Our defending champion of two decades of being the “MASN’spaliner” for Nestor and Baltimore Orioles and Washington Natonals fans, Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports helps piece together the future of new media money for MLB and life after Peter Angelos for David Rubenstein and the future of the city, Camden Yards and the baseball franchise.
Nestor Aparicio and Eric Fisher discuss the financial settlement between the Orioles and Nationals, which saw the Orioles stop fighting a 20-year legal battle. The Nationals were owed around $300 million, held in escrow, which they received. Fisher explains the broader implications of the media rights changes, including the league’s plan to pool local and national rights for better revenue. They also touch on the Orioles’ financial situation, the need for a more aggressive approach from new owner John Angelos, and the challenges faced by smaller market teams like the Orioles and the potential relocation of the Tampa Bay Rays.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Orioles, MLB, media rights, Rubenstein, Nationals, MASN, revenue generation, payroll, ownership, media disruption, local markets, national rights, player contracts, stadium issues, Tampa Bay Rays.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Eric Fisher
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. We are taking the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. We’re going to be at Pizza John’s in Essex on Friday. And all you East siders, you don’t know how good pizza Johns is. This is your chance. Come on over on Friday. Get the match gate ball. Luke Jones to be with us, the great Dave shining of The Washington Post will be talking some baseball. And as we get into this sort of March Madness lull period after the NFL free agency, and who knows, maybe the end of democracy as we know it, we’re going to turn our Lonely eyes where everyone turns their Lonely eyes baseball. We got opening day next week, we will be in Toronto, Luke and I, I was told by Rick Emmett from triumph to take my Canada hat and shine up my passport, so we’re going to do Opening Day Baseball north of the border. This guy has been back and forth with me for the better part of two decades, first at Sports Business Journal, now in front office sports. He is sort of kind of local and that he spent a long time at the Washington Times in and around Orioles, Masson nationals and all things media with the ML baby. Welcome back our defending champion from front office for me. Welcome Eric Fisher back on, Eric, I you know now that this whole mass and holy war is over with I know you thought he’s not going to call me anymore, to even come on trying to dissect all of these hundreds of millions I’d
Eric Fisher 01:25
always hear from you, here
Nestor Aparicio 01:26
I am, and here I am. Um, what? First off, welcome, happy baseball. All that the end of the mass in war, right? It was a 19 year war. I mean, I think Afghanistan only asked it a little bit longer,
Eric Fisher 01:39
right? Really. I mean, when you go back to the original vote in late 2004 to relocate the expos, this really is pretty much 20 years on the button. We’re coming up on 20 years to the day of the first nationals game. So yeah, this is really gone a full two decades.
Nestor Aparicio 01:56
I have pictures of me and my wife that day at RFK Stadium, when they gave the little coin out the first pitch and all that, has it been 20 years for the next and they still literally never got paid their money like, until what? And I don’t even know what the deal was two weeks ago, when the orange proof of smoke came out of the warehouse and, you know, out of Park Avenue, it really is kind of amazing. Can you for the Baltimore people, maybe explain how this worked from the national side? Because I’ll be honest with you, the Angelos family and their lawyers had the Baltimore Sun people and reporters twisted up that there are fans here who somehow think Angelo’s even got screwed upon death, and it’s just not true. All the screwing happened here Peter Angelos was the pitcher, not the catcher in this case, over the last 20 years. Yeah.
Eric Fisher 02:50
So essentially, what happened to end this is the Orioles, under the new ownership, decided to stop fighting. And there’s a couple of big reasons why he decided to stop fighting this sort of the the real roots of this go back to a 2019 court decision in New York Supreme Court that affirmed an internal MLB ruling favoring the Nationals. The die was cast legally at that point that essentially asserting, as you’re sort of detailing, that the nationals were getting screwed and they were owed money and everything. Since then, that was for like, the first five year term in question. Since then, there’s been a agreements on a second and a third that have sort of gone off that original template that was laid down in 2019 so that’s number one. Number two is the whole media business is completely changing. Everything is getting disintermediated with cord cutting, and the whole business is changing. And the the cable industry, that was the foundation of this whole thing 20 years ago no longer exists. And so you have new owner who came in a year ago, looked at that road map and said, we’ve already lost the war, and the battlefield has completely changed. Why are we still fighting? And sort of came to a pretty logical decision to stop fighting.
Nestor Aparicio 04:12
What did that mean? Financially? Because it was you and I have been at this further than anybody else. Me and you. Marty Conway, handful, the people that knew stuff, that really stayed in on it. It felt to me like from the very beginning. It was 10s of millions early on that massen was really restricting the flow of money to both organizations controlled by Peter. Peter was tourniqueting his own baseball team and the Nationals by cutting them off of what was 10s of millions of dollars. Every
Eric Fisher 04:45
Delta was about 100 million for the first five year term, and then again, the second and the third agreements really sort of went off of that. So roughly speaking, we’re talking about maybe a Delta of 300 million above and beyond. And what they were, what the nationals were getting. But beyond that, it’s the freedom. Because the Nationals had been constricted all this time. They couldn’t look for another partner. They were contractually tied to this mass and arrangement. And that’s really the biggest thing beyond the money is really the biggest thing here is that the nationals have now have the ability to do anything with anybody as they so see fit.
Nestor Aparicio 05:25
Did Rubenstein have to write a $300 million check or something? I mean, you don’t just clap your hands and say, let’s make it go away. I mean, I don’t think the Lerner family felt like, No, it’s not going away. I mean,
Eric Fisher 05:36
this has been held in escrow before, so no,
Nestor Aparicio 05:40
so, so Rubenstein did not have to write a check. As far as you
Eric Fisher 05:43
know. Well, I think for the for this last term, I’d have to double check some of the time frames, but for the original time frame, because, again, we were sort of going back to fighting over, like the 2006 to 2011 time time period that money had been put in escrow by and it was
Nestor Aparicio 05:59
escrowed, I understand. So a long time ago, keep it. The money got escrowed, and now it got distributed to the national Correct, correct, correct. But nothing for the Orioles, right? I mean, there’s, there was no windfall for Mr. Rubenstein,
Eric Fisher 06:14
no beyond, beyond the fact that he now has extensively, 100% of this. RSN unto himself. I mean, because there’s still, you know that, much like the Nationals, can do whatever they want, the Orioles have mass and they were the majority owner to begin with. Now they have this thing to themselves after this year, and they can do whatever they want to
Nestor Aparicio 06:39
Eric Fisher is here. He’s trying to help us understand. He’s a front office sports. They cover sports in the business of sports, better than anybody in the world. You can check them out. You can check out Eric’s work. So for let’s go back to school for everybody out here, because part of this, for me, is the notion that the the media rights, everything’s changing. Rubenstein has come into this thing. What do you think Rob Manford believes this is going to be once it matures in three to five years, for all of the former RSNs and for all the media coverage outside of yes network and Nestor and the handful of places where entities may be able to survive financially and make it financially. What’s the model going to be? Do they even know?
Eric Fisher 07:26
Well, they’re trying to figure it out. And you’ve really kind of hit on the magic question here, and really the the key focus of where this is going. We obviously talked about the entire industry being kind of disintermediated, but what Manfred in the league want to do come 2028 when their current rights deals on a national level are all up, they’d like to pool as much of the local rights as possible and sell it all together in a package much more akin to what the NFL has done, or even what the NBA has done, and sort of completely recalibrate the inventory, because for decades, literally, there’s been a bunch of games that have been held by the teams for their own local business, and then there’s been a small handful of games for this national distribution. The idea is to take that sandbox and completely mix it around and sell entirely different packages of inventory, mixing national and local, and ideally getting more net money in the process. But you’ve also hit on the real rub of the situation is that you’ve got big market teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers and the Cubs and so forth that are the Mets, that are Red Sox, that are quite happy with what they have, and don’t necessarily want to go to this radical new model. Well, the
Nestor Aparicio 08:44
radical new model will leave small market teams, and for our purposes, let’s just call the Orioles that at this point. And you know, I went out met Mr. Rubenstein back in November, and during his speech, he said that most and he doesn’t know much about baseball. Let’s start with that like, I mean, it’s very, very evident to me that one of the reasons they don’t want to put it next to me is he can’t talk about baseball. You know, he’s just not a baseball guy the way you and I are. But part of this is, what are the expectations? Luke and I got into a long non found drag out last week in regard to relief pitching and well, let’s go get Robertson. It’s 10 million, 8 million, 12 million. I’m like, they never talked like that around here, because to John Angelos and the Angelos family, eight and 10 and $12 million were eight and 10 and $12 million there is a feeling amongst billionaires that they come into this differently. I feel like spent a lot of money on this team. There’s a lot of debt service now. On this team, he was looking for partners. On this team, the media money’s dried up, and they had 10,000 empty seats for playoff games that were 12 bucks to get in. I keep wondering what the new people in baseball really think the. The revenue stream is, I mean, I remember 30 years ago with sky boxes, then it’s everyone in the state eight states is going to give $3 a month to Mr. Angelo’s for this cable thing. 21 years ago, when you and I started arguing about this, and now we’re at a point where, like, I’m scratching my head and saying, Well, I’m 56 and I love the Orioles more than anybody. How much would I be willing to pay for under 62 games? And how much would I be willing to pay if they’re going to screw me on the Friday night games and the Saturday afternoon games, they got to call Apple for them, and paramount for this, and Amazon for this. And like, there is a point here where I’m for the first time, and I’ve been on here 34 years. I don’t know how they can’t go backwards in revenue generation if they’re going to crowdfund, if they’re literally it’s going to be me giving them couple 100 bucks a year to watch the games, and maybe they give me a ticket or a pennant or a 10% discount in the bird land club or whatever. I just feel like they’re really restricting the access to the games themselves. I’m a guy that pays for mass in it on Friday night. I ain’t paying for Apple TV. I’m just not. So they’ve already pushed me away from whatever percentage of their games. I don’t think that they’re I haven’t heard anybody come at me, Eric with something that makes sense to me. Yet, I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but I am their customer. I am a guy that has a little bit of money that could buy it, that would be interested in it, and I’m asking how much in for what? And I don’t think they have sensible answers for me yet, that sensible in the way that what they’re charging us is going to add up the gunner Henderson getting a $52 million a year deal here five years from now?
Eric Fisher 11:41
Yeah, couple of things in there, I would say. First off, trying to find that big new revenue nut. That’s a hard thing. They’re all trying to figure that out. And your situation that you’ve described you, you’re essentially maxed out. You are. You’re a hardcore fan, and you sort of maxed out. I think what they’re trying to do is get more people coming the other way that may have just started coming in watching those Friday night Apple games, and then want to come in and get something closer to the type of consumption that you and I have, and trying to expand the field as go wider, as opposed to deeper.
Nestor Aparicio 12:18
What does that cost you and me in order just to get Friday night if they’re going to bang you on those things that and the NFL, that’s a, that’s a sports issue, right? It really is.
Eric Fisher 12:28
We have that issue here several times a year in New York, where the Yankees are on five different networks than five consecutive days. And like, what, what day is it? And What channel are they, you know, between yes and Amazon and ESPN and Fauci, you know, it just like, it’s just musical chairs of networks, and it’s hard to figure out. And so your point is, well, taken there. The other point, though, is there’s the revenue, but then there’s also kind of, the will and the acumen, and we’ve talked about this that, you know, we’re coming up on a year of Rubenstein, and I think it’s fair to say we would have liked to have seen a little bit more aggressiveness so far, and that hasn’t happened. And he’s not alone. There are plenty of other teams and plenty of other mid and smaller markets that have not been as aggressive as a lot of fans would have liked to have seen. And it’s it’s one thing to have the resources. But even teams like San Diego and Arizona that are not at the level of the Dodgers and the Yankees, they’re out there and they’re signing big people, and they’re trying, and they’re, you know, there are a handful of those kind of clubs that are not at that top tier, but you can’t question the effort, because they’re, they’re out there spending every bit that you think is there is coming in. And the problem is that the Orioles are sort of which side of that cut line are they on?
Nestor Aparicio 13:50
Well, I think we’re all judging that Right. Eric Fisher is here from front office sports. Luke and I got sideways about the relief pitching last week, because I said, Alright, so Rubenstein buys the team. He sits down with Mike Elias last year, and then they find Katie Griggs. They’re all going to sit in the room. They’re going to say, Okay, we bought the team for this. This is the debt service. It’s the reality. What’s our payroll really going to be? And this is a question for anybody that comes in and owns any business, anywhere, if you own a home, which are, what are our expenses? Then you say, Well, I don’t know. You know, we’ve only been spending 60 to 90 million on payroll. Well, you know, if we added 40% or 50% to that, we could get up to 131 40. They’re already up in the 150s and 160s right? They they’ve bought $18 million one year starters, 41 year old pitcher and Morton. They bought Sagano, really, rental properties for this year. They have almost nothing on the book for next year, but they have arbitration players and guys coming into their own. But the question is like, what does Rubenstein think of this from last year to this year? When they get together last year, says, well, the guy spent 60 million last year and then 90 million this year. All right, I’m good for a buck 20, Buck 30, Buck Buck six out. How deep are we going in, and how much do you understand about this to say, well, we’re putting this money in. Is it going to come back anytime soon? No, is it going to sell us more tick No. Is it going to sell us more sky boxes? No, it’s going to get us more cables. No, like I, that is a really different kind of business when you’ve been a bean counter, in some cases, the funeral business, the old folks home business, where the markups and the margins are 20, 3040, 50% and you put all of this money in and you make calls out to try to get all your buddies to give 25, and $50 million for shares that essentially wind up being you wear the hot dog suit. You get a good seat for the game. The minority ownership class of baseball is a season ticket, basically in a skybox like I don’t know what the real plan is here, and they have been, you think they’ve been glacial about how they’re I don’t know if I have a press credential next week in Toronto. I’m still under review in year 41 and I have not seen changes on the field off you. I don’t know how fast it’s supposed to happen. Here’s the dead a year now, like so literally, can’t blame him anymore. John’s not here anymore. Get it. And I’m wondering, like, where is the real leadership on what they have here, which is a really nice young team, that they should be out 53 weeks a year, beating the band for trying to get people down to the game. Eric, I live here, they’ve been invisible the last five months. Like as an organization, they’ve been invisible,
Eric Fisher 16:37
yeah, and when he came in, I thought they were a perfect candidate to go down the Atlanta Braves model, that you got a new owner coming in, fresh star, and try to lock in all this young core early, because they’re only getting more expensive. And I get your point about, like, what? What’s the revenue model? And this is part of why they want to nationalize the product more and get more national revenue coming in to give a little bit more backstop and security. But that expense side is only getting worse, and part of what makes the Braves The Braves is they went to all those guys like Acuna and so on, and locked them all up early at what could be considered below market rates. And this is a team with a lot of talent like the Orioles that ought be doing is locking in talent at what is going to be soon enough, below market rates.
Nestor Aparicio 17:30
Well, I keep saying, if you’re going to pay these guys, we’re going to pay the freight. I mean, they had a their biggest announcement of the whole off season, Eric, I swear. I i I live here. I breathe it. I feel it was when they announced their discount menu for $5 beers. And that’s nice, and that’s great. And I keep thinking, $5 beers aren’t buying Adley Rutgers and gunner Henderson down the line. I don’t know where this money is coming from in a, I don’t want to say dirt poor town, or whatever the poverty we would call ourselves here, especially we’re a blue state. So, you know, we got a bridge, and we can’t get rebuilt right now because of the creep that’s running the country. In addition to 5.3% of all federal employees are based in Maryland, and they’re cutting everything. In addition 800 million that he’s cut the hop. I mean, like the hits for our city are coming. And I don’t know where the point is, where those box seats with pads behind them that always see empty in Yankee Stadium, they’re empty. But everyone’s a $5,000 seat every day for the team, for whatever banks buying them in Wall Street or whatever. Well, they’re all we got that here, eating them, eating the food. That’s the other we ain’t got that here. I mean, we only have that kind of money here. And the Ravens got to it first, Bucha and his creeps over there, Sashi Brown and those, they got the money. Took their 600 million. They threw the media out of 50 yard line. They built this black bird wing where they’re going to charge people Country Club rate, sure they are. I don’t know who these people are. I’ve been here my whole life. I have not met these people that that have that kind of money, or these businesses that don’t exist anymore, primarily from DC that was funding the early parts of Camden Yards in the first 10 years of all those sky boxes. I’ve lived here my whole life. I don’t if I sat with Mr. Rubenstein, I would tell him all of this, but it’s not if I sat with Katie Griggs, I tell her, I just think, I think they’re a little delusional about what they are and what they have and what they think Bucha and Brooks Robinson represented for finances here, because they have a long way to go, and they’re not working hard enough. That’s, that’s what I keep saying. They’re not out doing the things, business wise, that they need to do in this market, 52 weeks a year to create the kind of buzz for opening day,
Eric Fisher 19:44
the hustle play. I completely agree. Also, they got to win some games, because your points about the ravens are well taken. But they also won two Super Bowls, and are in the mix every single year. The Orioles are are better now, but they’ve crapped out very quickly these last two Octobers. And. Uh, it this sort of combined with the with the payroll and the contract stuff we’re talking about, I think I’m not there. You’re there. But my sense is, on and off the field, people want to see a bigger statement that this team is going to win, and they are in it to win, and they are going to retain the people who got them those wins.
Nestor Aparicio 20:21
Eric Fisher is here. He speaks sense all the time at a front office sports. He covers the business of all of sports, but loves baseball. Specifically, we’ve had him on as one of our you know, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you now that the Madison thing that we have to come all, we have to come up with a new stick. You and me for this. I think part of the new shtick is the new owner and the new breed of owner. And the thought of, you know, I had your old buddy Kurt badenhausen on a couple weeks ago, and he talked about it being bought at a depressed level, at 1,000,000,008 and saying, where, you know the Forbes numbers of what the values of these franchises and all that stuff. And I know you play in that space big time as well. It feels to me, for a 74 year old guy that doesn’t like baseball, that wants to have bobble heads made of himself before he buys players that this is, this could be a short term flippy play. This could be, uh, I get the state’s money. I get this. Let me out of here, 3.2 billion. Put it to the next person, and here you go. And I had a good time for five years. I don’t know that to be true, but I don’t know that’s not to be true, and I remember what Eli Jacobs represented here and buying something depressed in with good players coming out that looks like a tax shelter in a lot of ways, and then you get all of this state revenue to fix the house up a little bit when you’re 74 years old. Don’t tell me you’re buying green bananas with a baseball franchise putting it on the 10 year plan. I can’t imagine that, dude, we have one in 42 years. Now I’m not on the 10 year plan. I’m on the October plan. Is what the plan I’m on right now. I
Eric Fisher 21:51
get it well, and your your point about, does he? Does he flip? That’s an interesting question, because I mentioned the national rights coming up. We’ve got another labor contract coming up in a couple of years, and potentially several other teams that are going to hit the market at some point, whether we talk maybe the Nationals, maybe the rays, maybe the angels, maybe the White Sox there is, there’s a situation that’s going to have to be managed as well, because you don’t want all of Those teams hitting the market at the same time, because that sort of depresses the field. So does it get to a situation where as these big schisms happen, these big changes happen and becomes a natural exit point for some of these other owners? Does Rubenstein, if the if, in fact, this is the route he’s even going? Does he have to sort of take a number here, because there’s four other teams that want to sell.
Nestor Aparicio 22:45
Well, I the argument that Luke and I had last week is if you’re not willing to buy a relief pitcher for ten million you’re not serious. And I’m thinking to myself, I’ve had Angela’s here for 31 years, like they were never, ever, ever, ever in a position to spend ten million on a relief pitcher, because the 10 million they spent on the relief pitchers hurt, and the starting pitcher, who’s their ace, can’t go, and they need help in this division. It will be interesting to see how far and deep they would be willing to reach on what feels like not a lot of money. I mean, you’re critical of them, Luke, I haven’t even been all that critical of them. I look down and say, If I as a businessman, if it was 95 million last year in 160 this million, I’ve done a lot, you know? I mean, I can’t pick one Mr. Rubenstein, in that way, it done nothing. But it does feel like it’s a little short of expectation. And I don’t even think they know what expectation is. But I keep going back to the last time we all gathered, and these last you and I didn’t gather since then, since the last time you and I gathered, they played playoff games here, two of them, and nobody came. They had 10,000 empty seats in their upper deck, and tickets were 10 bucks on seat. Geek the day of the game, and nobody wanted to go to the game that dude as a as an Aparicio, as a Baltimore guy, as a guy who built this place for baseball, to think that they could have 10,000 seats at a playoff baseball game in Baltimore with good weather on a Wednesday afternoon and tickets for 10, but not, not, not scalper prices. I’m talking 1012, bucks on my app. I could have clicked a button and gone down for 12 bucks and gone to the game.
Eric Fisher 24:24
And that speaks to vibe and belief and I, and that
Nestor Aparicio 24:26
is really I, that would have been unthinkable, Eric, if you would have said that to me at any point, I’d say, You’re nuts. When they make the playoffs, people will come for 10 bucks. They didn’t.
Eric Fisher 24:37
Yeah, and again, I think, and again, you’re there. I’m not, but my sense from afar is that they’re just, there’s still some pent up waiting in terms of, like, is this group really all in and all in in every sense of the word? And I, I think, to be fair, your team’s situation is better. Than several others around the league that I can cite, but not as good as it could be. And I think that’s the general point we’re making here, is that maybe that’s sort of the frustration that you’ve got this tremendous base of talent. It was a long road in the wilderness. You sort of came out the other side, but and you’re like to sort of mix baseball and for the football metaphor, you’re at the five yard line here. Just punch it in already.
Nestor Aparicio 25:24
Well, I think the punching in part is Angeles could still be alive, and he wouldn’t be here, and I don’t know, they certainly wouldn’t spend $160 million under the Angelos reign at the end. So whatever they are, they are in a better place, certainly, than they were, but I don’t know where they are. I don’t know the place that they think they’re in. And I know where the former Oakland A’s are. I sort of have a vibe as to where Tampa is. You’ve mentioned these depressed teams and sort of poverty franchises, in a lot of ways, angels, letting Shohei atani Get out the White Sox, sort of parentally being what they are, the weaker sisters. It feels like the Orioles have escaped that, you know, escape that toilet. But I don’t,
Eric Fisher 26:09
you’re not the Marlins. You’re not the Rockies. I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 26:11
well, they have a stadium too. I mean, you know, and they have $600 million to go into it. I hear all that, but the bottom part of baseball is really beyond fishy at this point with this athletics team just floating around, right?
Eric Fisher 26:24
Although Keep it. Keep an eye on the A’s, because what they’ve done on the field and some of these acquisitions, which they had to do in part through union pressure. But it’s a weaker division that A’s team is actually going to be pretty frisky. I think they’re going to be good this year, but where
Nestor Aparicio 26:41
are they going to wind up? Is the Vegas thing real, as you see it is that, because I’m always of the mindset, that once they put these things on the the drift, this is how Madison happened, right? I mean, they had a lame duck team. They didn’t know what to do with they played it for a minute in San Juan. They ran them all over the place. It feels a little bit like that, because this doesn’t feel like solid footing, even in Las Vegas as a third franchise going in, I
Eric Fisher 27:06
think we’re getting I think we’re getting close to it really being solid that there are a bunch of approvals with the local stadium authority. They’ve cleared the site. The old Tropicana resort is gone there. There was a new set of renderings. Take that for whatever it’s worth, but there’s assuming we get to a groundbreaking later this spring, which is supposed to happen, and we start actually seeing shovels in dirt. You know, we could be a matter of weeks from that sort of actually being real.
Nestor Aparicio 27:37
Major League Baseball. Have concerns about that. And then, obviously, what happened in Tampa with the roof, they’re, they’re playing in a, you know, a minor league. They
Eric Fisher 27:45
have way more concerns about Tampa right now than they do about the A’s, okay, so way,
Nestor Aparicio 27:50
and let’s, let’s discuss those concerns, because that certainly will affect the Orioles and at some point down the
Eric Fisher 27:54
line, yeah. So essentially, I think there’s a real sense of betrayal, because Rob Manfred personally went down and met with city administrators, county officials, and got those bonds last fall over the goal line. That wasn’t Stu Sternberg, that was Rob Manfred who made that happen, and this, this is me saying that that’s the county and the city, saying that, that we trust the league. We trust that the league wants to be here. Tampa is now. Tampa is actually still a growing market. It’s number 11 in the Nestor market. People are moving there. That’s where people are living there. There’s a lot of people. There’s something that could be done. Obviously, the the stadium’s on the wrong side of the bay, then he’d be on the right side of the bay. But that’s a whole other discussion. But that would also open up Orlando too. So yes, correct, yeah, correct. But I think there’s a real sense of betrayal on top of the whole mess of like, there’s a deal, there’s a not a deal, and there’s the hurricane, and there’s the obvious things, but the undercurrent, and why you’re hearing about this pressure for Sternberg to sell is that there’s a real sense of betrayal there, that there are people on his behalf that got this thing over the goal line and just say, oh, never mind. That’s not how you do this. Why
Nestor Aparicio 29:08
was he all, never mind, I don’t under what, what? What’s the option there move to Montreal? I mean, no,
Eric Fisher 29:13
the option is to dig into into his wallet and pay the the deal was that there was a $1.3 billion stadium plus cost overruns. The public sector was contributing 600 million, and then the rays were going to do 700 million plus overruns.
Nestor Aparicio 29:29
That’s a hell of a lot of money in Florida too. Let’s say 100% Yeah, to get
Eric Fisher 29:32
a it gets get essentially a 5050, deal. Not bad, so. But the problem is, is that what the rays say is the delays, the perceived delays in getting these bonds finally approved and ratified introduced additional cost overruns that they say they don’t have, that they cannot afford, and they want to reconstruct what that 5050, deal looks like, and basically make it more like once. 618, whatever the final number actually is, and share all of that number, as opposed to that extra chunk being 100% the responsibility of the raise. What the county is saying is that this is just a clear sign that Stu doesn’t have the money, and a Stu doesn’t have the money, you should sell to somebody who does, because if they do, this deal could be resurrected pretty quickly, alright,
Nestor Aparicio 30:20
so a new buyer would then usurp the deal keep the team in Tampa. The idea is not they think they have Albuquerque or Austin figured out, right? I mean,
Eric Fisher 30:30
so Orlando, who’s got Barry Larkin and a whole bunch of other people, they’re trying to make a play and that, and part of their pitch is this would allow the team to sort of stay in that same area and not have to redraw the territorial map. There’s a couple issues with the team leaving that immediate area. Not only do you Manford in the league doesn’t want to give away the number 11 media market, but anywhere else they would go, whether it be Charlotte, Nashville, Montreal, you name it, you have to redraw the territorial map. And when that whole national local media situation is also being redone, it complicates that whole scenario pretty extensively. And then what is, are you giving away a potential expansion market down the line that could be worth so much more to the owner? So there’s a lot of push to try to work it out in Tampa. Problem is it could very well require a new owner, Eric,
Nestor Aparicio 31:28
who does the the breakup of the media really hurt the most. I mean, I look, I’m in Sinclair Landia here, you know, within Breath of the Baltimore Sun ownership in Fox 45 and but all the RSM breakups and what happened in places like San Diego, Cincinnati, Cleve, the small, a lot of smaller markets,
Eric Fisher 31:48
what? Yeah, towns and clubs like yours. What’s going
Nestor Aparicio 31:53
to happen? It to to those free I mean, is there really going to be anything poppery happening in some of these places where the ownership doesn’t have Mr. Money Bags money that we have here with Rubenstein. Yeah,
Eric Fisher 32:04
again, that’s the real big existential question that Manfred and the other owners are trying to figure out, that if they can nationalize this media model and make it more viable for a town like yours and a club like yours to compete. I mean, they’re compete. They’re competitive right now because they they’ve done a good job rebuilding. And again, it required sucking for a lot of years to get this group of talent coalesced at the same time. But that, as you know, you’ve been around long enough that’s a transitory thing, and unless there’s a model in place, you’re going to have to start that cycle again at some point here in the not too distant future. And so the idea, again, is to create a structure that becomes more viable, more sustainable, because a town like yours is kind of at the tip of the spear here.
Nestor Aparicio 32:53
I got the headline and you just wrote the headline. Fix it, or we’ll suck again. All of you, right? I mean, that’s really the story if they don’t, if they don’t capture it now, it cost more later, and I guess that’s the point. We’re going to be talking about that all year long. Baseball, such a nice break from Justin Tucker and you know all of that going on here. Eric Fisher covers the business of sports. He’s been doing that for a long, long time, starting at the Washington Times up now at front office sports. You can find them out there. Find them anywhere that social media served, and always you’re my second st Bonaventure guy. I mean, the st Bonaventure media things everywhere, right? We are everywhere. Was like 2000 students. How can there be this many of you everywhere? So
Eric Fisher 33:37
it’s just, it’s an excellent school, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere in Western New York, and what you learn to do is, you know, the instruction was fantastic, and you really learn your craft, and you learn how to relate to people, and you also learn how to deal with some really harsh weather, and get a get some nice, thick skin about you. But yeah, we’ve been punching above our weight class for a very long time. And I’m very proud of my lineage. My daughter’s getting ready to graduate there now, and she’s coming out of the same program. And, you know, I’ve just got a lot of pride for the place.
Nestor Aparicio 34:13
Well, my dad’s birthday was last week. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1919, he’d always say, when I shoveled snow, you’re building character. Eric Fisher is here. It’s f, i, S, H, E, R, and Eric with a C. You can find him out at front office sports. You can find him at the front of Baltimore positive on the backside of this, if you’re hearing it on the radio, always a pleasure to have you on. I almost just want to wish you goodbye, because I can’t just call you anymore and say, All right, explain this massive thing to me, You’re the lawyer around here. But there’s gonna be a lot of explaining. It needs to be done for everyone, not just people like, like my mom when she was old. The game ain’t on tonight. I can’t find the game. Mom, it’s on mass in two. What is mass in two? Mom, just it’s channel 649, you know, put it on so. I just think that there’s a lot of that that goes on in baseball, and I for them. My last name is Aparicio. I keep telling these new people, I don’t hate you. I loved you. I fought with the old guy so you’d buy the team so we could get normalized again. Now normalizing, I mean, it feels simple to me, but we love baseball, and we’ve been at it a long time. Do you think do you have confidence you spend more time with Rob Manford than I have? Do you have confidence that they’re that they know what they’re doing? I mean, honestly, well,
Eric Fisher 35:30
to the extent that they can, I have a reasonable amount of confidence, but I have to sort of grade on the curve, because what we’re seeing, particularly with this, you know, kind of destruction of the traditional media model. Everybody’s kind of chasing a moving target. And if anybody claims they have it all figured out, they’re lying to you, because nobody does. And so I think they’re, I think they’re doing the best they can, but it, we had a situation for 40 plus years, since the advent of cable, that you sort of put the games on these pay stations, and then you get a you get a sort of a passive revenue model of people of money coming in, whether or not the the people watch the games or not.
Nestor Aparicio 36:15
That’s all. But the networks were lost leaders, too, in a lot of ways. They overpaid for a lot of things. The ESPN is backing off of that we could go into all the other sports like, I mean, just ESPN backing off of baseball, we could have started the whole thing with that and said, Well, they’ve lost confidence that it’s growing, that they could continue to make more money and that they’re going to front money, and then have to go find the advertisers. I know what that’s about. That’s been the story of my life for 34 years, fronting this and having to go find everyone who supports it, and whatever that price point is, I, I don’t think that they I’m worried that nothing they’ve said is made sense enough to me to say, Oh yeah, that’s going to get us to the point where the oil is going to be able to afford a $250 million a Year operation here on tickets, beer, soda, popcorn, streaming rights the games here, because it’s very easier. Put all your games into orioles.com sell it to me for $429 a year. Give me two tickets to this or that, and I’ve got it, and it goes everywhere I go and have a password. It’s just like every other password I have, except that that won’t make them enough money. They can’t. They cannot make enough money off of just the people subscribing on it, they would go out of business.
Eric Fisher 37:23
Yeah. And so that’s why the whole thing is being redefined in real time. And so that’s that’s why I say when you ask, Do I have confidence and would they know what they’re doing? I to the extent that they can figure it out? Because, again, it’s they’re all chasing a moving we’re all chasing a moving target. Yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 37:41
They haven’t explained it to me in a way that I could explain it to you, or you could explain it to me to say, Oh, I see their model where the NFL, I get their model. They’re gonna play games in Europe, they’re gonna play games, and they’re gonna just do what they do. Boy, baseball, to your point, hasn’t had to think much about this over 40 years, and now they have to think about it. I always love talking. I can go all day with you. One day, we’ll get a ball game together. Come in, get a crab cake Yankees Orioles, like a real thing now. So when you come down, we’re going to make it fun, but we don’t play
Eric Fisher 38:08
and look out for the Red Sox. They’re going to be much better that this year than they have been in several years. I think it’s going to be a much more wide open race in the division, especially with Cole hurt our way too. I think it’s going to be everybody in the mix?
Nestor Aparicio 38:23
Well, good. We need a good baseball season around here. We’re going to start it off on April 2. We’re going to be at Faith leagues and likes in the market before the aforementioned Red Sox appear in game two. We’ll have Marilyn lottery scratch also in the magic eight ball to give away. That is Wednesday, April 2. We’re going to be at Pizza Johns this Friday. Next Friday, I’m going to be in Toronto eating poutine, getting booed. We’re going to be skydome for opening day, and then again on Friday, Luke and I are heading north to Canada. I’ve got my passport out. Make sure you’re checking all of that out. We’re getting ready for football draft. We’re getting ready for lacrosse season. All sorts of things going on around here, including March Madness. I feel a little bit more mad. Eric Fisher, our defending champion. You can find him out at front office. Sports always pleasure to talk about the business of baseball, because that’s what’s going to fund this Oriole magic. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, D. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive. You.
