We knew inviting our old journalist-turned-communications pro Greg Abel would involve a walk down “Free The Birds” memory lane but Nestor did not bring him to Koco’s Pub on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to talk about the past but instead to question the future of the Orioles brand and Baltimore sports media and marketing with a lifer chronicler and fan of Charm City glory.
Nestor J. Aparicio and Greg Abel discuss the Orioles brand and Baltimore community engagement. Nestor highlights his Maryland crab cake tour and his positive outlook on Baltimore. Greg praises Nestor’s pivot from sports to celebrating Baltimore. They debate the Orioles’ marketing strategies, emphasizing the need for authentic community engagement. Greg mentions his firm’s work with the Baltimore School for the Arts and the importance of inclusive events. They also discuss the challenges of sports marketing, the impact of technology on fan engagement, and the necessity of winning to re-engage fans. Nestor criticizes the Orioles’ current marketing efforts and calls for more authentic community outreach.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Text Mark Fine (Orioles) to do something nice for Ed Lauer, who is a big Orioles fan and recently had a heart transplant.
- [ ] Call Mark Fine (Orioles) in January to help promote the Baltimore School for the Arts’ Expressions fundraiser in February.
Maryland Lottery and Personal Updates
- Nestor J. Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Maryland lottery and GBMC, and shares a personal anecdote about his upcoming colonoscopy.
- Nestor talks about his Maryland crab cake tour, including his plans to visit Coco’s and Pizza John’s.
- Nestor mentions his excitement about bringing first-timers to Coco’s and introduces Greg Abel, a local marketing PR firm owner.
- Greg Abel shares his excitement about visiting Coco’s for the first time and introduces Nancy Longo from Pierpoint, a long-time friend.
Discussion on Brand and Community Engagement
- Nestor and Greg discuss the evolution of Nestor’s brand from sports to celebrating Baltimore.
- Greg praises Nestor’s pivot to celebrating Baltimore and mentions the importance of talking to people and staying refreshed with diverse interests.
- Nestor shares his experience speaking to an Italian charity group and the importance of sports in bringing people together.
- Greg and Nestor discuss the role of sports in family gatherings and the communal aspect of sports.
Impact of Sports on Community and Culture
- Nestor and Greg talk about the role of sports in bringing people together, regardless of race or gender.
- Greg shares his personal experience of attending sports events with his family and the communal aspect of sports.
- Nestor and Greg discuss the importance of sports in creating a sense of community and the impact of sports on culture and film.
- Nestor shares his thoughts on the World Series and the role of sports as live drama on television.
Challenges and Opportunities in Sports Marketing
- Nestor and Greg discuss the challenges and opportunities in sports marketing, including the importance of authenticity and community engagement.
- Greg shares his experience working with the Baltimore School for the Arts and the importance of highlighting the programs they offer.
- Nestor and Greg discuss the role of social media and technology in sports marketing and the importance of storytelling in sports.
- Nestor shares his thoughts on the Orioles and Ravens marketing efforts and the need for authenticity and community engagement.
Personal Stories and Reflections on Sports
- Nestor and Greg share personal stories about their experiences with sports, including attending games and the impact of sports on their lives.
- Nestor shares his experience of attending the World Series in Toronto and the challenges of finding the game on TV.
- Greg and Nestor discuss the importance of community engagement and the role of sports in creating a sense of belonging.
- Nestor shares his thoughts on the importance of having a star player in a team and the impact of having a strong community presence.
Future of Sports Marketing and Community Engagement
- Nestor and Greg discuss the future of sports marketing and the importance of community engagement.
- Greg shares his thoughts on the importance of having a value menu and affordable tickets to attract fans.
- Nestor and Greg discuss the role of technology in sports marketing and the importance of making the game accessible to fans.
- Nestor shares his thoughts on the importance of having a strong community presence and the role of sports in creating a sense of belonging.
Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks
- Nestor and Greg share their final thoughts on the importance of community engagement and the role of sports in creating a sense of belonging.
- Greg shares his contact information and the services offered by his PR firm, Able Communications.
- Nestor and Greg discuss the importance of having a strong community presence and the role of sports in creating a sense of belonging.
- Nestor shares his thoughts on the importance of having a strong community presence and the role of sports in creating a sense of belonging.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Orioles brand, Baltimore immersion, Maryland lottery, community engagement, sports marketing, fan experience, local marketing, PR firm, Baltimore Business Journal, sports radio, community outreach, sports ownership, fan loyalty, sports media, community events.
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Greg Abel, Speaker 1
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are in the middle of one of the most positive places that I know. There’s a sign on the door that says, Only nice people allowed, and they still let me in. We’re here at Coco’s pub. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. Everybody in the joint has a raven scratch off ticket right now. I had three dudes at the bar, but we won. We won, so I took a picture with them. They won two bucks. The best part is, when you have the Maryland lottery app and the second chance, you click on it and it like balloons go off, and you feel like it says, Congratulations, you’re a winner. It doesn’t say you’re a loser. It just says, you know, enter second chance, is what it says. But Maryland lottery does put us on the road, along with our friends from GBMC, and I’m having my colonoscopy in three weeks. I’ve been chastised by many people, middle aged men who have come before me and drank the special milkshake and starved themselves. So I’m not looking forward to that. I’m gonna eat my freaking face off on the crab cake tour between now and then, I’m at Cocos. Today, on Friday, we’ll be back at Pizza John’s in Essex. I will have a fresh batch of Raven scratch offs. I’m waiting to get the scented candy cane ones because it’s it makes my bag smell like candy cane. I prefer the Gingerbread, but I will take it all month long. We’re doing a Maryland crab cake tour. We’re here Coco’s, and it allows me to reach the old friends, new friends. This guy is, you’ve been on the show before. You apologize the last time you on, because you’re like, I wasn’t awake enough. I was distracted too much. You got to invite me back on. I didn’t feel great, and then I ran into him last week. You were already booked on the show today at the Baltimore Business Journal, business of sports conference last week. Greg Abel runs a local marketing PR firm. He is and this is why I probably like him, and probably why we’re going to argue and debate and come to some some center point is he’s a journalist at heart, right? You would consider yourself a journalist. You even said to me, right, as we’re wiring up here, we’ve known each other a long time, like, save it for the air. Save it for the year. First things first. You’ve never been to Cocos, right? I
Greg Abel 02:03
have never been to Cocos. I’m so excited to be here. I love bringing
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:06
first timers. Today, I’m bringing a legend here in the last hour, the great Nancy Longo from Pierpoint. Chef. Nancy has been my friend forever and ever, and she doesn’t know Mars, and Mars doesn’t know her, and they live sort of in the same neighborhood. And there was a piece written on the wall I love his daily record or Business Journal, I gotta go baby’s Baltimore magazine, comparing the pier point crab cake to the Cocos crap 20 years ago. And it’s on the wall in here. And but Nancy’s coming over today, and I’m it’s Baltimore positive. A lady over there just said, what do you do? I’m like, I bring people together. Yeah, right. What is my brand? You tell me,
Greg Abel 02:49
I think your brand is talking to people. I think it’s the you pivoted, actually, years ago, as we know, from doing all sports to doing more of the let’s celebrate Baltimore. What’s good about I still do sports better
02:58
than anyone, and I’ll argue that with
Greg Abel 03:00
anybody. I’m not saying you don’t. I’m just saying other things.
03:03
It wasn’t joyful for me. I think you realize that,
Greg Abel 03:06
right? Yeah, well, we do lots of things too, and I think kind of, it keeps you refreshed. It keeps you sharp to talk to people about different things than just sports. Sometimes, just talking about sports, I mean, makes you feel like, don’t I have other interests. This isn’t the only thing I care about, we care about culture and film and TV shows and other things. We just also love sports. So I think it’s a good pivot you made.
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:27
It’s fun when you mesh it all together. I mean, I spoke to an Italian charity group Tuesday night. Big thanks to everybody that came out, even those of you who disagree with me and told me you were never gonna vote in the direction, but that’s fine, and that’s America. We had a great conversation about a lot of things, but I was in front of a group of all men, all local business, all Italian, and many of them knew me. Had been on trips. They owned businesses, some familiar faces, some former electeds. Was just a wide mix of Baltimore people. And I’m up at Pappas and Cockeysville doing this, and I wonder what my speech is going to be. And as I looked at it all, I’m How many of you how many you own a business? Everybody here has been through covid. Everybody in the room had been through Camden Yards being opened. And remember in this city when we didn’t have football and we didn’t have the ravens, and I tried to, like, put people back into that mind frame to say that the whole idea of sports, and really even going back to the clippers and the Colts and whatever was bringing people together, for sure. I mean, it brought people together who wouldn’t norm, black, white, east, west, male, female. I mean, it was a center point for a guy from Northwest Baltimore and a guy from Dundalk to wind up sitting next to each other on 33rd Street his kids in the 70s, right?
Greg Abel 04:37
Well, that’s right. And I think that it expands from like the family on out to the neighborhood in the region in the state. So if you think about it, sports operate as a way for even your own family to get together. So I’m sure, as your son was growing is about football in this
Speaker 1 04:52
country, which is one of the reasons football’s become so electric, is it? Well, right? Do come together.
Greg Abel 04:58
They watch football. They watch football. They. Might even play some touch football before the game. I was a Kennedy family, but where I’m going with that is, like I learned a long time ago, my kids were young. They’re college age, now that going to a ball game together, whether it was the Orioles or the Ravens or even just, you know, Loyola or Towson, to see a basketball game was a reason to be together. It was a reason to go out together as a family and see something we had a common interest in. So it started selfishly, and then, like, you enjoy the game, and then when you’re at the game, you see your friends and neighbors, or maybe people you don’t know, but you have an immediate thing you can talk about what’s going on in the court of the field in front of you. And so I don’t think there’s a better way. Like, as much as politics are divisive that way, sports are communal that way. And I think we need that because a lot of the world is so divisive right now. So sports plays a very important role.
Speaker 1 05:49
Well, that World Series gave people a reason to cheer you, and if you weren’t on either, sports is the last great live drama and television reflects that. Ratings reflect that. You know, all parts of that
Greg Abel 06:00
reflect how did you feel about the winners? By the way, Nestor, were you pulling for the Blue Jays in the Al east? Or did you like the
Speaker 1 06:07
conflicted, right? Because I love Janet Marie and to see her hold the trophy again, but I’m like Janet Marie, dammit. You got three now. It’s enough, you know. Let somebody else win, you know. But I was rooting for Getty Lee and for his grandson. I was rooting for the Blue Jays because they haven’t won 33 years. And I I was in the upper deck when Joe Carter hit the home run, and I was at that game. So I went to a lot of World Series games in the 90s. So I feel the passion of all that. One thing I said to Luke was the weather was good, and I remember World Series games in Cleveland and other New York just being really cold and raw and bitter, right? Not really great baseball weather, as you’d see it, something we get great baseball. And, you know, the baseball thing is the tie that binds us. I think that is our clue, right? That in the
Greg Abel 06:47
journal, if you remember years ago, when I was, I was a reporter at the Baltimore Business Journal in the 90s, and that was when you were starting at W NSD. So we talked about the media landscape at that time, when you were just getting going, and there were lots of other entities in town trying to kind of grab that mantle of the sports radio station. I think you were first, right, all sports, yes, W NST 1570
Speaker 1 07:08
am station with balls. Is that good? So
Greg Abel 07:13
you had a lot of vision, Nestor, I have to give you a ton of credit, because the world did go in that direction. Now we’re inundated with so many media properties that cover sports all day and all night. Where am I going with this? Yeah, like I came from journalism, telling great stories, and there aren’t better platforms for storytelling than sports, because it just has all of it. It has business. It has, you know, the realization of human potential or failure. You know, you one of the things I think about, and you can bet on it, but that’s a whole other thing. But like this idea that in a game, no matter if you’re watching your kids middle school soccer game or the World Series, these people care, and someone’s gonna lose. Someone is gonna lose. Unless we’re talking about
Speaker 1 07:57
Andrews, don’t expect it to make it to the podium after the game, you know?
Greg Abel 08:01
Well, that’s a different topic. But I think that that you go to this with this understanding that there will be a winner and a loser, you don’t know if you’ll be be you that night, makes it exciting and sometimes heartbreaking, right? Like I was at a conference. Oh my
Speaker 1 08:15
god, there’s people in Toronto. Oh my god, can you go silent when you lose like that? You know? I mean, you imagine, you know, I was
Greg Abel 08:21
thinking about, like, you ever been in a Ravens game? Like we sit upstairs in 503, my family. And like, if after a loss, like a tough loss, and you have to walk down, like my dad likes to walk the ramps, yeah, that’s a tough walk.
Speaker 1 08:33
It always was. It wasn’t Memorial Stadium when you lost to the Yankees back in the day, right? Tough walk. So, yeah, you said you’d never been to Coco, so I want to go community. Craig Abel is my guess. Give the full name of your I don’t call you a PR guy or a marketing guy. I don’t offend you. You know what? I mean? No,
Greg Abel 08:49
there’s no offense taken. I run a communications, marketing services firm called Able communications. We’ve been proudly based in Baltimore for 20 years. Currently have an office hire a good PR person. Well, you know, yeah, we’re gonna have to talk budget, though. You know that
Speaker 1 09:03
I went to AI and asked AI about my brand. Apparently, my brand, you should be recruiting me. You know, my brand’s good at this point, but, but what? But brand management in the era of AI is as really like you can find where you are, you know? I mean, you can get your temperature a little bit, but it’s a guy like you that tries to affect that,
Greg Abel 09:22
yeah. I mean, what we do? We work with companies, nonprofits. So for example, a wonderful nonprofit we work for is the Baltimore School for the Arts, and we help make sure people are aware of the great programs that they offer for kids through their twigs program for youth that can be anywhere from Baltimore City, and you have to audition, but if you make it, you can learn how to sing and dance and perform, and then, if you audition and make it to the high school, a lot of people come out of that school and have professional careers in the arts, and a lot of people have professional careers
Speaker 1 09:49
and other things. She won. Did you win? You won? You won. I don’t know what you won. Hold on, I have to scan Greg. Give me a minute. I have lottery duties here. Should retire. Retired. Come over here. So I get you a camera retire. I want to read, stand right here on the camera, retired. Adjective. I do what I want, when I want See also not my problem anymore. God, I can’t wait to get to that point in my life. So I have to, I have to get my Maryland lottery scanner out. Hold on a second here, and I want to, I got to get my right ass. Hold on here, two, two. Did she win? Or we got a lot of footballs? Yeah. Hold on. Let me see Marilyn lottery. Hold on, it says, scan right here. Hold on, let’s see. I’m gonna scan it, and let’s see it says, You’re a winner. She won 20 bucks. Look right here, $20 Holla, holla, look at that.
Speaker 1 10:42
$20 Look at that. You want lunch.
Speaker 1 10:47
Take it to a lottery. Retail. It gets 20 bucks. I can’t give you 20 bucks, but that is as good as a $20 but I can’t believe you. Let me touch it. Winner, winner. All right, I paid for half for crab cake today. Right? See, there you go, man. People really win. Happy people here. Alright, so anyway,
Greg Abel 11:03
I was finishing, let me just finish your spiel. The Spiel is that my company helps other companies make the people they want aware of the products, the services, the people that they offer, that they have, and it’s a lot of fun. You get to know someone you kind of understand everyone in business has an area of expertise. You know,
Speaker 1 11:24
I keep going. You just keep going. I’m gonna scan. I’m the professional scanner here. Go ahead.
Greg Abel 11:29
Is radio communication, sports, Baltimore, positive scanning. So if we work with someone else, we’re gonna figure out what their special thing is and accentuate it for them. Like right now,
Speaker 1 11:40
do you know what the official name of the stuff you scratch off of here is John Martin, and I call it schmutz, so I is it? What it is, a Yiddish word. Winner, $5 winner, $5 winner, look, look, look at how happy we are. $5 everybody. I feel like Oprah, you get a crab cake, you get coconut shrimp, you get cream of crab soup, you know, something. We have a
Greg Abel 12:06
spot dollar hats out. So this school for the arts thing. When is their big event? Every Oh, they have a fundraiser called expressions. That happens in March. So then you need
12:14
to call me in January and I help you promote it in
Speaker 1 12:16
February. Fantastic. That’s what Baltimore positive does. Exactly how I can help you, right?
Greg Abel 12:22
You’ll never feel more inspired than walking out of a BSA performance. These kids are amazing. I
Speaker 1 12:28
was pretty inspired by her $20 win there. You know, I went. She was inspired. I went saw Pippin up at NDP last year. Seeing community theater is a wonderful thing
Greg Abel 12:36
here. Oh yeah. Father’s favorite show of all time is Pippin. Like you’ll get in the car. We’re going to a game, Nestor, I’m not kidding. He’ll go put on Pippin, like he’s saying, Put on Bruce Springsteen, or put on, I don’t know, REO Speedwagon, put on Pippin. It’s all he wants to listen to. Gotta find my corner. Why didn’t you tell me, Pippin,
Speaker 1 12:53
I’ve been looking for my corner. This guy, Craig, a horse
Greg Abel 12:56
here, the old Orioles theme song, something magic.
Speaker 1 13:01
Well, see the magic to do. Song came because of Charles Steinberg. Charles Steinberg brought that song. See, if you go to Baltimore positive. Charles Steinberg was the longtime PR and community relations person for the Orioles. He loved theater. He brought that song out in the summer 79 when Pippin happened, and it became a part of them walking out when the picture came out. Magic to do. But more. Charles Steinberg, there’s your history lesson. Oh, man, it’s almost like I’m a guy who once did a walk out on Peter angelos, and you were once a guy who chronicled him. That’s
Greg Abel 13:33
right, that’s what I think of you. Yes, that’s what I think of right? Well, you, let’s remind there our listeners and viewers, go ahead.
Speaker 1 13:41
Well, did you ever write about me in Baltimore Business Journal? Maybe it was, yeah.
Greg Abel 13:45
Early on, I did. I probably had a story forever ago about, like, how new sports radio stations are coming to Baltimore, because at the time, what was the one in DC? Was it f a n for DC team, the team, the team, right? Remember that? Yeah. And so when the team opened in DC. Red zebra, I did a kind of a roll up of here are the other sports radio stations in town, one of which was yours, and then talked about how W, B, Al just had some programming, but it wasn’t obviously their whole thing. So that was where we first probably connected. But then years later, 2006 six. Do you want to tell the story?
Speaker 1 14:20
I mean, I did free the birds. Everybody in my audience can Google it, look it up, but if they look it up, chances are they’re going to see your work, because in 2006 I was relatively unaware of the internet. I mean, there may have been a point where you taught me to grow up that day and move to.net right? Well, like, like, I went to w, N, S, t.net, in the aftermath of free the birds, because of all of the feedback I got that were emails, right? Like said, a lot of email addresses, and I hated the internet, right? Like, the internet was a place where the sun would have message boards, where people would, you know, cut. Naked pictures of people out, put my wife’s head on it and throw it on this is in 2005 It was outrageous. People talking. It was just awful. The sun’s message boards were this bar stool, this early bar stool. So I really was like, it’s so unregulated, it’s so anonymous. It’s the internet. I hate the internet. Imagine that it’s 20 years ago, right? That’s an old guys thought
Greg Abel 15:23
poorly by legacy media companies like the sun and others that just started putting their content online instead of having paywalls. And it was the start
Speaker 1 15:31
of comments you made the comments before then. That’s before MySpace. That’s before Facebook all of that. So when I was six, I do the walkout, and literally,
15:44
you know, I later,
Speaker 1 15:47
like I walked out of the stadium. I lived two blocks away. I walked past reporters to not even do stay. I didn’t want this. The story should have been about the walk and not about me, right? And when I went home that night, Dave Ginsburg and I got into it because he reported the crowd poorly, and he and I, he’ll get a crowd the former Baltimore Orioles AP reporter Correct, yeah, and I love Dave, but like, he was wrong about how the crowd was reported, because we had video, we had pictures, we had evidence that the newspaper may or may not run at that time. Now, the newspaper was still a newspaper. Then, schmuck was there. He met me at the bottom of that that walkway. But what really happened was, in the day or two after free the birds, we were in the middle of football season. I was doing the show with Billick and Rick Neuheisel over at the at Mount Washington tavern, people started coming up to me and emailing me and saying, You need to go to this YouTube thing, and I’m like, YouTube is that you like ut YouTube? Why nobody knew what YouTube was well, and you were really a prescient person to have put together this really amazing professional video of the walkout that got very viral on this brand new thing called YouTube. And I had no idea it was you or who did it. I just was like, well, that’s kind of cool, that somebody was inspired enough to come out with a video camera, right, which is still an effort.
Greg Abel 17:13
Then it was a different era. So here’s what happened to like, I didn’t have smartphone that we do today, like these cameras we walk around with now are like, high def, and everybody has a sure like, if, if someone would want $100,000 today with your scratch off, the whole place would have erupted. Everyone would take another camera. This thing would have been on Facebook and Instagram immediately, right then. Then I used to do some videography, kind of semi professionally. I did a few weddings. I did, like family events, hobby. I enjoyed cutting together the clips, overlaying music, having transitions. I just
Speaker 1 17:49
like, I went to college for that. It was what they taught. Yeah. It was fun, yeah. And so
Greg Abel 17:53
when I when my friends got wind of the free the birds event, you know, we were listeners to show in the mornings, especially, and you were publicizing this, let’s walk out. We were also frustrated with the Angelos regime and what was happening with the Orioles. And we hadn’t had a winning season since 1997
18:10
right? It had been nine years at that point, and it
Greg Abel 18:12
wasn’t just losing it just it was awful. Yeah, it was off. And so everyone was frustrated. Not everybody walked out that day, but I decided to go to the event. We had their black T shirts on, and I had a good camcorder, so just brought my camcorder. Now, remember, I didn’t bring like my flip phone to do this. I had to bring like a camcorder. I had to charge the batteries, I had to put in a mini DV tape. I had to go there with the intention of creating something, because I liked to do that kind of stuff. So I went to the event. I videoed you. I videoed a bunch of the other just participants. I did some interviews. I kind of played reporter, even though I had no outlet to write for. I just figured, I want this for posterity. I want it for myself.
Speaker 1 18:49
Greg Landry also shot raw video that day that I have all these years later. He shot on mini DV two. So I mean, 20 years later, I have tons of that’s good raw footage. Of all what value it has
Greg Abel 19:01
at this point. It’s legacy stuff for you, because I think, Oh, I’m so proud of someone to say, like, this isn’t okay. This isn’t okay. That’s what you were saying, Yes, isn’t okay. And those of us with you said we don’t think it’s okay either.
Speaker 1 19:16
And in my calling bogus on this right now, if
Greg Abel 19:20
there were a movie about Baltimore baseball and like, let’s say we win the World Series next year, that would be the capping thing. But like, it could start at the free the birds day where, like, this team was so bad 25 years ago that we literally walked out of the stadium, and then, like, we’d see you marching out. We could get the archival footage. I don’t know about all that, but okay, it could be our version of what’s the movie with, oh, the Boston sports movie with,
Speaker 1 19:46
I don’t see sports. You got the wrong guy. It’s gonna help you with this. You know,
Greg Abel 19:50
it doesn’t matter. So let me finish the story about that day. So I shot the video. We walk out. I’m filming. You remember, we literally walked out. It was the bottom of, the bottom of the fourth movie.
Speaker 1 20:00
Well, it was 508, times a time. It was, it was a time. So we, I had no idea I was walking through that bowl. I’ve told you that right, like that was not the plan. The I didn’t have a plan. We were plan was just to go raise hell and leave like that. Was it, right? Like that. That was literally the plan. And when I went to leave, everyone followed me, yeah, right. And they’re like, What are you doing? What are you doing? You were any leader. And I’m like, I’m gonna do something, yeah. And as I walked down that corridor, yeah, and we were all yelling, free the birds. And you videoed that out in left field, right? Yeah, when we got to the bottom, I looked and there was one Usher stopping me from getting to the bowl. And I just and he couldn’t stop me. I was just walking to the stadium, and schmuck was there with a with a notebook, smiling at me like you are right now, and
Greg Abel 20:56
but then everybody was following you, right and then everybody followed me. It was applied Piper,
Speaker 1 21:00
but I didn’t have, there was no plan. It was no grand plan to walk through the ball. So I walked into left field. I’m like, where am I gonna go now? I’m gonna walk to home plate, yeah? So I walked the railing to home plate, and then I walked out to right field, and I look back and people still were filing in, yeah? So that’s why we Ginsburg wrote that there were less than 1000 there were a lot more than 1000
21:21
there was a lot of people, yeah, and, but, but nonetheless,
Greg Abel 21:23
no matter, no matter what that use you made a statement that day. We made a statement that day as a community, that we weren’t okay. And then on the YouTube
21:31
burgers, what I called it.
Greg Abel 21:34
And, you know, it was great, but then it was also like, why do we have to do this? Can we just have a good just want to go to the games,
Speaker 1 21:39
man? Like, I love it. That’s where I am with Katie Griggs. That’s why I’m with Sashi Brown. That’s where I’m Greg Abel is here. And given that background that you made this cool movie, you can still find it. It kind of got YouTube. He used Twisted Sister. We’re not it is back up. Oh,
Greg Abel 21:56
if you Googled or YouTube searched, free the birds and my ID from me was G Scott, 3303, free the birds. And then that you’ll find it even just free the birds video,
Speaker 1 22:07
because they did pull the sound down on they put it back because they but it’s been 20 years, right? But that video had 10s of 1000s of views in the first couple of days, to chronicle what we had done, right? And then I didn’t realize it was you, and then you and I connected. And yeah, so all these years later, I think you’ve only been on the show like once or twice, and it’s really fortuitous. We’re here at Cocos. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I’ve already got winners
Greg Abel 22:31
and losers, and I get a ticket. Can I try my luck? You want number
Speaker 1 22:35
30? Eddie Murray, you’re getting 30 No. Hold on. You want 33 or 34 section, 34 or do you want Eddie Murray, Eddie you want Eddie Eddie Ed easy, Eddie 33 All right, 34 for the ghost of Bill Hage. Eddie Murray and Juan Dixon for me. So all these years later, you have this PR firm. I know of you. We bump in each other around town. I would try to help any of your causes or charity. Things about them are positive. And you know, my whole background of like, the politics into sports and all that crap the Orioles and the Ravens taking my press credential as a media member and allowing my Caucasian employee free reign to go in and ask questions. But not I. Last week, I took it upon myself to buy $100 ticket for your former employer at the Baltimore Business Journal to hear what the anointed their oxygen is too good to spend time with a local business owners get 2 million people on my Facebook in the last four weeks, which is more tickets than they sold this year, by the way, for the Orioles, but they came down with Maroon and did a part of this whole thing with Sports Business Journal. I thought the N i l part of that with Steve eigenbrod and Dina from over here at Morgan, it was great. But the Sashi Katie Griggs thing and what they where they are with their brands in 2025 and you being in brand management, knowing this community, as well as anybody, from a sports perspective, I was really underwhelmed. You know, I’m really underwhelmed by the Orioles in the Ravens marketing efforts, by by the authenticity that they sort of lack. And that’s where the Craig Albert has hiring happens, where they do this 10 second video with this Boston accent, and he seems like the nicest guy three kids. But then there’s the Rubenstein Elias Albornoz press conference this week last week, there was the Sashi Brown, Katie Griggs, $100 just to be in the room. And there were 100 of us there, maybe, maybe 80 to 100 of
Greg Abel 24:28
us. You were there as well. Season grows a business crowd.
Speaker 1 24:31
So right? Give me your perspective on that kind of an event. Going to that event, what you expected? What you expect to hear from them? Because I can say I’m underwhelmed, because I’d like to sit here with Sashi and sit here with Katie, great for and really ask them what’s up, and hear what’s up. I don’t think they have any interest in being not even transparent, but even being front facing in regard to what they’re trying to do. With the $1.2 billion of our money in regard to premium this and premium that, and it doesn’t ever feel warm and cozy that. It’s about lauraville and people in the community
Greg Abel 25:12
coming to the ballpark. Well, let me if we back up a couple steps, let’s remember that, especially on the Katie Griggs Orioles. It is early days. Okay, this is this, this leadership team, and they’re still putting their team together in the marketing, the communication side. We need to give them some time to figure out how they’re going to communicate. It has, but Katie has only had the job for one full season, and I think some of her staff as well. And there’s more to come. And I, I, I I did not have maybe the same expectations you did at that event to, like, hear the inside nitty gritty, like I knew they weren’t gonna go in depth on things that you probably didn’t know. If you just read the official announcements from the O’s or read the media,
Speaker 1 25:53
it was very, very scripted from their high level. Most of the words that they have said, I’ve heard them speak before publicly. It is their stump speech for when they go to talk about A, B, C, D and E, and they have it all in a nice 45 second sound bite, right? And they tell one little cute anecdote that they’ve told a dozen times before, like it was very and Rubenstein staying at Beth, the fellow last year, which is a year ago, like tomorrow, that I attended before the night before the election that Rubenstein spoke at Beth the fellow, and I went out there, and it was very much the same thing. He’s got a speech. Yeah, he’s got a he’s got a speech. And once you’ve heard it, that’s that. Look, that’s not what
Greg Abel 26:31
communication business Nestor, these guys are not going to break news and things like that. These things, if they had a big news thing, they would kind of do it at their own thing, and they would kind of orchestrate it
26:42
on on speaking authentic, I
Greg Abel 26:45
guess I will say the most authentic things I heard that day that weren’t just like updates on what’s happening with the new scoreboard or the social area in center field, were this discussion that I thought was candid about the competition major league sports have, not just with like, other teams, but other things to do. So there was an interesting conversation about, like, who’s our competitor? Our competitor is kind of like your phone. The competitor is like, sitting on the couch and watching Netflix. The competitor is like the world we live in today. And I thought they had an interesting conversation about that.
Speaker 1 27:17
So what are they gonna do about it? Yeah, right. I mean, that’s where the next question, that’s where a good interviewer says, So, what do you get? What’s your plan, dude, which plan, you know, like, that’s, that’s what I’m
Greg Abel 27:28
value menu at Camden Yards, you can get a $5 beer.
Speaker 1 27:32
Look, Greg. I mean, I, you know, we, we have to draw the line as to whether we’re doing PR here or whether we’re doing journalism here. Yeah. And, and I opinion forever, because it’s like, I don’t do PR. I’ll allow you to do
Greg Abel 27:47
my honest take. I think the Orioles have done a good job in the last year and a half, like letting us know that there is new ownership and there is a new vibe going on. So some I was joking about $5 beers, but having a value menu was a good idea. It’s a good VR move, sure. And then there are tickets that are affordable. If you try to go see an Oreo game in in the, you know, Philly or New York, you’re gonna spend a lot more. Like you can get a decent Oreo ticket for 30 bucks, 20 bucks, if you go on the aftermarket, and we’re out of it, unfortunately, you can sit behind home plate for less than $100 and with regard to like this regime and what they are doing, I think I have mixed feelings, because on one hand, I think they’re doing what major league sports teams do. So thinking about the Orioles, who I think about more than the ravens, just who I am, they’re implementing a giant new scoreboard. You’re going to walk into the steam next year. You’re like, holy cow, that thing is big, and it’s going to be like, a huge part of the experience. They’re going to, like, have better audio systems, so they’re going to play music a lot. I don’t personally like the sort of jazzing up of the experience, where all these multimedia, digital and music things keep the fan engaged, quote, unquote, like the bananas. I’m good with watching a baseball game, but I’m also an old guy, so what they’re trying to do is get people, our kids, age in their 20s, 30s, teens, to want to come and feel like it’s an experience and not just like this The sport itself. Now we both watched the World Series and had a great time watching an amazing competition on the field, and that was enough. I didn’t need the glitz and the special promotion. Didn’t even need your team in it. Minor League baseballization of Major League Baseball, if you will. Like, I don’t need a t shirt cannon and I don’t need you to kind of like, have a special event every half inning. I don’t need that, but I get that they’re trying to attract a young and new audience to the sport, and they’re doing so with modern techniques. That’s where I see
Speaker 1 29:47
it. My argument, if you were Katie, would be ketchup races and muster races are nice, but how does that get somebody back and how does that get somebody into the soap opera? The way you get into the soap. Opera is you care about the game, just when you care about the players gotta win. You care
Speaker 1 30:06
that’s That’s so rude, that’s everybody, then we should just drop the mic and not talk about them until they win. I mean, and they haven’t
Greg Abel 30:13
won 30 years, that’s too basic. You’re right, because I want to see what Samuel besayo Does next year. Right? Like, that’s an intriguing storyline,
Speaker 1 30:21
but that has nothing to do with the catch up races. So that where am I going with this is, if you’re bringing people out there for the catch up races, they’re never going to be into the baseball team. So to me, the baseball still is the core part of it that, and I speak to this as an old guy as well. I love the Orioles because a My name’s Aparicio. My father loved baseball. My family loved baseball. Kids in my neighborhood love baseball, which gave me camaraderie to do all that. But my real love of the Orioles was love of Baltimore. It was like my team, my town, my city, that’s us against New York, that’s us against Pittsburgh, that’s us against Boston, that’s the provincial side was what hooked me in. That’s what hooks everybody into Alabama Team X. You’re not hooked into that with the bananas. The bananas are no, it’s like sort of professional wrestling or whatever. You know, right? It’s the to me, if you really want baseball to get over, you better figure out getting people interested in baseball and the players and the statistics and the drama and the game itself, and what the infield fly rule is, because if you’re just bringing a bunch of kids or a bunch of passers by to roll in to be wowed by the mustard races, I think there’s an authenticity Part of what they’re trying to do that’s missing that, that that misses the mark for what the stake is still the game. The stake is still Baltimore. The stake is still my favorite player. The stake is I want to cheer for my player, my team, my town, not I want to bet on which pitch they’re going to throw.
Greg Abel 31:58
I want to check out the new luxury suite or the new hospitality arena, or the new the new social scoreboard, or I
Speaker 1 32:04
care what, not what, what they’re putting crab meat on a hot dog, but
Greg Abel 32:09
you and I are different than a lot of people. So think of yourself maybe when you were 30 years old and you had a job, make pretend you had a job downtown, and you worked in finance, and your friends at work said, Let’s go to the game after work. We’ll have a beer there. You might not care that much about the Orioles against the twins on a Tuesday night in June, but you might have a good time getting a beer outside as a cover charge. Yes, correct. So that’s a different vibe. It’s a different experience, and that’s great,
Speaker 1 32:36
but that’s not really building the long term thing that they’re trying to build to get the three, 3 million people and to fund this, which is really at the heart of it. And if I’m with Katie, and Katie either thinks I’m not smart enough to hang or she doesn’t want to engage with me, but I’d love to engage with someone intelligent like her, who’s been doing all this. Because I would say, you know, at the end of the day, you’re trying to get how much per person, how many times you’re trying to get them back, what are you trying to get them to subscribe to and I think we’re paradigm shift right now on media right, like in how they’re going to sell their Come on, man, you and I are too old white guys, but I found that I’m not white lately with the ice thing. So you know, two old Baltimore guys, what we are, right? Go into the game, paying for season tickets, parking, home, team sports that begat Masson, all of that now is going to be bundled into Am I a baseball fan? Am I going to have the games on or not? I think baseball survived and thrived here, because people did trip over. It was always on TV. If they started to get good, you could go find the game. Yeah. Now we’re getting to the point where, like, well, we’ll be good again, and you’ll well, when we’re good again, I’m gonna try to charge you 1999 a month, just to have the games. And I don’t watch the games anymore, and the games aren’t on. And you know, how do I get them again? Do I stream them in my Verizon and my YouTube TV? What channel my mother would say, What channel are they on tonight when she was in her 90s? Not a ridiculous question. And so finding it, and then being engaged with it, and then the reason I’m going to give you three hours at home isn’t exploding scoreboards, it’s because I love Adley or gunner, or I love Baltimore, or I love the game, or I love live competition, or I love baseball, right? And they better figure that out, because they’re going to go away and they’re going to ask people for too much money to come back when they’re already out of the soap opera, kind of like where college sports is for me right now, there’s not a lot that Maryland could do even to get me down conversation with a friend, because it’s, it’s I am disengaged from five players who started last year and did well, and then this year. Who are these people and who are they going to be next year, and who are they going to be next year? And I think that that is going to be absolutely the death knell for college sports. I believe that let’s
Greg Abel 34:54
get back to that in a second. I want to say one thing about the Orioles and the marketing efforts. I’ve sat down with Mark fine the new. A CMO of the Orioles, and I do know he’s genuine when he says he wants to have be in the community. And I think we do need to give them some time he can come
Speaker 1 35:09
and sit and do the show today. I’ve known Mark fine 25 years. Okay, well, Mark fine decided to treat me like he didn’t know me, so last year. So I’m offended. But that being said, he runs the baseball team. If he wants to sit here and answer my questions, I would
Greg Abel 35:22
love not a surrogate for Mark. But I’ll just tell you, what I’ve seen from the organization is that he kept sort of, there was a, there was a pride night. There was an Israeli pride night, dog tonight. There was, there was all these things. So they’re trying to be very inclusive, and there’s a lot of pressure not to have a pride night these days. There’s like Texas Rangers, I’m sure, yeah, yeah. And so I do think
Speaker 1 35:43
I’ve always, by the way, for Greg Bader, who might be listening, I’ve been the number one guy for pride, night for UMBC, night for HBCU, night for COP and knife. Like I was a part of safety night 1979 Yeah? Well, the Safety Day, the safeties down from school, safeties, Bobby Brady. You know what I mean, like, the stripe and the safety, right? The Crossing, that was a big thing in my school to go to Safety Day. My goodness, well, let’s
Greg Abel 36:07
talk college sports. Nestor, so what’s your take on the Maryland So a friend of mine, we’re talking longtime Maryland season ticket holder, he said we’re gonna go get a game this year. And I was just kind of like, All right, I’ll go, but like, I’m not that excited, because I don’t know new coach, and 15 new players. 15. There isn’t one holdover. And you’re just there might be one, I don’t know. And this is not an anomaly, but this is going to be most of the door I do as a fan, like I’ll see a box score. I like to look at box score says, let’s say a kid scored 20 points. Look at who is that guy. And then you click on him on ESPN, or whatever your app is, and you’ll see that this is the fourth college they’ve been to, and this is not some like, kid who can’t, like, get his grades straight, or is a bad person. It’s more like they’re free agents with no guardrails every year, and it’s normal to play for three or four schools now. And I think we’re just in a period where it has to get fixed, you know, and who’s gonna fix it? I don’t know. I don’t know, but I guess my question I was going to ask you is, what’s your interest level? And Maryland basketball
Speaker 1 37:04
this year? 00, really? Zero.
Greg Abel 37:07
What if they started 15 and, oh,
Speaker 1 37:09
this just comes back to why you’re sitting here right now doing Baltimore positive and Cocos is that I’m more interested in the real world than I am in 15 kids I’ve never heard of, and 15 more kids the next year I’ve never heard of and something that says Maryland on it, because I like Glenn bias 40 years ago, like, you know it, that would be as ridiculous as I love the Orioles because of Boog Powell. You need to love the Orioles because of what they’re doing right now. And they need to make you love it. Mark fine and Katie Griggs need to make you love that. And they’re in,
Greg Abel 37:39
I would argue, like Elias does too. He has a big part of that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1 37:44
and this is where I argued this morning, Luke and I got sideways, right? So we talked about the recruitment of the community. So when I wrote Purple Rain one, David Modell tipped me off that he was hiring Brian Billick on a snowy day at the top of the Signet tower, and I’ll never forget being with David up there. He’s smoking his cigars in his office up there. Only knew him a little while. I knew him two years at that time, and he came over to me and he threw two dittos down in front of
Greg Abel 38:15
me, like dittos, ditto sheets, Xerox. I haven’t heard that. Throw
Speaker 1 38:19
them in front of me. Did you smell it? It wasn’t purple. It was black. But if it was purple, I just smelt it, believe me, like I’ll smell those lottery scratch offs next month, the candy cane. So I looked at it, and it was a and it’s in my book. You can you Google it? I’ll pull it up. I could probably pull it up on my phone if we took a break. It was a profile of what he was looking for in head coach. It was literally an outline. It was a job description. And I’ll never forget that he thought after Belichick and I wrote a whole pair, you know, couple paragraphs on this in the book, this were David’s words that Belichick did everything when he got to Cleveland to be anti media, anti fan, anti get along with it. He was a prick, and they didn’t want that, and they hired Brian. And you remember, they hired Brian, they put Billick on the billboards
Greg Abel 39:06
around here, right? Yeah, that outgoing personality,
Speaker 1 39:09
communication, journalist, all of that, right? I love Brian, right? But Brian, there was no question in the mind of the models that they needed the community recruited, yeah, that the head coach’s job was to coach and win a Super Bowl, which he did and like, make all of that, but it was also but recruiting the community was a huge, huge part of them selling PSLs, having Ted March abroad, being way the second dog in Baltimore, behind the Orioles at that point, right? Like they knew they needed to build, said, started winning, yet either they hadn’t started winning, right, which why they were hiring a coach at four and 12 after deadlift, but recruiting the community. And I’m 28, years later, that the Ravens do a good job of recruiting the community in that area, damn, right? They did. Who didn’t do a good job? Jacksonville, Charlotte. Just go down the list of all of these Cleveland when they got the team back a year later, these broken franchises that have never really figured out how to recruit the community in a way where the ravens, when they came in, David went door to door every David would have been at that Baltimore Business Journal thing, last we know, because and he would have been the first guy there, the last guy to leave, shaking every hand because he needed to sell his product. Right? I watched Katie Griggs and Sashi brown walk into $100 throw event last week for a bunch of executives. There’s less than 100 people there. I watched them walk in as late as they could, sit in the front, be guarded, do the podium and then rinse their hands, use the bathroom and leave during the n, i L, they didn’t meet anybody in the room. No, I agree. They didn’t meet anybody
Greg Abel 40:44
in the room. A desire on their part to engage beyond being on stage that I totally agree
Speaker 1 40:50
that is that lacks the authenticity that and the recruitment that I speak to for a couple of million dollar exact they make over Sasha Brown is making over $2 million a year. Katie Griggs is probably making 1,000,003 a year to run. And they know nothing about this city. They have no roots in this city. They have very few common Mark fine, and I had a lot of mutual connections that are in common because he’s a Baltimore guy, right? Katie Griggs and I had three mutual connections on LinkedIn when I looked her up a year and a half ago and she got the gig, right? She didn’t know anybody here. I know everybody here, probably not, probably be good, to be Get, get on my good side, even, because all I want for them is to be successful. Yeah, I know. And that’s what I wanted in 2006 when we got into it with free the birds, all I want for them is to be successful. And when I see things, when I drop 100 bucks, and they have no interest in shaking my hand in an event, or most anybody else’s,
Greg Abel 41:44
it speaks to this the wrong way. No, it
Speaker 1 41:47
rubs, it should rub everybody the wrong way, because this is at the heart of what I go back to. You want the baseball team to succeed? What’s that really going to take? Interesting.
Greg Abel 41:58
Now you bring it up, and I, I did notice that, and I kind of had mixed feelings. On one hand, I sort of get it. You’re very busy. You’re running a major league sports franchise. You took the time to walk here and present in front of a group of business people. You felt like you did your job. Would not have been that hard to hang out for a little bit. And what if you even sat there and listened to the sports, the college sports and I L panel like you were interested in and learn something that would have been interesting. And then you would have people. Would you notice that they stuck around and watched the other one? Then they talked to Steve eigenbrop from Towson, they talked to the head of Morgan state’s athletic department. Maybe that’s unrealistic, but it like, from a PR perspective, a perception perspective, I would totally grant you the point that that would have they need to know more that would have been well received well, and this is where, but they didn’t not do anything. I would, I would argue with you to the extent that, like they showed up, it was Katie and Sasha at the front of the room giving pretty intimate access to the thinking of the executives of our two major sports franchises for about 45 minutes in a conversation that, while it didn’t break news was at least, if you didn’t know that you and I enjoyed it, right? I enjoyed it wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Was it like groundbreaking and like thought provoking, like, I’m not
Speaker 1 43:13
calling it nothing, but they didn’t sell any tickets that day. You know, if that’s was that, I don’t know what their goal was, was to send their brand, right? But, but for me, this really speaks to the heart of Luke and I’s fight and where you wanted to fight with me 15 minutes ago, which was, they need to win, they need to win. Yeah, they need to win. They need to win. Then he pitching my only win, but, but, okay, so what do we do between now and then, because they might not win, right? So between now and then, what is the maximal effort. What is the best, most authentic way that they could bring back caravans, bring back Fan Fest, be out in the community, have their manager sitting here today doing my show for the first time ever, because they would be like, Hey, we’re changing. Because people say to me, has anything changed? I said, Well, when I get my press pass back and they start sitting and talking to me, I’ll know they’ve changed. In the meantime, I’m watching all of it from afar. I paid 100 bucks last week. The issue for me is the recruitment of the community is the only, only, only way the Orioles are sustainable. Yeah, I do think people have to come back. People have to care. People have to open their credit cards up. People have to buy their television package. People have to be engaged in watching 130 games a year of their television package. You
Greg Abel 44:27
know what the Orioles, like I talked to Mark about, this is like a grassroots efforts that when you walk into Cocos on a Wednesday in June, the game is on, and that’s not, I don’t know, I don’t hang out here, but, like, I’m gonna guess Coco
Speaker 1 44:38
that’s problematic on a Friday night when they’re on Apple TV, I promise you that, right? So that’s a
Greg Abel 44:42
thing like, I think the restaurants, the bars, there’s screens everywhere these days, can they make sure at least lobby on behalf of the team to have the game on? Having the game on is, like, you know,
Speaker 1 44:52
that’s too much in my bar, right? Like the NFL team did for a lot of people,
Greg Abel 44:56
that wasn’t their fault. That’s like, a macro issue. Well,
Speaker 1 44:59
MLB, what? Well, then you got to go up to New York and raise hell and tell them that your customers are so here’s where I
Greg Abel 45:04
learned how they can buy that one off for mass and well, here’s where I learned
Speaker 1 45:07
the really weird part of this. I went to opening day in Toronto with Luke. We went up there for the opening back in March, right? So Luke and I flew up to Buffalo, went across the border, went to Toronto. That’s a fun trip. A great trip. Stop it Niagara Falls, of course, on the way back, I had to show the side. Yeah, it’s prettier every day. Canada size prettier. And also stopped at Buffalo for wings and beef on whack and all that. So Luke and I go to opening day, and it’s packed, right? And he’s got a media pass, and I bought a $12 ticket and went drank beer with my boy Howard, David Rose, and a whole bunch of my my Northwest Baltimore mafia. So we were hanging out, and then I spent the night. Everybody left, and the next night, Luke was going to the Friday night game. It was Thursday afternoon. They opened right Friday night was a Friday second game of the year. Okay, so second game the year. I said I cut my foot open and I didn’t want to walk so much. I’m like, I’m not going to the game tonight. I’m gonna hang back in my hotel room. So I’m at the Sheraton in downtown Eaton center, Eaton square, yeah, and in Toronto, and I went to the keg, great Canadian you know, it’s the roost Chris of Canada. It’s a steakhouse Toronto’s I went. I went to the keg and a little happy hour with Cabernet, and I’m making time with some Canadian people and the bartender and whatnot. It’s Friday night. And I said, Hey, man, the game gonna be on the night. They’re like, Nah, man, Apple TV. I’m like, hold on, there were 50,000 people in the dome last night. Yeah, at the game, it’s the second game of the year. It’s a second game of the year. And this is a city of 4 million people, and there’s nowhere in this city. I’m gonna walk around right and look up and see the Blue Jays on TV. Yeah? Because nobody at the bar has any idea how to get a game off Apple TV or who to subscribe to. That’s his second game of the year. They almost won the World Series last week. Yeah, and their Friday games aren’t on in the bars in their city. That is dumb. I don’t know what else to call
Greg Abel 47:01
MLB, and it’s a local thing. So if, for example, the Orioles had a grassroots effort to make sure the community can see the games like, I would hire a person whose job is at least part of their job to be like, in touch with all like, the major places where people congregate and just talk to them like, Hey, do you have Apple TV? Do you know what it’s on when the game starts? Can you put it on? We’ll send you pennants. We’ll send you pen. You posters, we’ll send you tickets to give away. That would be a really worthwhile community outreach effort. Well,
Speaker 1 47:27
this is a great conversation for Katie Griggs, and I wouldn’t want her BS in me or mark fun. What’s the plan? What is the plan? What
Greg Abel 47:34
do you expect them to roll out their marketing plan for you? Like, I don’t know, like they’re doing it, they’re working on it, and then they’re going to execute
Speaker 1 47:40
it, but they’re not. Is that, like a two week Trump thing is that, like the healthcare plan, it’s coming
Greg Abel 47:45
in two weeks. I do think these are professionals who will execute but like, we got to give them the opportunity to do so before we criticize.
Speaker 1 47:53
I gave them an opportunity to give me a media pass and to speak to me like and I haven’t got a game
Greg Abel 48:00
with me. I got a seat for you. You want to sit with me? I’ll go anywhere with you. What about like the second tier sports for you, Nestor, do you like going to Loyola game, a Towson game? Stevenson game?
Speaker 1 48:11
Like, absolutely I Coppin is my partner. So I go to Coppin times a year. I went to the Towson autism game last year, last game of the year, Towson, Charleston, yeah, I had Pat scary as well on that period of time when they had the tournament. They had the disappointment and all that, yeah, but they’re playing well, what Towson did last year was unbelievable like that. That’s exactly the kind of authenticity and the run you
Greg Abel 48:37
probably there that. Yeah, I go to most of the Towson, I
Speaker 1 48:39
thought I saw you there that. So I went into CQ that day in the place was bumping, yeah, it was just a good job. And I thought that that’s the authenticity that that
Greg Abel 48:52
5000 they usually get 2500
Speaker 1 48:56
getting the word out, getting people to get in their car and go over there in a cold it was cold that, yeah, like, and having it be as good as it’s ever been, you would agree, being at those Towson games last March, it was the most fun. It’s been a Towson since they built
Greg Abel 49:13
the bill. I have a fun fact the ad Towson. Steve eigenbrough told me they’re the only mid major program that’s bringing back the returning Conference Player of the
Speaker 1 49:22
Year. I saw that in the podium last week, and I thought that I’ve said that on the air couple times. Okay? That’s, well, that’s an amazing statement the environment, right? It does. And when I had confidence, I’ve had Larry Stewart a couple weeks ago from COP and right, and his counterpart of the female coach, he had a really good player out of Texas last year, and she’s, she was scoring 22 points a game early in the year, and you know she’s gonna be right. And you know what I mean, like, that’s the sad part of this. Is
Greg Abel 49:51
scoring 22 right away last year, last year for the program.
Speaker 1 49:55
I haven’t checked, I think she, she was a junior, okay? But either way, you. My point is, if you have that player, male or female, basketball or bowling, it doesn’t even matter what sport it is at this point, if you have a star, well, you need that’s That star is going to go to the next level, whatever that I am, and I don’t know what your ability is to do that. Even watching the N i l thing that we watched last week at Sports Business Journal. I learned a lot during that that panel. Yeah, that was I learned a lot during that panel. But the question is as to whether, whether Cocos would want to sponsor me, or would what want to sponsor a young lady that is on the Morgan State, something, something team, right, which is three blocks away from here, right? Yeah, like, what rings the bell? And then there’s just these billion dollar donors that are just raining down money, and all the big schools, funny money like that, and well, and that’s where we are, though. Steve shot, he’s gonna fund Maryland. They’re gonna win.
Greg Abel 50:51
Yeah. I mean really. And, and that’s a realistic path for the big power schools. It’s not a realistic pass for the Towson happens in the Morgan Loyola, because they’re just not going to do that. So you just have to accept that it’s a different product.
Speaker 1 51:06
But to your point, like, like accepting theater from a high school sure you’re going and I’m paying product 10 bucks, 20 bucks, and I’m having a hell of a Friday night
Greg Abel 51:15
anywhere for to see Pippin with with Wally my dad. Well, let’s get Wally
Speaker 1 51:19
together for Pippin. Craig Abels here. He runs PR and communications, and I knew we were going to get down into the dirt. This has been fun. Well, I mean, not for Mark fine and Katie graves, but at least for me, you know? I mean, I love the Orioles, and I wanted nothing more with the new ownership than to have it be normal. It hasn’t been normal. They lost a half a million people last year. They were in last place that they should be reaching to people like me and saying we need to fix things with everybody in this especially people love the team, and I would like to see them be more authentic, more front facing, and just better than what they’ve been. And that’s just me being the jerk on the radio. Everybody else is going to say, sign a pitcher, sign an outfielder. If they win, we’ll come. And I’m like, if they win, we’ll come at what price?
Greg Abel 52:05
One thing I know Nestor is, I know that they have a focus on the on the game experience, the fan experience, and it hasn’t rolled out yet. It hasn’t we’re going to see all these new amenities next year that will be a draw, not as bigger draws, like when Oriole Park opened and it was sold out every game. But it will be interesting to see how that plays out, just from, like a fan interest perspective. And then let’s give them. Let’s give them 2026 before we say they’re not reaching out, I want to see what happens coming. I
Speaker 1 52:33
think these next six months are crucial. I do too. I do too. And I’ve said that with Luke, and I said that watching Rubenstein and their money, and, you know, my word is the Etty is really the guy who’s controlling things more so than Rubenstein, in regard to the baseball, okay, I don’t know. Well, He’s younger. He’s going to be the owner. I mean, I think it’s pretty clear Michael arroghetti is going to be so I’m way more interested in him. But I’d like to hear philosophically, not Katie Griggs is talking points. I’m talking about genuine, authentic communication, which is what you and I are doing right now, which we’ve been doing for an hour. That’s right. And until they can get to that point, they’re just this corporate thing, and people from out of town, they really are right.
Greg Abel 53:12
And I would tell you, when I put on the sort of my communications consultant hat, the problem with them, kind of like getting real in front of the team that group at the BBj sticking around is, like, they have more to lose than they have to gain. I think really, probably,
53:24
how? Really, only because stadium’s empty,
Greg Abel 53:27
dude? Well, it is now, I mean, but it won’t be then in the future, and I think that it is, it is a little bit they’re playing it a little bit safe. And I get it. I get it. I’m not saying like, I think it’s necessarily the right thing to do, but you aren’t going to lose if you do it that
Speaker 1 53:43
way. I want to see and feel them the next four months in a way that I never felt the Angelos family well, I never felt DJ Brightman. I never felt any Greg bathe, any of the people that were running. If there’s all those years, they’re all getting their paycheck and it’s wintertime and we’re hibernating like bears and we were in last place, and we’re going to stick our head under the table because we’re embarrassed by finishing in last place. And that went on forever and ever and ever and ever, and they wag their finger and say, We’re going to throw money at David seguier, money at Jeff conine, and that’s going to make things better.
Greg Abel 54:12
Yeah. I mean, when he was our best player, how about the hunter Alberto seasons, it’s like
Speaker 1 54:17
but the mark Reynolds experience. Look, we have it 40 home runs, but he’s gonna hit a buck 80.
Greg Abel 54:21
We we have better players now. I think the product will be good, and I think time is gonna tell on that stuff. Let’s see. All
Speaker 1 54:28
right, he’s a good man, even though he doesn’t agree with me. What fun everybody will you do and tell them how they can get so
Greg Abel 54:34
I run able communications, PR, firm, so if you have a business that needs more awareness, publicity, engagement with the press, people like Nestor, give me a call or send me an email to Greg at April communications, calm.
Speaker 1 54:46
Who are your clients? Plug all your clients.
Greg Abel 54:50
How about Point Breeze credit union. Plug in All right, so if you live here in the Baltimore region, you probably can be a member. Go to your local Point Breeze branch, open yourself a checking they’re
Speaker 1 54:59
in Essex. Company, correct? Middle River, yeah. Well,
Greg Abel 55:03
headquarters is on Valley,
Speaker 1 55:05
fun Valley. Okay, I didn’t know that, okay, but a great drink of them. Is an East ball.
Greg Abel 55:09
Very community minded, yes, great people. So I’ll plug point brief.
Speaker 1 55:13
There you go. How about that? Greg Abel is here. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. He is ticket number 33 because he insisted on Eddie Murray, not Larry Bird, just to check that out absolutely back at the Camden yard. Yeah, I’m trying to get it back. Yeah, one day, you and I will be in the winner’s circle the game seven, and we’ll be sobbing. You know, of our Oriole victory of World
Greg Abel 55:37
Series. That’ll be great. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Do you think gunner should change his walk up song, by the way, it’s like, the the pink,
Speaker 1 55:46
like, is it time? I think gunner shouldn’t have a walk up song. I don’t think. I don’t. I’m not here to joke
Greg Abel 55:51
on this argument. You don’t like walk up songs, period. Or his,
Speaker 1 55:57
I just want him to win and play baseball. Yeah, that’s same, yeah.
Greg Abel 56:01
Okay. Fair answer always better you were wrapping up. I brought
Speaker 1 56:05
it back. Not relish the Maryland lottery sends us out onto this circus. Love riot. And, you know, so I said to Greg, I’m like, love riot. He’s like, okay, and I’m like, no, no, no, no. Beyond words. He’s like, and it, but I said milkshake. And he’s like, Oh, I got kids. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I mean hipsters, rockers, alt rockers, and musicians for beautiful children, including Greg Abels children. Lisa Matthews here, I’m looking forward to catching up with her. It’s been a couple years. I didn’t bring gene shock today. I told her we’re going to Dundalk on so gene is too busy this weekend banging the drums in Cyndi laupers band at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. So she and I have been communicating because of our mutual love for Ed Lauer. I don’t know if you know Ed Lau or not. Ed had a heart transplant last night. I don’t know how I’m gonna get through that without talking about it, but he survived the night. He’s doing well, and I want to give some love to Ed and get him a crab cake, because Ed grew up about eight blocks away from I think Ed grew up in was it Mayfair? What’s your neighborhood called Liz may What’s your neighborhood which may feel Mayberry? Yeah, that’s where Ed’s from, too. So right down the
Greg Abel 57:19
street, all right? Well, yeah, best to Ed for great recovery. Yeah, man, let’s get
Speaker 1 57:23
Ed better. No bigger baseball fan than ed i hope the Orioles do me a favor when you leave text Mark fine and tell him to do something nice for Ed Lauer, because Ed Lauer is the biggest Oriole fan in the world. In I don’t know a bigger Oriole fan than Ed Lauer, fantastic. So we we’ve got a new heart in ED. And I told the story about Rod Carew and Conrad Roland. So Ed’s got a new heart, and we’ll get to the heart of the matter. And when we return, Lisa’s here, she’s not going to sing. I’m not. You have to get down to Patterson to hear sing, but you’ll be singing about, ever had the coconut shrimp here? No, like shrimp? Yeah, the coconut shrimp here. That’s what you want. All right, just get that off. Demand. Everybody knows about the crab cake at Cocos coconut shreds, where I’m going and get get a cream of crap soup to go. Her cream of crap soup. Don’t tell anybody. I said this around town. It’s the best.
Greg Abel 58:13
Is there it goes on Nestor tab, put it on put it on me. Put it on me. You’re
Speaker 1 58:17
my guest for being our guest here. Or a free crab cake. And yes, yes, Coco’s. We’re back for more. It’s a Maryland crab cake to we’re having fun. Stay with us. You.
