Our professor and veteran of all things sports business Marty Conway schools Nestor on the primary tasks for new Orioles ownership to grow the brand and build a foundation for the next generation of Baltimore baseball fans during this critical pennant race.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
baseball, orioles, year, revenue, tickets, people, team, ravens, buy, game, payroll, money, yankees, marty, week, ownership, media, players, pay, point
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Marty Conway
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home we are W n s t Towson Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively into summertime and I get to bring all my great baseball mafia guests on here all my insiders all my business people but before I do that I want to promote State Fair and let everyone know we’re going to be bringing the Gold Rush sevens doublers on the 13th of August I know it sounds like a long time from now we’re going to wrap up the entries again for the Maryland crab cake tour in our 26th year I’m going to change my cupcake all the brought to you by our friends at Liberty pure solutions as well as Jiffy Lube multi care keeping Luke out in Owings Mills it down to the ballpark and Padres in and Marlins out and all star game over with been a couple of months. I like to check in sort of like Jiffy Lube every couple months, every 5000 miles I check in with, with Marty Conway, who is our defending champion, the professor of all things good sports business at Georgetown University. You know, the kids don’t show up for class these days. But I’m always here learning from the good professor. That’s why we call these wise conversations. Marty, it’s been a little bit man. How are you? Well, how’s your summer? I hope your spring steaming and seeing concerts and trying to enjoy this little run of baseball thrown around here.
Marty Conway 01:14
Yeah. Oh, no, absolutely. This is, this is the time, just like you mentioned a few weeks away from school restarting Georgetown. But it’s a good time, right? Football, the business of football is front and center again, after you know, whatever the offseason issues were. And then in terms of baseball, this is an exciting time trade deadline coming up soon. That’s when some things get revealed as to how much payroll they can actually afford teams come in who’s selling and who’s buying so it’s starting to get really interesting. Yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:45
and I don’t know where we are Mr. Rubinstein, I’m never going to meet him that’s been made pretty clear to me. And if I did, I wouldn’t get like an authentic, you know, kind of conversation that I would be looking for as a human being. And I’ve learned that much. So I’m, I expect nothing more or less than him from Angelos now I just judge him like, he’s the new owner, and what are they going to do and like everyone else signed Garner sign Adley. You know, like, I’m not there. But I am looking at this week. And one of the reasons I’ve reached to you and all of my smartest baseball business people to come in and sort of educate me a little bit. You sat in this seat, you know, revenue, you know where you are, you know, we’ve talked so much about where this thing is $65 All you can come this month and next month, and just trying to get asked us in the seats and activate people that are on activated. But then there’s the money, and the more minor league system, and how desperate we are to win right now and what we need because last time you and I got together, John means was coming back. And Kyle Bradish was coming off a sigh young candidacy and Tyler Wells was going to be in that boy, thanks. CIF changed dramatically. Oh, and Couser was going to the Hall of Fame and all of these things that change from April to July. And we put the dipstick into measure like they do a Jiffy Lube and say, you know, how’s the oil? Look? Where are you this week? What is your level of expectation of new ownership? GM, that’s clearly a genius. This system that’s as loaded as anything you’ve ever seen. And you spent 20 years in baseball, like this is crazy, that they have all these great players. And then what are they going to do with it? This is fun. This is great baseball fun.
Marty Conway 03:15
Yeah, one of the things that’s apparent is their player development system is is on par above, above everybody, you know, on par with with the best around because they take players in who are you know, what role in human used to do sort of the cast off and get a guy that showed some brilliance, fell in on hot fallen on hard times, cleaned him up, dust him off, improve his delivery mechanics, hitting whatever it is, and suddenly for six weeks, eight weeks, half a season. He you know, he looks like an all star candidate. So they’ve done a great job of that their players when they come to the major leagues. Jordan Westberg, and others. They’re Gunnar Henderson, they’re clearly ready to contribute. They’re good solid hitters. They’re good around all around on defense. They do a great job, particularly in the position player area, where they still have questions is on the pitching side. Right. And I think that’s going to be their biggest challenge is because pitching is expensive in the trade market, and there’s only so many DFAS free agents that are designated for assignment that you can that you can count on. So last year at this time, they picked up Flaherty and they picked up a reliever from the A’s who didn’t turn out to be really anything this time around. Perhaps they’re willing to part with a higher up prospect the top 10 prospect in their system for an experienced starter or some bullpen assistants. They are definitely going to need help in the pitching area. In particular, the bullpen I know people talk a lot about starters we need to frontline starter those are really difficult to get And the trademark it. But what you can do is you can really fortify your bullpen, which can support your whatever starting rotation that you have. So long story short is all eyes are on Mike Elias and his team into what they can acquire in terms of arms. Clearly the pitching is there. I mean, the infield outfield depth is there. But pitching is the question that they’ll need to solve between now and the end of July.
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:25
Marty Conway is our guest. He’s a professor of all things sports business at Georgetown University, long background in Major League Baseball. And as a bit out of the game, but certainly as close to the game and certainly with the Nationals, you and I were talking for years about their success and talking about Strasburg now and we’re sodo is and what happened to their system and their players and their television money, they’re still wondering about that as well. So are you and I work for you with this week and financially and I will say Katy Griggs is named to you for the first time don’t know much about her but she’s gonna come in and run this thing is the dick cast Sashi brown or whatever, of the baseball team and being counting figuring out how much money they can get on revenue in every single way. We always talk about an esoteric level, then there’s like, what that means on the field and what they can afford and what they cannot, whether it’s a T Rowe Price patch, which has come since the last time I talked to you, and if that’s worth 8 million 10,000,015, however much they’re paying for it, it doesn’t even buy Adley rutschman jockstrap on a long term contract so like it’s it’s an incredible amount of money you have to amass to pay baseball players 40 and $50 million. We haven’t done that here since Kristeva. It’s been a decade since this franchise has thrown that off. And this is a week here, where when you give up mayors or beside CEOs, or God forbid holidays, for schools, or whatever, that you look at this and say from a financial standpoint, in any franchise, but specifically one that’s trying to figure out its finances, I would say, and you can correct me if I’m wrong on that. But what the it represents to have young talent perform at this level to have Gunnar Henderson and Adley rutschman working on the cheap, that gives you the opportunity to maybe buy a pitcher maybe by Corbin burns, and or I don’t know, but they’re trying to figure out next year’s rotation as much as this year’s, but there is a sense from the fan base that we can win the World Series this year. So let’s go do it. And I don’t know what the cost of that is this week.
Marty Conway 07:24
Yeah. And that remains to be seen. One thing that you can look at as a as a guide is total revenues earned by the team. Forbes does a pretty good job, I think is better than anybody we have heard back now. So coming on today. So estimating revenues, I think recently, they estimated the Orioles revenues in the 325 ish million range, which might place them in the top 20, somewhere between 15 and 20 in terms of total revenue for teams, but but very clearly, what you need in order to assemble, a group of young players signed to long term contracts with the Atlanta Braves did over the last two and a half or three years. And where they are today is you need a total revenue in the 400 plus million range. And so does that mean that the Orioles are 75 million or so away from sort of that level? If you look at the top 10 revenue producing teams in Major League Baseball, they are all at or above $400 million. The Dodgers and Yankees are in the mid $500 million in terms of revenue, that gives you that sort of plate payroll flexibility to be able to have one or two highly prized, you know, $30 million players plus some other players that are on the rise. So having said that,
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:44
the Phillies people a lot this week, and they built that into that kind of a franchise there. Yep, that’s
Marty Conway 08:49
right. Right. So what you’ve seen is that attendance has returned. They may draw somewhere between 2.3 and 2.5 million maybe this year in terms of the regular season, which would be nice. That’d be an average of around 30,000 per game. That that would help. But again, things have changed so much that that revenue line, ticketing, gameday revenues, whatever you call them, that revenue line continues to slip a little further down in the stack. It’s still media money, whether that’s national or local media money, sponsorship money, corporate sponsorship money, T Rowe Price, others like that they’re a part of it. Those lines are trending towards top one and two. So attendance is nice to have, and it’s necessary, but in terms of long term viability, it that’s a more variable revenue, right, that can be
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:48
way more out of your control. That’s more about how many big businesses around and that’s why the khakis or the Yankees and the Dodgers are the what I’ve
Marty Conway 09:54
always compared to tenants to is the unemployment rate in this country. It’s a lagging indicator of how well you’re doing right? People lose their job, they try to find another job, then they file for unemployment. So it’s always a lagging indicator of what’s going on. Attendance is that same way you played well, last year, you played well, at the beginning of this year, your attendance builds now in through the end of the season. But what is more sustainable are those long term contracts, sponsorship and media contracts, naming rights contracts, other things of the sort that you can count on. Because now you can project your payroll against those numbers. And ownership can then say, okay, we might need to supplement here with other revenues. Again, back to the Braves example, the Braves are collecting, you know, hefty amounts of money from ticket lines and sponsorship and media. But they’ve also got that development area around the ballpark, which provides revenue to the ownership group, which is not subject to share with their visiting teams, that they can then turn around and use to write some additional checks for long term player. So it’s going to be essential here, that the ballpark footprint becomes more proactive and progressive, to allow more revenues to come in to the ownership group. So that whether that’s led by Katie Griggs, David Rubenstein, whoever is going to do that, that’s going to happen, and then that has to happen in the next two to four years. Plus, they’ll need to get in line and secure an all star bid sometime within the next year, for a 2027 2829. All Star game, it’s wrapped up for the next two years, I believe. Philadelphia has it in 26. So there’s a spot open and 27, which I think is interesting, because that’ll be 10 years since it was in Washington. And the last time that the all star game was sort of in a similar market was New York, where the Mets hosted it, the Yankees hosted it, it was a 10 year differential. So I would look at 2728 and maybe a little bit later, if they can secure that, then they can sell against it right? Buy your tickets now. Get yourself in line, secure your seats, and you’ll be present for the all star game. stadium renovations are first though, on all that right? Yeah, stadium renovations have to happen. I think sometime the agreement has to come. So they can get approved through the stadium authority, because remember, they’re on a shorter term lease until such time that they can secure those development rights and get a plan approved, and at the same time that converts to a long term lease. So yes, in the next 18 months, you’ll need to see something tangible, on the ballpark development footprint wide. And then you’ll know that things are starting to take shape for a longer term vision for this ownership group and this management team.
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:48
What is Katy Griggs inherit if you take that job? What? What do you see as the job for her?
Marty Conway 12:57
So number one, you have to be the leading evangelists for baseball in the community, period. That means when you walk out the door, people see you and they think baseball, right? Because that is just so important. Yes, it’s a business job. But at the end of the day, you are the person that evangelizes baseball, which means get involved support baseball, access to baseball, all those different things because that when that pathway opens up, then you can feed into Orioles baseball, or whatever your particular brand is. So you have to be evangelists. for that. You have to be an evangelist for this ownerships, division, whatever it is for the ballpark and the surrounding footprint. That has to be a part of it, too. And you’re going to have to solve for those big ticket revenue ideas, what’s going to happen on the media front? How is the mass in agreement finally going to unwind? What are those payments look like? What happens in Washington to mass and that will be important to the nationals. But it’s up to the Orioles franchise who’ve inherited the ownership of it to decide what happens throughout. So a lot of big picture details. Is
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:08
it worth anything? Is that the mass and worth anything? Oh, for sure.
Marty Conway 14:12
Look, we know that while pay television, cable television, if you will, continues to dwindle. It’s the melting iceberg. There’s still a lot of interest in media, but I could see a time where if you’re out selling and representing the Orioles or the Nationals for that matter. You’re you’re not only representing hate, buy a ticket, do this. You’re also representing Hey, buy a subscription to our app so that you can watch and follow the games just like everybody else, whether it’s Netflix, apple plus Hulu,
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:44
what does that app gonna cost? What’s the right price on that? So
Marty Conway 14:47
you know right now, there’s a lot of bundling going on, but you can see anywhere between 19 to 39 and $49 a month in terms of cost now You’re probably going to buy it more on a season, just like you do. And so maybe, you know, maybe that’s a is
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:05
that 199 A year? Or is it 499 A
Marty Conway 15:08
year? It could be. And then during the season, just like any other retail product, you’re gonna say, hey, for the next 30 days, you can buy the rest of the season for this price.
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:18
So a lot of people just cuz I’m not buying April, just by August, if they’re any good boy, that’s gonna, that’s gonna be a crazy model for places where baseball doesn’t already matter, right? We’re playing these games in Miami this week. And I keep thinking, what’s their media revenue model? If they had to put all the Marlins together into one very small room and charge them too much? Right? What would you much me, you know, and I think a lot of us aren’t like, we’re just going to pay for ah, we don’t use anymore, right? When you see you’re not using it, you sort of disconnected.
Marty Conway 15:49
Right? Right. And they’re even app, mobile app. Now that will detect you know, what your case in point
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:55
from, from your perspective would be how many executives here for 15 years would hold up stacks, like I have lottery tickets of dead Oriole tickets, they couldn’t give away. And once you can’t give them away, you stopped buying it. And that was really one of the real problems for real baseball is when they couldn’t give the tickets away. The businesses said, Well, it’s I’ll go by ravens tickets are all go by CFG banker, you know, I’ll take my my employees somewhere else do something else. Like that has to come back. And to your point, the business experience for that model that Larry perfect that you guys perfected how every storefront in town felt compelled to buy a 13 game package and say we support the Orioles in some way as a business and as a write off. I’ll talk a little Rascon about that later. But, you know, I do wonder you said once Katie gives the vision for what is the vision? When do we get to hear the vision, I get that they don’t have one yet. But I’m trying to figure it out. And trading deadline week seems like a really good time that if I were a columnist at the paper, sitting with these people, so what are you guys doing? What’s the real plan here?
Marty Conway 17:01
Ya know, like I said, that will be job one once she’s established. And there’s a management team around her to do that. Because that’s what the community will want to see is, what is your what is your plan? What is your vision for how you’re going to integrate Utah Street, Pratt Street, all those different things into what you’re talking about. But back to your earlier point about media, it’s all about bundling. And it will be about bundling. And that is if you’re buying a season ticket from the team or you’re buying a suite or buying something, I suspect there’s going to be a tag along of it’s also going to include a subscription, 10 subscription, whatever it’s going to be to do it. Because the media model today, yes, is very much driven by streaming. And if I’m not using it, and I’ve gone two or three months, and it’s lagging, I’m probably going to cancel because I know that next season again, I could pick it up if I want to. And so that’s problematic for them. Oh, for sure. It’s and like I said, for every team, every team in sports hasn’t been in the business of bundling their TV with their, whatever packages they have. It’s been sold by the network that bought the rights, etc. That’s no longer going to exist. It’s one in the same. It’s the franchise and the team, together with their media model, going to the street and saying we’re bundling these two things together, you’re buying a 13 game package. And here’s your media package that goes with it for x additional, it’s very different. It will be a challenge. Some teams have already adopted that. And we’re doing it Toronto, other places. But yeah, you’ll have to come up with a pricing model, you’ll have to come up with a distribution plan, you’ll have to come up with a promotional plan for it. And you will be hitting that promotion all the time. All season long. Right. I think the other thing too, frankly, and in Baltimore, in particular, is getting some of those games back to what I call over the air television. Right? You need the most exposure for your brand opening day on channel 13. Or channel 11. Or wherever it’s going. What
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:03
you’re saying is the opposite of Apple TV. Yeah, you’ve got to do some of you mentioned exclusivity and your your note salesman, Marty, and you say it’s exclusive exclusive. You can only do an interview. And at some point, you’re just like, Alright, I’m behind. I don’t need to get behind the red room. I don’t need to be in the black wing. I you know, like I just, I’m just a fan staying at home. I mean, they forced me out, right. The new ownership has told me that I’m never getting back in. They’ve made that clear. So my pathway is this television set to Ben McDonald and Kevin Brown and Jim Palmer, Dave Johnson and Greg, Jeff Arnold, and whoever they put in front of me, Rob long, whoever’s on is what I’ve got. And I’m wondering all right, well, so this is my cost to entry. What will that look like a couple of years from now, when they’re hopefully really good and I want to pay 189 299 Whatever. I’m fascinated by the membership club part by the way, Marty Conway is here, the good professor from Georgetown University. So Marty, the WWE Maybe the model right? Like it’s a membership club, like literally, it’s not really like Netflix or like that, but it is, but it includes, um, it’s the fan club at Pearl Jam where you get first crack at tickets. Yeah,
Marty Conway 20:13
yeah, no, they absolutely the membership model has been the way for the last several years. We might have talked about this in the past, but several years ago, I think I had said, the term season ticket is dead, it’s over. It’s you’re not people don’t want to hear you’re talking about buying a season ticket. Because a population that’s age 35. And below, they don’t want to buy anything that requires a commitment beyond next week, or next month to do it. And so this membership idea, and there’s going to be levels, and I’m sure there are levels within the membership, that maybe you’re at the bottom level, and you have to pay ala carte, for all these other things, versus you’re at the premium level. And everything below that comes to you for free for that price. That’s literally where sports and entertainment is going. The other thing too is they will have to look at opportunities within that stadium footprint for other activities. We all know how concerts work, that’s one thing. But there’s other ways to use your facility during the offseason, or during times when the team is on the road where you can generate, like I said, those revenues, that may not be part of the team revenues, which gets shared with the visiting team and Major League Baseball, but go into the pockets of the ownership group that allow them the payroll flexibility to add to payroll when it’s necessary for their own sort of equity purposes. So bottom line is it’s a different, it’s a different model than way the team has operated over the last 50 years, which is they’re going to have to be more expressive, inclusive, like you said, sort of a WWE face on it, where you’re constantly in promotion phase. And these are your levers, media sponsorship tickets, all these different things all the time, you need to be in the market 365 days a year in terms of selling if you notice, Major League Baseball recently moved up the release of next year schedule that used to come out in like September, and now you’re getting some exposure for it in July. Because frankly, your selling season for next year begins with selling postseason opportunities for this year. So you have to overlap those cycles. And again, that’s something that a new management team will continue to evolve into here locally, and it will be expressed but the number one thing is when you and that management team show up to wherever it is around town. People automatically think baseball without even having to say what you’re there to talk about.
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:45
While I’ve been traveling the area and concerts in Pennsylvania Virginia Alaska. I mean, I see oil hat I saw where I had some West Palm Beach last week you know it’s it’s becoming a Hayward first place put the hat on look man I was a you weren’t from around you didn’t grow up here. I happen to know where you grew up up in upstate New York. So you didn’t have Captain Chesapeake. So I was a man was a crew member you know, I hear something I’m sure you’re I was a member of the kiss army you know back in the late 70s You know me and and I had a fun when I had to write this one down for you because you came to the Orioles and at two 383 8585 All right, if I if I said super TV to you with that. I wanted to get I wanted to be an OG that was the whole model. Pay us 10 bucks a month, and we’ll give you the games and now it’s pay us 40 bucks a month or whatever it’ll be because it’s not like gonna be like super cheap, I don’t think and then I think Alright, so let’s add up everyone willing to do that, and willing to pay full price. And let’s add up everybody in Middle River who wants to give them $6 again to go there for the month and you know, probably sneak flasks in the way we used to with Wild Bill back in the day. But I’m thinking like, this is my big question. And this is where I will judge them. And I’ve just thought of this in our conversation because you were rambling a minute ago and I’m thinking how do I even judge their growth? They’re such a good team, right? They want 101 games. We’re going to whatever they do for pitching this week or whatever they have a chance to win the World Series a very credible chance just with Corbin burns and Grayson Rodriguez they don’t I think Kramer it’s got to start game three they’ll figure it out right and they got these great players the all star game was all about them last week Right? forgot her Henderson to hit Scooby Doo to the battery was them. It’s like we’re almost like the Yankees are like a real friend like the Blue Jays back when they came here 30 years ago. So I see the Orioles is ascending brand. I see I’m talking about him. We’re in the center of how great all of our players are in development. All these things we can say. I’m really wondering when they’re going to clinch the pennant and they’re playing in September and they’re given the seats away. It’s 60 bucks come all month. By ticket come anytime you want. Whether there’s going to be more than 18,000 of us and I was one of them there when they clinch last year I had a chance to clinch and that’s a school my kids are back school I’m saving my money for I want that pay for the Ravens guys want the Dallas with the Ravens last week, Marty Come on man, you ran the place. So we so much money here. And you know, you just told me there’s 75 million short of being
Marty Conway 25:18
I don’t know. Top 10 revenue team
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:21
top 10 What’s that make them the Rangers then what?
Marty Conway 25:24
Who’s 10 tonight? Because I’m I’m going to Rangers. The
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:28
Braves is being if they catch up to the Braves, they’ve done something they’ve really built a hell of a thing here if they catch up to those places revenue wise without using Washington at all without siphoning money off the teat of Masson without getting money they don’t deserve and never were privy to they’re gonna have to go make it on their own now all of them are so we’re the Padres. You don’t have a television network in the coming in this weekend. And they were just spending money like they were drunk and in a gaslight district, right? They’re gonna make it on their own. And I’ve often wondered, but I do wonder from a measurement standpoint, you can give me this 2.5 million 7 million of that they’ve given away tickets, they fill the upper deck, they gift they do a lot of different things to give the optics make the optics better, including the old television broadcasts is one optical Johnny Bravo at this point every night. The optics of them winning and clinching a pennant and doing all that in September, I want to see that major league movie where the season began with 5000 people and in the end, the stadium is packed. Because that to me would be an indicator because the tickets are going to be $500 in the playoffs. That’s a different crowd. But it’s nice, you know, to see the Red Sox and see them have a chance to clinch on September, whatever I don’t want to schedule in front of me. Due to felt a little desperate last year and John boy doing the papel handshake with Westmore, and lying to everybody. And like all of that that led into September last year. It doesn’t feel like Mr. Rubenstein squirt and fans and dancing on the dugout, like all of that energy, the Mojo, you know, like, I want to see that. And you alluded to it earlier, you’re pretty confident that like this is building and this is where they’ve built all of this so they can go seize the tower and beat the Yankees and win the World Series. I want to see more than the usual suspects out there. And September, I want to see new faces. Yeah, okay. Greg’s you know,
Marty Conway 27:17
ya know, like I said, that’s a part of it, which is building that advance sale, where, in September, whether they’re in it or out of it, whatever, those tickets, a lot of those tickets have already been bought, right, because they’re part of a season package. They’re part of half season. They’re part of whatever flexible package they are. That’s what you’re looking for. And I’ve always thought that the Baltimore market from a baseball standpoint, can be needs to be and at times was similar to St. Louis, there’s a Cardinals nation concept there. And again, a little different, they can reach into some states that maybe don’t have baseball, and they can draw, but the Cardinal fans have a loyalty to the point where even when they’re not good, they were routinely drawing in the two and a half million range. And when they were good, or when they are good, they’re drawing in a 3 million range. That’s not going to happen here anymore, because of Washington. People
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:17
from Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, all through that region. We all use the St. Louis Cardinals as their home team, you know, Iowa, the whole state of Iowa was like, like, like all of that, right. And
Marty Conway 28:33
part of it is a model of relative success, sustained success. There’s rare times when the Cardinals weren’t in it, or consider to be in it. They rarely, if ever went through like a rebuilding period where they tore it down. They let Albert pools walk overall. Yeah. And they have they have some really good natural rivalries, for example, with the Cubs, for example, they’re a part of that. So there are things that are built into it. And again, the American League East division is a very, very difficult, probably the most difficult division to have sustained, sustained success, because the ability of the Yankees and the Red Sox and maybe even at times the Blue Jays have to inject payroll to do that. And so they have their work cut out for them in that respect. But if you’re back to asking, like, what is that? How do you get to that point? Number one, they’re in position now where they have young players who will be playing here on reasonable payrolls. For the next several years, they had that opportunity to build that and at the same time, if they start to develop the footprint around that makes that a busy place around Camden Yards and Oriole Park. And if they’re able to acquire things like the Major League Baseball, All Star Game three years out, that gives people the sense Hey, this is coming. This is building. I want to be there when it happens. And it takes you from 18,000 people in September. But even if you’ve already clenched are about to clench to 28,000 people In September, no matter where you are, because those tickets have been bought, those sponsor packages are in place, and all those things, and you reduce the risk from season to season, about the performance or the weather or other issues, the performance of the football team, or other things that get in the way that pull money because you’re right. In some respects, Baltimore has a finite amount of money available for their sports and entertainment. And whether that marginal dollar, right, we know what the Orioles will get, we know what the Ravens will get no matter what they do. But that marginal dollar in the middle, if it more or less goes to the Orioles versus more or less going to the Ravens. That’s what you’re looking for. So those are the kinds of things that you will be sitting in the warehouse top floor, thinking about how do we get to that point? What do we have to do again? How do we evangelize baseball in the way that the Ravens have evangelized football to the point where you need to be there or you need to be paying attention or you need to be buying something even if it’s not a ticket. It’s some other representation of your loyalty and relationship. When you can get to that point. Then you’ve got something that can sustain year to year and now you’re closer to a Cardinals bottle or a Cubs model or someplace like that.
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:23
Marty Conway is the good professor of all things sports business at Georgetown University. We love having his wisdom and our wise conversations and you know I I want to leave baseball and go to football but they are this is where what are you gonna spend your money on playoff tickets World Series tickets or are you going to Dallas with the Ravens? Are you going to you know, to San Diego, San Diego I just said that Los Angeles wherever it’s going to be what Where are you going to spend that money I went to Van Halen last weekend. I went see the pretenders because I could afford it the other night I bailed on Pat Benatar I love you pat but your tickets were too expensive and you wanted to order $50 night for me. So I learned this on the music space of when I go to a game how much the Night Out is worth to me the same way you would judge a meal or travel or hotel plane ride like where the value play is on all of this. And they the baseball team has made it very affordable. I have talked and shad upon the football team at length I went through some old screenshots I’m doing because I’m doing a whole Labor Day thing on me being discriminated against and not giving being a chance to work and do my job. So I’m doing that during Labor Day week. But I you know, I started to look at ticket prices and where they are ravens tickets a lot of nights are 10 or 15 or 20 bucks if you wanted to go you could go Orioles games are inexpensive enough that you can go if you want to go or find an angle or Gunnar Henderson hits five homeruns and have a $5 flash sale. You may see they’re really doing and Luke and I were talking about this. A lot of things the Angelo’s family never did in regard to really trying to get you to the ballpark while they’re winning at whatever your price point is whatever. My friend Melanie and Dundalk, who’s, you know on a fixed income season ticket holder lover known her forever. She’s an Oriole lifer and can’t afford playoff tickets can’t afford certain things, but can still afford to go to the ballpark. And we used to always say back in your ERA price of a movie ticket you know Night Out affordable Night Out for a family to go to the game. Baseball. I had gotten away from that with the Angeles people because what they were trying to get you to pay now the family thing of bringing kids for free and all that. That’s why I’m saying Marty it should be full. They’re great. The weather’s good. You got nothing else to do. It is more affordable than the Raven experience. To be able to do it and to get on board. There’s a lot of things to love about the team. i This is It’s go time, bro. It’s not any more unorthodox Angelo’s. It’s what are you going to be this is this is these to be the mature product, not beta? Yeah,
Marty Conway 34:02
no, it’s look, I’ve always said that baseball. Should can and should be a needs to be always the most affordable sports and entertainment options in your market. Why? Look at 81 regular season home games at minus opening day. There’s there should never be a time whether it’s on a Monday night, Friday night, Saturday night, whatever it is, where you should be locked out of going to a game because of affordability in a stadium that has 40 plus 1000 seats at games besides opening day. That’s a lot of inventory. And so if you’re smart, and you have good data and analytics, you should be in a position to meet the customer at the level that they can afford to be there because again, it’s about access to the game. So affordability is a part of access and you’re right. NFL tickets are much much higher than a game day experience for a baseball team. And that’s your opportunity, giving people access And they see it, they feel it. They have it, they walked away with a good experience. And that leads to the sort of loyalty in the community buying other oral theme products, going to Oriole baseball theme events. That’s the strategy that you have. So it’s a little bit like the car business, which is I’m going to promote the Camrys and the Karolos. And the things that are affordable, dependable, and you know that there isn’t really much of a question of, hey, if I buy that vehicle, not only do I have to think about the cost of acquisition, but it’s the cost of maintaining it. And baseball should and can be a low maintenance price for for any community. And again, Maryland has a lot of baseball, you have Frederick, you have buoy, you have Aberdeen, there’s a lot of bass players down there. The commercials, yeah, right in and around. And so your relative footprint to attract people if they already if they’re already predisposed to baseball in Frederick or Aberdeen. Now, the opportunity is just getting to Baltimore City for a game for a weekend. And then on top of that, in this area, you have the natural rivalries of the Yankees and Red Sox or a lot of fans here in this area. And then when the Dodgers or Cubs or some other national team, Manny Machado from the Padres coming in, those should be opportunities to build on top of that, in addition to the base that you have, you add those marginal fans think
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:27
the last time I had you on I just seen the sexy ad maybe it was no maybe not what was beginning of baseball sees with April, the Ravens ran some sexy ads about the greatest team and the greatest fan experience of the great tickets available. And I thought that’s almost makes me want to vomit. If David Modell were alive in our It’s disgraceful. This is as good as it gets for the ravens, right? Like it’s literally as good as it gets, they could not be in a better position to win. And now the Orioles have come back from the depths of where you left them 30 years ago to be relevant again, relevant enough and I can hold my wallet up if I had it here well enough to relevant enough to get my visa card. And I got to figure out where in addition to food rent, you know, all the things travel kids ball, well, the things we do, how much do I have for them, and when they come directly to me, as they have for season tickets or the Direct TV package, but to your point, most people our age, Marty wants to get into ship for free. And to your point, like it just kind of came the games, we’re just here. Now when you send me an individual bill for anything, Food Network, anything, I don’t want to pay for any of that as the iceberg has melted, as you pointed out earlier, how many people are going to check the box on their credit card and just turn their credit card over to Mr. Rubenstein, and footballs monitoring all of this, but football is just swimming in money. You know, I had Mari brown say to me this week, once the Packers numbers came out, he’s like, you know, it’s idiot proof running an NFL team. And I thought, oh, maybe that explains the whole thing. You know what I mean? Like as to how they behave, because football has figured this out where we’re all into it. And they don’t feel like they’re hitting us over the head for much of anything financially, even when we buy a jersey for twice as much as it’s worth or whatever, that the football that the access point for football feels like, Oh, we’re all included. I don’t have to pay for anything. You know, it’s, it’s just there.
Marty Conway 38:25
Ya know, football, the NFL has done a fabulous job since the early 60s, moving their model to national media revenues. And as you probably heard from Maury or others, you know, they’re getting checks in the plus $400 million range each year, and that continues to grow. And it’s it would be next to impossible to operate your NFL franchise at a loss, knowing that you’re getting 400 plus million when your payroll salary cap is you know, enough, mid 100 million. Look, NFL teams are still expensive to operate. But that ability to know guaranteed over the next 10 years, what my top line number one revenue stream coming in is going to be baseball is somewhat different. They rely upon more regional and local revenue streams. They do get national revenues, but not to the percentage of the National Football League. And so they figure that out, which puts more emphasis on the local franchises and franchise and Baltimore, Washington in particular, to do that kind of day to day marketing to be the Walmart of the of the sports industry, which is to be affordable, great price, good service, all those different things that go with it, because they they need to to supplement those national revenues and make up for the gap that exists between the NFL and Major League Baseball. So having said all that, like I said the window continues to open up here. And the future here has to be such where What’s the ballpark development going to be? What’s the prospect of giving an all star game? What’s the opportunity for postseason baseball and how that drives people paying for and buying tickets along the way?
Nestor J. Aparicio 40:13
Well, at least we’re not selling subscriptions to the Marlins television or raise television or the Sacramento athlet mean at least they have a product here Katie Griggs and Mr. Rubenstein and and the whistler they’ve all they have this thing. Now people like you and me are watching saying what are you going to do with it and you know, including the roster itself this week and how that relates to payroll and players down the line. Marty Conway is a good professor of all things sports business at Georgetown University. He is our defending champion you can usually follow him out on LinkedIn or places where smart people think smart things Marty. ballgame soon beverage zoom concert soon something soon. It’s always good to have you on brother.
Marty Conway 40:54
Great, thanks for thanks for the invite. And hopefully see you down the road.
Nestor J. Aparicio 40:58
I hopefully I’m a better student in those kids. You’re inheriting over Georgetown. I am Nestor. We are wn SDA and 5070, Towson Baltimore and we never stop talking. Baltimore positive
