Mako is, because that’s the, you know, that was the question of the week,
Bill Cole 02:05
yes. So thank you. Good to be here. I have missed you and this, no, you do.
02:10
I No, really,
Bill Cole 02:11
I do. I enjoy our time. I do want, I do want to clarify one thing. I think that that quote about the courageous person eating an oyster. I think that’s completely wrong, like that person was starving, like it wasn’t about courage, it was about surviving. And then afterwards they were like, Oh, well, you know, I survived, so we can continue to eat these. And then it moved on, you’re
Nestor Aparicio 02:36
an oyster. Guy, like you’re a deviled egg. Guy, hold on, like you’re a devil that guy, I send you funny deviled eggs. Every time Marcella puts deviled eggs with the little the little bacon on top over there, you know, pork, I send it over to you, oysters. Are you? Are you in? Are you out on oysters? Yeah, no.
Bill Cole 02:55
I mean, I think that oysters tend to be not too different from crabs in terms of, like, eating a crab experience is not just about eating the crab, right? It’s the it’s the operation, it’s the company, it’s the sunshine, the cold, you know, like, it’s a it’s an event. I think my
Nestor Aparicio 03:15
wife says it about clambakes. We don’t have those here, but that’s what they do up there, right? Yeah. So
Bill Cole 03:20
I think oysters are similar. Like, in April you go to that first, like, charity bull and oyster roast, and it’s like, sunny out and it’s warm and it’s like the first time, and the the terrible you’re
Nestor Aparicio 03:35
not getting my point. My point is you only eat them one way around. You eat them with the cocktail sauce and the lemon, right? Like, that’s a bowling oyster roast. Way to eat away. I’ve eaten oysters that way for 50 years. I’m trying to open my mind of like, I never order the oyster stew as an example at Costas, which comes in the special bowl made by the bread bowl guys. And like, so there’s a million different ways to eat. And yes, you know, it’s always this is the problem, and this really would happen with the crab cake thing. It falls down the menu, and once it falls to like, three or four down the menu, and I only go to your restaurant once or twice a year. I never tried the Clams Casino because I don’t like clams that much. It might be the best Clams Casino ever, but I’m getting the crab cake, the crab ball, the steak, the chicken, the fajita, the chicken tender, the chicken wing, the nacho, like it’s just I’m not getting that item on the menu. And I felt that way about oysters for a long time, and that’s why I’m sort of doing this next month. I
Bill Cole 04:34
think that my changing or opening of my mind around oysters was ending up in New Orleans, oh yeah, and going in like Acme, and sitting there, and you’re like, wait, wait a second, what is this? This is the oyster. What is this thing? This is great,
Nestor Aparicio 04:54
yeah, so and listen and listen, I just gave you two ways to eat them. And the thing that really. Sparked me was fade lease and plug the Damian, whom I love as well. I mean, all my crab cake people are freaking best, you know that, right? So Dami brought me a fried oyster. It might have been in your presence. I mean, you’ve been down there enough in the old place, maybe about a year ago, she brought me fried oysters because I said something out loud, like, I don’t try new things, or like, you know, whatever. And she brought it over. It was breaded, and it was like, right out of the acne Oyster House. And it turns out that Costas has fried shrimp that are exact same recipe at the Acme Oyster House. And it took me till I was 52 years old to figure this out. Like, and now, when I go over Costas, I never get a crab cake. I’m off the crab Imperial. I just get fried shrimp. So I get into these things, like, you know, go to Cocos and get that Coco the coconut shrimp with the raspberry. It’s unbelievable. So I’m at fatally, she brings me the fried oyster. And I’m like, my god, this is all. This is, like, fried chicken, you know? I’m like, This is really good. And I’m like, what? Okay, so, like, that began this whole journey to do this thing. And they really are from the oyster recovery partnership, trying to educate people about the shells, the the recovery, how they oxygenate the bay, how we pitch it back, crab prices. We don’t have enough crabs that these are the they are the the filtration system for the Chesapeake Bay. And I want to educate people about that, really. And that’s a
Bill Cole 06:20
fun I think it’s great. No, I think it’s great. I mean, I love oyster stew, if done right back in the day. This is like early ravens days when they first moved downtown, we used to tailgate back in the neighborhood, you know, far away, and I don’t know, usually a mid November game. One of my buddy’s dads used to do a pot, you know, the size of whatever, a large dog.
Nestor Aparicio 06:44
I can smell it. I know what those parking lots smelled like. I mean, that was something down there, right? That? And
Bill Cole 06:52
then, yes, fried oysters. I Yeah, I’m with you. Man, I’m excited. I will hear
Nestor Aparicio 06:58
things like I there’s three places in Hamden, three that are, don’t look at their menu, and you’d be like, never thought of putting that. And I’m going to go over there and try that. And then you look and you’re like, oh, they have a kebab of this, and a wing of that, and a cucumber that, and a, you know, whatever. And I’m like, Alright, we’re going to eat out in September. So September’s going to be a big month around here. Um, Bill, we have breaking news here, a couple things. There’s a lot happening. I’ve been doing a lot of writing. Can I just you and everybody you know off in September, but, and I, I don’t apologize, I mean, but I just, sir, fair warning ahead of time that I’m going to be chippy in September.
Bill Cole 07:39
Okay, I want to land that last segment with, don’t sleep well in Baltimore, as a foodie town like people don’t. People don’t realize that, and it’s really good. And when people come to town, if you take them to the right spots, and people want to get it, you know, explore. There’s some amazing stuff going on in town around the food. So just wanted to lay I wanted to lay on that for us.
Nestor Aparicio 08:04
Well, I don’t want to make you too hungry, but I’m like going through all these mini and net sauces and onions. And there’s a place in Ocean City, and I it’s a place I’ve never eaten in, but I want to, and mohlers Tell me about it all the time that they do this tequila lime. Okay, sold, you know, let’s go. There’s oyster shooters, you know. So every day I’m going to do it a different way, and it’s going to be fun. So I’m doing my declaration, I gotta say, Declaration of Independence in around Labor Day with, you know, my one ballpark reporter running back and forth from baseball to football, very unfairly, very unfair, very unfair. Um, but nonetheless, I’ll be writing about that. And what
Bill Cole 08:52
was that? A Trump impression that you just said, Yes. Um, you’ve been practicing.
Nestor Aparicio 09:00
I’m practicing to make it go away in November, hopefully, so keep it on Saturday night. Live where it belongs, but the cafe part of the media. And I’m going to get to that with you with I had Cardin and Van Hollen on this week talking about journalists and the safety journalism being the most dangerous job in the world by both of their measures, of US senators to say that out loud and about like, what’s going on with truth and all that. So we’ll get to that. But big breaking news is that we’ve had a tech service here from the beginning of time. And I want to tell the story out loud, because everybody’s asked me about this right from the beach every day on email for the last month and a half, we haven’t had the tech service. You’re familiar with this, right? You you get the text, of course. Okay, so you’re one of the people that asked me about it, and so we have breaking news here, even though I broke your mug, and I don’t have a cold roofing mug here, and I don’t know that I have a cold roofing. Anything in my office here to hold up, to give you the love, but you have decided to take over sponsorship from Dennis and coons Ford of the tech service. I want to explain as the CEO front facing, because I always accuse sa Brown and accused Katie Griggs of being anything other than from out of town, and other than I’m very hopeful for what she could do for the Orioles, and I’ll be writing a letter to her next month too. Um, that I would, I wouldn’t be front facing about the tech service. Tell the whole story, because I don’t think I’ve told it on the air at all, but I’ve told it to a few people the last few weeks because I’m trying to put it back together. Um, what do you know about the W, N, S, T, tech service now that you are the presenting sponsor of it? What
Bill Cole 10:40
do I know now? Or what do you what do you want me to make up as the story that I thought all along, I always thought. I always thought Nestor was in the basement, like just typing out these messages to us, and it was coming straight from you to me, because somebody called you with top secret information. That’s what I always thought.
Nestor Aparicio 10:57
What, of course, come on, dude, you’re K Fabe. Now, this is in mass, and you’re not Kevin Brown. You can say whatever you want.
11:07
No, I, I
Bill Cole 11:08
mean, I would say that. I never really thought about it too much, but I, I did notice, you know, that it was always I would I’m going to say first, but that’s probably not entirely fair. But it was always like, ahead of the curve, right? And, you know, you can be sitting at the office and get the text and, like, holler down the hallway, Hey, man, you know. So that was, it was always fun, but it it’s harder for me to stay connected to the sports teams these days, right? Like there’s just a lot of stuff in the way, and when I have time to listen, or I’m listening to podcasts or books or whatever, so I’m not as connected to the sports teams. But I still like to know, and I still I hate, I hate how uneducated about the Orioles I am, like,
12:09
I wish
Bill Cole 12:10
I knew them better, like I used to know the guys of my you know, younger days, but at least I would know who’s on the DL Right, or I would know who our draft pick was, or I would know somebody getting promoted. You know, my wife
Nestor Aparicio 12:26
got flipping with me two days ago when the effluent thing happened and and I said, Evelyn’s on the DL. You don’t know that? She’s like, I’ve been working all day, and I didn’t get my W N, S T text. And I’m like, Alright, I’m going to talk to Cole about sponsoring this. That’s pretty much
Bill Cole 12:44
so, I mean, I just think it’s, it’s one of those things that you sort of take for granted, because it has been hitting my phone for so long and
Nestor Aparicio 12:52
two decades. It’s like, that’s a lot of, I mean, I don’t know how many texts we sent that. I probably should go get the math from my old company, because all of it’s digitized. I I have your phone number, I have your numbers all of you. I have all of your phone number. And, you know, the one thing for me is total, you know, no K Fabe at all. It was brought to me by someone you may know in the Doyle family, if anybody knows the Doyle family, one of the Doyle brothers was out in San Francisco running a company called M snap back in 2000 and dude, I want to say it was five or six. It was before Facebook. It was like, when my kid was the only one texting me with a little envelope in the corner of my flip phone, and I’m like, don’t I will never text with you when you want me. You call me like a normal person and you interact with me. Remember the first time Kevin Byrne, I answered a text in His presence. He was infuriated at the disrespect I could possibly show for being in communication with my with Ray at the station about perhaps breaking news that I was going to whisper to you and 10,000 other people in the tech service, right? So in 2005 six, our general manager came to me and said, I have this guy. He’s connected to your doctor, Doyle. And it did Tim and you know? Danny, yeah, do you want to, like, what would we do with the tech service? And I’m like, annoy the hell out of me the way my kid does. And and then I thought, like, why would I? I would this was at the point where, like, I ain’t giving you my phone number, right? This is at the point where I’m, like, giving somebody your phone number is, like, really personal, like, beyond. I can’t think of anything more personal in 2005 or six than giving someone your phone number, like, your personal number, right, right? That where you’re going to call me and ring my my flip phone, my Blackberry at three in the morning, like phone number, like, I’m not. Given that to a marketing company, a mark marketing guy like Nestor, that genius or idiot from Dundalk, depending on what they think I am, right? And we’re all trying to data mine during this era and like, get people on our our newsletter, which people that got the newspaper every morning from us free of charge. I’m still the only non paywall guy in the history of history of Baltimore, no one’s ever paid for my media. And some would say it’s not worth it anyway. But we don’t have a paywall here, and I see that with the banner and the sun and Baltimore Business Journal. God bless them all. God bless all of your business models. But the paywall thing, there’s a reason they call it a wall. It puts a wall up, not not, not a reach. It’s a wall like that
Bill Cole 15:44
wall, but nonetheless, come back to that. We’ll
Nestor Aparicio 15:46
come back. That’s fine. It’s a business model. Has to happen, right? So the tech service comes to me and I’m like, what if I’m asking you for your phone number, what am I going to send you that makes it worth you signing up, giving you $100 off a cold roof to give you free crab cake at one of my spot. Like, I, you know, taking your phone numbers personal and like, I was anti spam. So I guess it’s my long way of saying, like, the biggest thing for me is I was never going to sell your phone number spam. You out. Have you on some 900 gambler phone thing back in the day where Jim Feist is going to be hitting you for picks. Like I wasn’t going to do any of that, and I never did. And I think the thing I’m proudest of beyond just crushing it with breaking news, and by the way, when you hear it in the future, hear Luke’s voice, because he’s the one doing it. I was the one originally doing it. You’re like, the third person that said to me, you do know when that comes in, I hear it in your voice, right? And I’m like, That’s really weird, dude. To me, that’s, that’s some weird ish, but nonetheless, so this came to me years ago, and I’ll be really frank with you. Coons Ford security Boulevard bought it from day one as a sponsorship piece. I never sold it. I never they never asked me, How many were on it at zenith, how many were on it in the end? But here’s what really happened. You ready? You’ll pre Imma have I need a drink of coffee for this, because, like you run a business. Guess what happened to a digital company in 2006 that I was associated with called M snap. Guess what happened to that company since then?
Bill Cole 17:24
Well, I’m I’m assuming that you didn’t buy them, but, and I don’t think Google bought them, but someone maybe bought them. Maybe acquired,
Nestor Aparicio 17:33
acquired would be it was acquisition. So they were acquired, and then reacquired, and then reacquired, and it was a company in Europe, and then a company United States, a company states and company. And now they, they’re like, done, right? So they went out of business, but gave their business to this third party, other business that I had to go find in the last 60 days, around the Fourth of July, and say, what did we then understand that? And they’re trying to sell me on the contesting part and the part where CO roofing sponsors, your feedback, wnsg, text your greatest thoughts to us, and we’ll put them on our website, and you’ll win a $25 cool roofing big gift cook. So like, Dude, I’ve been doing radio 33 years. I can play that game all day. And I’m like, I don’t know. That’s what I’m looking to do, I’m looking to send my text out. So nonetheless, coons Ford was acquired last year. They’re no longer a wnst sponsor. I’m looking for some wheels. Anybody got wheels? Glen Burnie, let’s go. So I don’t have a sponsor for the tech service the last six months, but we provided the tech service, and they literally shut the doors, and they’re shutting the doors. Email went into my spam trap, like in late June, around the Fourth of July, I figured out, like, Hmm, and then I started making calls, and then I started doing cost, and then I started thinking this, and then I started thinking that. And I really want to do an app which you’re aware of, and I’ve just decided, You know what, we’re just going to reinstitute the tech service in time for football season, and I’m going to call my buddy Bill Cole and maybe he’ll sponsor.
Bill Cole 19:09
Yeah, it was a really hard sell. I mean, we went round and round negotiating for hours. I mean, I actually, I’m still picking sand out of my ears because we wrestled on the beach in Ocean City about it, and
Nestor Aparicio 19:24
was that figures?
Bill Cole 19:26
No, it was the other first
19:27
place. Oh, 75 Yeah, or
Bill Cole 19:32
be whatever. Shout
Nestor Aparicio 19:34
out to big fall. There you go. Yeah. No,
Bill Cole 19:37
I’m excited. You know, tech service has been a part of my mobile phone experience since probably close to the beginning.
Nestor Aparicio 19:47
My wife is beat me up about it, about Oriole transactions, I got, we got to figure this out. So I appreciate you. You know I do.
Bill Cole 19:56
At one point you were asking about how long and how many? Right? And I remember, like, switching phones at one point, and I’m, I’m, like, trying to clean up all the stuff, and I never deleted your texts. And I was kind
Nestor Aparicio 20:11
of writing, what I’m going to do is I’m going to tell my favorite text service stories right in like, like, because I have lots of them, because honestly, when my company got really good, when I knew Mike and this would speak to our entrepreneurial spirit and what you sponsored here, and me kidding around half the time, but also running a business that’s very, very serious in what I do, especially in breaking news, there ain’t nobody more serious than wnst and missing it makes people want it. And we’re going to reengage it. Here’s one of the real problems, Bill, I stopped bragging about it, because once it fell into like a European place bought it, the short code stopped working for it, and I could no longer add people to it, and therefore I couldn’t promote it, right? So I could never add from it, and people would fall off because their carrier would go away. And I had no way to connect them, because I had no way to reach these people. So nonetheless, that was all during the plague, let’s say, right. So the I guess, the full circle story is, I have all of these stories of being somewhere when my company got great, where I was on vacation, somewhere, driving along and finding out that the Ravens got Anquan bolded. Like, you know what I mean, like, I was literally in front of the Arizona dome, and Casey Willet, our reporter got it first about the Anquan Boldin thing, whatever, 2009 1011, whatever it was. I was out there for spring training in the NFL owners minis, and my company broke it first, right that when Ozzie Newsome had a health scare in Chicago, and we broke the news that Peter King read it on Sunday night football, you know what I mean? Like, so, you know, I have a proud history, but I want to bring it back, but I want to do it the right way. And with this new company, we’re going to be able to do that with your sponsorship, gratitude for that, we’ll probably make some memories again, where somebody’s on a boat or on a plane, or like, Oh my god. Wnst reported what, what happened to who and how and when. We’ve been pretty good at that. I think we’ve been, here’s why it matters. Yeah, here’s why. Credit to Luke, by the way, not to me that is,
Bill Cole 22:28
here’s what, here’s why it matters. Uh, March 12, 2020, 3:11pm, Major League Baseball cancels rest of spring training, delays start a regular season by at least two weeks due to coronavirus, same day, hour and a half later, NCAA has canceled men’s and women’s basketball tournament and all spring championships due to coronavirus. Orioles outfielder first baseman Trey Mancini underwent successful surgery to have William tumor removed from Miss colon.
23:01
Same day, same day, or,
Bill Cole 23:02
I’m sorry, next day. You know, franchise tag and Pro Bowl match. Hang
Nestor Aparicio 23:07
on a second here. What maybe the contest? The first contest we do with this new fancy schmancy company with their fancy schmancy tech service thing, and I’m going to present this to my girl at the at the fancy schmancy tech service place, right? Um, the International fancy because they’re not in America, but they’re cool. Anyway, I like them anyway. How about this for a contest? You ready? Bill, where were you when you got the biggest wnst text you ever got? You were somewhere in line waiting for a sandwich, woke up, went to bed. They drafted Lamar Jackson. Luke has Luke could do an hour on breaking news that happens after 9:48pm because he’s old school Pennsylvania, Waltons goes to bed and thinks like, I can’t send a text after 10pm I don’t send text before 7am but stuff does happen in the middle of the night, like the bridge going down, and we were together when that happened at 312, in the morning. I woulda had it, you know, because Jessica sent it to me and her husband. Thank God for him. Was one of the divers. Like people talk to me, bro, I had, I had 222, senators, three congressmen and three county executives on last week. So where were you when you got to wnst tech service? I think that’s it, that that’s going to be my shtick to re engage. What do you think? Yeah,
Bill Cole 24:26
I mean, I like that, like, I don’t know. I’m going to tell
Nestor Aparicio 24:30
the Anita Mark story too in the cafeteria on liar’s luncheon day when I broke the breaking news on the schedule and seeing Dick Cass Anita marks everybody in the room reaching for their phone, and somebody flippantly said something to me last week at Mako, really flippantly, like you should write an ad that now your tech service is back, 1057, will get be able to get their
Bill Cole 24:57
news, yeah. How did he say that? I know who said that, but I’m not. I’m not going to throw them out of the bus right now,
25:03
but you were there.
Bill Cole 25:06
I was, it wasn’t me, but I was, I was standing there when we were throwing those lines around this person’s
Nestor Aparicio 25:11
on their third beer, and they’re like challenging me as nasty Nestor, that you’re not really nasty Nestor. Aparicio, think, look, I think there’s, by the way, it
Bill Cole 25:23
might still be too soon, because it doesn’t have the nostalgia that it will ultimately have, but I was just going through sort of like that early coronavirus, and then,
Nestor Aparicio 25:36
oh, I thought you were just not
Bill Cole 25:38
paying attention to me that spring into some I was listening spring into summer, and just the decisions, right and like, it’s, there’s an interesting story right there too. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 25:49
Luke will be happy to have been off the clock the last 60 days, but I know he’s pissed when he has Zach Eflin and knows he can get it to people, because we think that we were like journalists around here. So look, I’m going to be writing a lot about my business and the tech service and what the Orioles and the Ravens have done to me and my business by trying to exterminate me or delegitimize me, by not allowing me because I’ve been a bad boy. So I’ll be writing about all of that. Um, I just would say this. I talked to both Senator Van Hollen and card, and I don’t even know how I got to this, but they both did, like a real serious thing on journalism in my presence, about how serious it is when you start to neuter news and play K Fabe and sort of go along with what everybody else does. And one of the things that I think you love and hate about me, and one of the things I really respect about you is that, like, sometimes you’re a little weirdly independent now, you’re not conspiratorial in the way that, let’s say Aaron Rodgers is, and that’s a plug, because I had Ian O’Connor on. But you know, I think independent leads to sort of the UFO landing in Roswell, and we go down the rabbit hole in that, but also your kind of independence leads you to not believe either side and question both sides. Very, very and you always said in this I listen a lot of podcasts, listen a lot of news. Sometimes I think you get your mind polluted by a Joe Rogan or a Joe Rogan guest. But I also think you want to hear what they’re thinking to be able to question it. But a lot of people don’t question it. They gospel it. And that goes on for me too. I hope that my audience doesn’t gospel what I say that they actually do fact check me. Right on to the governor’s office, fact checking me. But in your case, this the independent part of fact checking and where we are in the cosmos of what we believe and what we don’t believe. Dude, the whole journalism thing is really falling apart in the country. And have senators talking to me about it, specifically as an FCC owner, a lifer journalist, or perceived by people outside of Greg Bader and Chad Steele to be a journalist. Everyone in my world views me as a journalist, you know, including the senators who sit with me because I’m a journalist, that’s why they’re sitting with me, right? So that’s and to have the baseball and football team professionally, I’m going to be writing about that, but that’s just in my own little ecosystem, and I found that now I’ll drop the mic and let you do whatever soliloquy, but I had Luke on and you know, Luke’s on the inside and doesn’t want to get thrown out after watching me get thrown out, right? So, like, he lives with that real fear, right? That they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. But you do know, they took 600 million of your money and my money, and I don’t know if you got the bid or not. Maybe you’re the one working on the roof. Who knows, but they took $600 million of our collective money, and they shrank the press box to throw people like me out, and they moved the press box up under the victory arches of David Modell and Roy summerhoff and Baker Koppelman, who always told me they were victory arches in the corners. That was the reason they get the corner. PSL, because you consider the victory Archer 750 instead of 500 and they moved the press box, the Kevin burn press box. This is on, I can’t believe I’m fogging up a glass and saying this out loud, I am banned from the Kevin burn press box that was built with our money and move and shrunk, and they had, like, they’ve moved the press up to the corner. So that’s the next step to moving them out. They’ve moved some of us out, right? And I’ll talk to Viviano about this two weeks now. But it’s kind of telling you know that that that undo itself is its own little you know, snowshaker of like, what they’re all trying to do is they become their own media companies.
Bill Cole 29:49
Well, that is 100% true. We’ve, we’ve talked on that many times. I mean, the web is, you know, massive on. And how these things connect across different parts of society and everything, but, yeah, I mean, I will not. I am a professional skeptic. So for better or worse, like ask my people sometimes that drives them crazy. But I you know the idea that they are such big businesses and the media, let’s go. We’ll, we’ll, sort of compartmentalize it the television, piece of media has become so fragmented with all the streaming and all this, you know that the world really is incentivizing them to create and control all of their own content, because that’s what they’re all paying for. You know, Netflix
Nestor Aparicio 30:57
quadrupled the price, I think, for the direct ticket on Sunday, right? And now the Orioles have pissed off everybody in their fan base, and Luke said this this week, and, and Luke’s not a, you know, like they never talk, I never talk money with Luke, or because, as much as they want him to sit with Sashi Brown, I’m the one qualified to do it, and he would point that out as well, right? But there’s a point for them where they’re trying to build their brand. And I’m writing letters to Katie Griggs, Mr. Rubenstein, the Whistler, Mr. Araghetti, all you know, all of them, for the future of the Orioles, and saying, if you’re not getting the money from coal roofing or from fadelies or me or business, I’m wearing, just showing the logos I’m wearing here, Royal farms, wise markets, my sponsors, Toyota, different people and fans aren’t coming, and they’re not coming right now. And like, I’m writing about that we’re coming on Bal this week, right? Like, $65 a month ago. All you want to go. Why aren’t we all going? Like, it’s like, last year there were 20,000 people there the night they clinched. And I thought it was kind of sad. And I thought, well, this is a barometer where it can grow too, but it needs to grow. And you know, all of this leads to, do you make your customers feel good or bad? And last week, and Luke said this, it’s like you get a bag of potato chips, and you’re charging more for it and putting more air in the potato chips and less chips, and that’s what they’re doing with their Birdland thing. Like charging more threatening the playoffs in the All Star game, like all of that, access to that and at whatever price they want. It’s kind of like the PSL when you buy it, whatever we decide to charge it, that’s, you know, you have the license. And then really chipping away at, like the cheaper beers and the sandwiches and I and the goods and the swag. And I’m thinking, I don’t, you know, Southwest Airlines has been doing that to me for years on companion path, and like now they’re going to do this. So, like all of these companies are doing this to compete, but when the baseball team does it to its core fans southwest, I’m not a fan of Southwest. I like Southwest. You and I have talked about that. I fly it. I’m an advocate. It’s a love mark. But it’s not like being a baseball or football fan, where when the prices go up and the value goes down, the people go away. And in the orders case, they’ve never come back. And I’m and I want them to come back, and at what price point they’re going to come back. I shudder for them to some degree, because I think their models messy. And I don’t mean that for these billionaires that are Mr. Rubens. I just like sitting behind home plate and having a good time, apparently, right? So he’s having a good time with his billion dollars. But I mean, just for what it is and what it means to the community and the access point to saying it’s affordable, and I’m going to go down there and really be a part of it. How often can I afford to be a part of it down there and have it in my house? And how much do I want to be involved? Boy, it feels shrinking to me, not growing in that way, in in the I’m all in, and going to give them my life the way me and Joe Enoch did. Well.
Bill Cole 34:02
I, I find it. I mean, look, I, I don’t know all the consequences of the baseball business, but like, I would have to have a contingent of interns giving me all the research around what would happen if we just eliminated weekday night games and only played Friday night, Saturday doubleheader, Sunday double, you know, I don’t know, whatever, and a Sunday game or something like that. Like,
Nestor Aparicio 34:31
stop you right there as the Commissioner, and to say that’s not baseball because of pitching and the way we play the game, way pitchers train, it’s not that’s just not the way we play the
Bill Cole 34:39
game. Well, I don’t really care about the game. None of this discussion is about the game. This is about making money. The game is not like you want to watch the game of baseball. Maybe go watch college baseball or go watch your local high school baseball team. Like, like, what we’re talking about is. How do we convince 45,000 people to come to that place in your background, 81 times a year? And it might just be the case that that is an unreasonable ask that is virtually impossible. There’s not, you know, I don’t know,
Nestor Aparicio 35:16
Oakland A’s have said that in the Bay Area, and the Expos quit, you know, I mean, and they’ve tried to quit on these communities and pit each other against each other, but Nashville, apparently doesn’t. In Charlotte, they don’t really want a baseball team that bad. Austin, they don’t want a team that bad. Portland, you know, these other places to that want teams. We have the team. We have the stadium. We have the best team we’ve ever had on the field. Bro, right, right. Why? Like, what’s the selling point now, other than they’re going to charge more for everything moving forward, and say, we’re going to give it all to Adley rutgersman, Gunner Anderson, because that’s really what we’re talking about. Man. You know, I remember one of the sweet sales people with the ravens, many, many years ago, the day that they signed McAllister, he got like, an incredible bonus. Was like $18 million or something at that time. And all of the sweet sales for the year for the Ravens were like 22 million. That was their whole revenue base. And it’s like, oh my God, every suite we sold, every game went just to put a cornerback on the team. That’s that’s where our model is. And I’m thinking, where’s the first 50 million coming from for rutschman holiday, whatever that superstar X Corbin burns next year? I don’t know. And if it’s Mr. Rubenstein saying I am 74 years old, I’ll put an extra 50 million a year into payroll. It’s going to come out the other end when I flip this thing for 3.2 billion, because you all gave me 600 million in civic money. He wants to sit and play those numbers games with me, straight up. He wants me to play K Fabe, like that MSNBC guy did a couple of months ago where I’m friends with Biden and friends with Trump. I had I’m but I’m not political. I bought the team to make money. We expect to make money, but it’s a philanthropy like that. Literally, that all happened in six minutes of Mister Rubinstein, I don’t know what their intentions are. Um, Katie Griggs is coming in here thinking she’s going to make money, and they’re going to fix this thing, and they’re going to do renovations, and they’re going to make more money and and I, I I wonder who and where and how that money is coming, and I’m going to wonder that until I see it, because the Ravens have done the same thing. They booted Luke’s ass out of the press box, me out of the stadium to move him to the Kevin Byrne press box up on the roof, um, that I get to sit outside. And know that I’ve been banned, know that they’re not on the up and up. Know that their integrity about media is not really on the up and up, and they’re sitting with $600 million to do something and build a club that most people are never going to get into. Like, literally, that’s what they did with the money. That’s been the perception on the streak. I mean, go right. Like, that’s what the Ravens did. Now, what are the Orioles going to do? And I don’t this is where Janet Marie better be involved in this. You know what I mean? Like, because she knows the city, she knows the people. She made it awesome the first time, right? So, like all of this, for the future of the city, you and I talk in Baltimore, positive man, the Ravens have done what they’ve done. They can win three Super Bowls, and they’ll be awesome. And we have championship games. We did that last year, and we’ve done that before, but the baseball team is the potentiality of 81 games as well as the Inner Harbor. And you know how we become Disney World? Again, I had Mac on for 30 minutes data Mako talking about the convention center. I mean, that’s the real glue holding it all together. But what they do with this baseball team in this very, very tender period of time where you have a new owner, big shots, billionaires, you know, great team, and a lot of money to try to reimagine it. Let’s go. Let’s go, man, let’s go. Let’s reimagine this for all of baseball the way they did 30 years ago, because it changed the sport the first time. Yeah,
Bill Cole 38:57
I don’t, I don’t have enough again. Like, there’s some questions that, if you were giving, if you gave me the opportunity to, like, dig in and learn some more. Like, there’s a considerable difference between a corporate buyer versus a private buyer of tickets, right? Like, like, the it’s not even fair to compare the two, and I don’t know how teams manage the difference between those two and recognize who is the larger percent of their customer base. You know, like if 75% of your customers is flowing through corporations and business entities, then that’s sort of the one that you’re targeting. And you and you build programs for if 75% is coming through private families, you know, like just people buying tickets, then that is a different model. And. So that’s also how
Nestor Aparicio 40:00
many people want your product and how many people can afford your product at both levels. I mean, Call Roofing may think it’s cool to have your name on the on the Alfea wall that cost this Call Roofing may think, Hey, give me eight seats in a suite six times a year. Let me figure out how to use it. What’s the cost of doing that versus taking all of your employees to Ocean City or whatever, or or doing a business thing in Las Vegas, or or having to do a convention in Chicago for your business, and how you do business, which they would say on the golf course up in the club level, because that was always the promise that these people sold was that it was better than a golf course, because you could sit there in a ball game and do business, and bring the wives and bring the kids and feel real nice about each other, and that we create that warmth that we always talk about at accelerant as a community, but people have to feel in line with that brand as well. I
40:51
yeah, I just think that when we debate
Bill Cole 40:56
progress of the teams or their management or the decisions they’re making, we need to clarify whether we are talking about average Joe fan or corporate buyer, because they have different profiles as customers, and we don’t really know what’s said inside the boardroom in regards to their sales strategies of how they’re going to sell this, or where they’re going next, or what the future of this holds. I mean, from a distance, without unpacking too much, I don’t really think that any of the professional sports organizations care at all about average Joe as a buyer, average Joe as an attendee, is a thing, but the ticket that they use is bought by some other enterprise, and that’s how they see. The majority of this going down the the majority of the dollars flowing through them are coming from other companies, other businesses, right? And and so it that it doesn’t necessarily translate to the person that uses the ticket, but that’s the person,
Nestor Aparicio 42:07
as a guy taking phone calls here, that executive x would have 50 tickets sitting in his desk at the end of the year, and they were $48 a piece. And he looked down and said, Oh my God, we ate $1,000 worth of tickets that we couldn’t give away. No one wanted these. In my company of 120 people, no one wanted to go to these games. Then why do we have these tickets? Right? And that’s that happened here a generation ago, and the Angelos people were so derelict about all of this and the optics of everything that became free the birds and everything sense free the birds and their petty nature with people like me and even banning their own broadcaster last year, you know what I mean like. So you don’t have to go real far to figure out how deeply you know jaded I am about all of this, but just in a general sense, to say, are you going to be transparent, or am I going to have to play K Fabe in order to be in your little fake Wonderland where your owner shows up and they make videos with Cal Ripken, like he’s running the place and he has a desk there and like, I like, I want to really know what’s going on. That’s what journalists do. And if you’re, if you’re transparent, you’d have no problem showing me around, because I have, because you should have nothing to do with Angelos and nor do I. All I’ve ever done is love the baseball team. I’ll continue to point that out. Definitely a wrestler. You know that? I know that the people know that. You know like, it’s true.
Bill Cole 43:38
I think that’s like more, leading back to that original comment of like, you know, I really just think 81 games is too many because, oh, geez, but
Nestor Aparicio 43:47
that’s a that’s a non starter, yeah, but
Bill Cole 43:50
okay, so guys, we’re eating tickets
Nestor Aparicio 43:55
on Wednesday night to more than 5000 people, and people come, but
Bill Cole 43:59
they don’t, but That’s what we’re talking about right now. We have, there is nothing to not like about the team. You know what I’m saying? Like, it’s not even like when we were good with Raphael Palmeiro and Robbie Alomar, like, like, there were still some people who were like, I don’t like, you know, I don’t like those guys, whatever they you know, there’s none of that. There is literally no reason not to love this team. And
44:25
seven days a week, you know, we can’t be a little and they hate me. They
Nestor Aparicio 44:31
hate me. The only people have made the new people hate me. They hate me so, but I love them, you know.
Bill Cole 44:38
But if we can’t, if we can’t fill the stadium in this environment, then what are we talking about?
Nestor Aparicio 44:46
If you can’t get me down there, who you getting? I guess I know you got roofs. What’s going on in the roofing world? You mean your people already sent me a thing, telling me my roof, and I think it’s time for me, and you need to talk me into it for. Sure,
Bill Cole 45:00
yeah, no. I just, yeah. That was a pretty smooth transition there Ness, I think we went from, you know, trying to sell out the ballpark to trying to fix your roof. Um, we’re big the big push right now is we’re going
Nestor Aparicio 45:14
to be trying to sell the ballpark for a long time. We’re not going to fix that. The
Bill Cole 45:18
big push right now is just all around preventative maintenance, like they, they’ve been pushing a promotion all summer for like, 500 bucks. You can get a inspection done, and then, you know, we kind of help you get set up to extend the life long term. And that, you know, falls that into the tech service
Nestor Aparicio 45:38
that the little you know what I mean when we send the tech service that brought to you by Cole Ruffin, cold roofing, coal roofing. Now offering, right? Here you go,
Bill Cole 45:46
right? That’s great. No. I mean, I like people, just nobody wants to buy a new roof. I get it. It’s not something that you get to use or even see. So let us come up with strategies to extend that life so that you don’t have to buy one. That’s that’s really the message right now, here’s
Nestor Aparicio 46:01
what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get my Raskin global crab claw, and I’m gonna strike the gavel and say, let it be done, that the wnst tech service returns. How about that? You
Bill Cole 46:11
good? Sound good to me.
Nestor Aparicio 46:13
I’m gonna cut a new commercial. He’s Bill Cole. I’m Nestor. We’ll get together and argue again soon. He’s out at the front of Baltimore positive. Let he if you own a company, own a corporate space, a corporate roof, let them get up there and take a look around, maybe even for that Gordian energy, solar as well. Back for more Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.
