With the trading deadline ahead and the first measurement of ownership’s strategy on the field coming into focus, our business insider Eric Fisher from Front Office Sports gives Nestor the economic realities of MLB, local media issues and the hurdles and growth needed from Team David Rubenstein moving forward as Catie Griggs takes over the business of Birdland
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
baseball, people, years, money, sports, orioles, nfl, talking, team, game, week, revenue, rubenstein, watch, players, day, put, fan, baltimore, market
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Eric Fisher
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home we are wn St. Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively up on the trading deadline around here and we’re gonna be having some crabcakes in next couple of weeks. We’re having crabcakes with Prince George’s County Executive Angela also Brooks who’s running for US Senator, we have an invite at the larry hogan open to have the former governor on as well. I saw brought to you by the Maryland lottery are friends with gold rush sevens and the doubles we’re giving these away at State Fair, which is across the street from El Guapo. in Catonsville or Catonsville if you mispronounce it over in the 212 to eight where life is great. Also our friends at Liberty pure solutions keeping our water crystal clear from the well right to love to everything we drink in our our place. So we’re real proud of that. We also had a plumbing issue last week, and they came over took care of that. And Jiffy Lube, multi care put this out on the road, and all summer long get Luke to training camp and down to Camden Yards. I have I love love, love baseball. Everybody knows me knows that you can see it over my shoulder but my last name, and I own the radio station 26 years now and 33 years in the air and I don’t know that other than a couple of minutes and 96 and 97 We had some trading stuff around the David Wells thing. You know the Machado thing and like that whole thing that factored in 10 years ago and Chris Davis, it wasn’t as much that we had a little bit of fun with Andrew Miller last and Eduardo Rodriguez, but this year, it is just you can’t put MLB Network on you can’t put ESPN on when there’s baseball happening without the Orioles being literally the straw stirring the drink. As Reggie Jackson once said, Eric Fisher is our defending champion. He’s covered the business of sports dating back to and you’ll appreciate this. I drove down New York Avenue all the way to the Warner theater to see the pretenders the other night and I passed the Washington Times building and I told my wife. That’s where the Washington Star was when I was a young guy now joins us from front office sports. He is an attorney by by admission, but a longtime longtime journalist who covered all things Masson, and all things Angelo’s and all things learner and all things the Expos moving to Washington 20 years ago now just got back from the all star game. I want to make sure you all of you all my mafia, my baseball mafia gets a full introduction of your credentials before you come on. Because I always check this door. I’m like, this is about money. And if you can’t discuss money in regard to player transactions, and payroll and where teams are, then you don’t understand the sport. That’s why I love having guys like you want. So welcome back, brother.
Eric Fisher 02:36
Well, great, Zeke, great to see you again.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:40
All right, let’s get through it. Who they dealing for? And where are they dealing it and all that stuff like you’re such a baseball guy. And this is really fun from an Orioles perspective. But I am getting it right. You can’t talk about trades anywhere without factoring in how the Orioles might want that pitching.
Eric Fisher 02:55
Oh, 100%. It’s a whole new day and Charm City that you’ve got a team that’s right here at the top of the American League. hungry for success, they got a little taste of it last year, it didn’t quite work out the way that y’all wanted, as we discussed, hungry for more. And you got a new owner with deeper pockets, looking to do some things. And obviously having a big splash in his first full season would make a big deal as well. And so all the sort of tumblers are aligned plus you got an organization that has potential assets in a loaded farm system to try to move that would be available to move. All the pieces sort of come together that you are correct that it’s hard to talk about this without the discussion of the Orioles being a major factor on deadline day. Like
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:47
I don’t think that Mr. Rubinstein knows a whole lot about baseball. I mean, I you know, like, I don’t think I’ll ever get in front of him to discuss like trading deadline. I just don’t think he cares that much, you know, in that way, in a way that Peters kids were involved in playing rotisserie baseball 30 years ago, right. So I don’t think Rubenstein sits down with Elias this week and says, What’s Corbin burns fight? I don’t know if that happens or not if it does good on all them. But they have not been as transparent as maybe some of the old school journalists like you and I would be led to believe 3040 years ago. That being said, they do get to lay their cards on the table at these particular times. People always ask me, who’s Ozzie drafting? Who’s Eric Decosta drafting? Well, you find that on draft night you find out on August 30 At six o’clock, where they are how they feel about things. But this is it’s a jigsaw puzzle in so many ways for control player control young players, the value of young players, how all that works out when you’re like we like Corbin burns, we might win the World Series with him and that’s July talking to us now. Right? And Ortiz is in Milwaukee doing what he’s doing like all that. I don’t know if you’ll love it as much if you get out out in the first week. If Bernstein is a five in the first round. against whoever they play, and somehow they go out and three games for games or whatever it is, that happens to them in October where bad things happen, and then burn signs with the Dodgers for 288 million or whatever it is. There’s parts of all of this financially into the future with Henderson rutschman. All of that, that Mr. Rubinstein’s people and Katie Griggs and Mike Elias are gonna have to figure out in a market where things are better, but it’s still 65 bucks, they go to all the games this month, they’re just looking for beer, concession money, and they realize sort of, you know, fancier, I don’t have that, then with New York money here, they really don’t. Well,
Eric Fisher 05:36
there’s that. But then there’s also as better as things are, and we can all agree things are better, there is the disappointment of last year, and this team and this team looks better this year, there is still that they still haven’t gotten over the next push yet. And they still haven’t sort of fulfills all the promise yet. And there’s going to be a segment of the fan base and you’re closer to it than I am, that are going to be unconvinced until they actually do it. And that’s part of why I think you’re seeing the things that you’re talking about visa vie ticket sales and so forth. But they’ve got to actually make that next step. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:12
you would say go all in right go. I don’t even know what all in is here, the streets like daily Jackson holiday or Kobe Mayo for a bag of baseballs. But that being said, this would be different if Bradish didn’t lose his arm and wells didn’t lose his arm and Batista didn’t like just going down the list means if he had made the full comeback, like there was so much prosperity. I remember the press conference in May, Eric, it was the kiss of death. We have a six man rotation. And we have six major league starters. And now all of a sudden, it’s just different. And as you get up on the deadline and all that the wildcard thing and the extra teams getting in that will affect all of this, but there really is the bean counting for any franchise that doesn’t have a lot of money to say, well, we gave Ortiz away, we didn’t have a place to play him. But at some point, things get expensive. And even your own players in the case here of Austin Hays and Cedric Mullins and, and mountcastle Santander that they have a lot of pieces. But all of these young pieces, I keep trying, if I were taking phone calls from people, I’d say, Look, if Mike Elias does nothing next week, it means he really likes Kobe mayo. And he sees that sometimes they’re what they that this is how you backfill into being the Tampa Bay Rays by not saying we’re all in one time, let’s go, let’s that’s an old world philosophy. That doesn’t apply anymore. That and last year is a core example. Jack Flaherty was the big pickup last year, and he was no factor at all. And he is a fact of this week in Detroit, right where someone else’s fate is, you don’t win the World Series on these deals very often. But we sure love to talk about at the end of July, Eric.
Eric Fisher 07:49
Yeah, no doubt. And you you sort of exposed kind of two sides of this, that there’s an interesting thing that you also want to send a message to your clubhouse that ownership and management support you. And we believe in you. But you don’t want to make a move so big that it sort of upsets the pecking order of how you got to be in first place four months in as well. It’s a very, it’s a delicate balance balancing act. And then there’s also the financial considerations that you raise that. And we’ve talked about this when I’ve been on before that there are the short and long term decisions that Rubenstein and now Katie Griggs coming in from Seattle, are going to need an alias are going to need to make in terms of who you keep long term and how you allocate resources for now and for the future,
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:33
and where the resources are. And this is maybe where I have you unpeel the onion a little bit and I learn a lot when I have folks like you want I’m having Kurt Baden housing on this week, I talked to Maury Brown, you know, all my baseball mafia business people this week, because this is where you do count the beans a little bit and they’re more people in the stadium, there’s a lot more discounting, there’s a whole lot more, you know, Ryan mountcastle, at eight RBIs. I said, Let’s do $8 tickets, you know, there’s a lot more flash sale, much like, you know, I go to concerts, and I’d sell the pretenders for 40 bucks the other night because I bought them late and found my way in and if it was 125 bucks, I wouldn’t have gone and I think people feel that way about baseball 30 bucks to go to right maybe not 12 bucks, I’ll go and I’ll get a beer and I’ll do this and I’ll figure it out. And I love going we all love going and you love going when it’s getting better. And I think there there’s so many things about baseball that I love talking about with guys like you because you know the old model, you know every old model where it was we’re going to build a stadium and that’s going to be club seats and then we’re going to have a television network and that’s going to just throw off revenue and we’re going to get you’re going to suck money off of cable systems for in. Okay, I don’t know what the next thing is. I’m not sure they know what the next thing is as the Bally’s and the Sinclair’s and the regionals are all run through this guy owns the network doesn’t know what to do with it. We know one thing it’s one hell of a dispute that’s been at the heart of every conversation you and I’ve had for the last 15 years. And but they don’t know that model and I think all I know is Scott Boras, inside and anything on behalf of Governor Henderson, you know, until such day comes or Westberg until such day comes where he gets the whole market and so fans clamoring for Let’s lock up let’s lock up badly. Like, I don’t know, we’re gonna find out what the realities of all this are. And now we’re Tampa Bay was where St. Louis is or the Phillies have gotten to, we’re going to find out where the Orioles think they’re going with a 74 year old owner with Cal Ripken now sort of the optics of all of that. But this level of expectation and scrutiny of all of you watching and saying, we’re going to see what the shell game is here about winning a championship and trying to sustain something past Rob man for its five year model. Because we’re in year two and five doesn’t sound like a lot right now. It sounds like the window is just opening up. But as the cops found out and the Royals found out and the Nationals found out, your nationals, the window shuts, right. I mean, it’s quickly and the window is open right now. And this is where these, these trading deadline things in your assets when you have so many assets. This is a weird week for them to wake up with Scoble or crochet or not. And in speak to the fans and say, Well, we believe in Kobe mania, we believe in Jackson Hole, we’re not dealing those guys.
Eric Fisher 11:14
Yeah, it’s why it’s such a fascinating thing. Because and we’ve talked about this team before, it’s such a, you went through a lot of pain to get all these assets in and get your watchman’s in your hand your sins and so forth. But now, and this sort of speaks to what I was talking about before with the fans sort of waiting to see that next step. Because I think we all know that there was a lot of pain to get this collection of players that’s now been assembled. And now what happens because you raise a very good point that this the window could just be one year or two years that a lot of things could happen either by design or circumstance. I
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:50
saw someone semi credible, believe it or not ad on the the lunatic X site in regard to this Coupal deal. That was holiday and curse that. I’m thinking that’s 330 some odd games of really bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, awful baseball that you’ve had to accumulate to even have the rights to have Jackson, how will they come up and get to the end for two weeks? A couple of months ago, there’s but that that’s the ask, that’s the price of a number one starter under control, you get a starter next year, you know what I mean? Like throw me day, and then that buys your way out of burns. But my God, I don’t think Mike Elias would do anything like that. Nor can I blame him so that when we don’t wind up with something better than Corbin burns next week, that the fan base here can get tucked out of the tree, right? Yeah,
Eric Fisher 12:45
100%. And you raise a good point that there there are the sort of if then then that kind of scenarios that if you make a trade for one guy, then you’re sort of deciding that your guy and then maybe this other guy can go and there’s a lot of that sort of second, third, fourth domino sort of effect on a particular player transaction. So you raise a good point there. Again, it’s it’s really, really interesting. You know, because you’ve got it. There’s no team quite like the Orioles in terms of what they went through to get this collection of talent, this collection of talent in their sort of relative period in their agent service history. And then combine that with new ownership, the relative challenges in economics versus, you know, obviously, the team they’re facing in the division battling for first place. It’s in there sort of a unicorn in the game right now in terms of all the factors that are surrounding them right now. Eric
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:43
Fisher is our guest. He’s a front office sports. He is literally an OG in regard to the marketplace and television and REITs, and baseball, and all sports really, but with a real focus and a passion for baseball. If I meet you on a plane right now and say, All right, tell me about rsmeans and revenue and streaming. And if you had to explain it to Mr. Rubenstein, he called you and said explain this to me. You know how this works? And what’s the future is going to be what what do they think it’s going to be? What are they having you believe as someone that covers this as a journalist, and so
Eric Fisher 14:20
basically, you almost can put the whole diamond Sports Group bankruptcy off to the side, that it almost to a certain extent, doesn’t matter what happens, obviously, the companies involved in the distributors and the teams involved. For right now. It really matters. But if you listen to rob Manfred, and we heard it again last week at the All Star game, really where they’d like to go is that they realize that the golden goose it’s over that the regional sports network model and the revenue model of getting money from people who don’t consume your games, that’s over. And so it’s time to move to something called
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:58
that by far other names. Seems you know over the last 20 years, but it really, it was an amazing thing to sit here on a day by day basis and speak to it while the Oreos poor mouth, you know and said we don’t have any money and six states were giving them money. And they were siphoning this money out of the DC market that was at the center of very, very esoteric, weird conversations about 90% scaling back. I mean, it was it was a crazy deal that did nothing but pour money into the Angelo’s family’s pockets, and never really improve the product here, Eric, I mean, really, and that’s an amazing thing, because in a lot of places, it found that everything right, LA, New York, and places where it worked, even St. Louis, where they they, they managed to make the team better through that model. But there wasn’t a lot of that, really.
Eric Fisher 15:48
Yeah, so that it’s over. And I think in so what they’re now openly talking about is trying to move to an NFL type model, where they take a bunch of teams REITs, pull it together. And obviously, it manifests itself differently than the NFL, because the number of games but you pull together with a different sort of combined package that’s run through the league, and then sort of sold out into the local markets. And, and then you’ve got a different type of revenue sharing, and so forth. But basically, long story short, is that they want to pull together these local REITs. And something that is much more akin to how the NFL operates. And that’s ultimately where this is going in. For this to all be settled out. It does sort of go past into the next Commissioner. And it’s going to take a number of years to play itself out. But that’s ultimately where this is going. Because the current model is not sustainable for the long term.
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:48
You know, I felt like watching hockey struggle with that element of their media forever and ever, and really becoming a niche sport, nothing more than that, and never could break through big for wherever it was. Baseball is played itself in the fourth place in Boston. You know, like in places. When I Bob Ryan and Dan Shaughnessy on they told me the Red Sox wake up in fourth place every day in their own market. And I see places like Philadelphia where it works Baltimore where we have just this incredible, you’ve known me a long time. I’ve been doing this a long time. This these are the good times when you have Lamar Jackson, and you hosted the ACC championship game and you want to under one games, that’s as good as it can get here. I mean, like I’ve been doing this a long time. And then you say, Well, how much money is there. And the Ravens have $10 tickets, most of their games on StubHub, the day of the game, because people can’t give their tickets away. They have commercials to sell tickets on regular television because they have trouble selling their tickets. After throwing me out, by the way, but the Orioles, we saw this thing really go south after the first 10 years. And then the Nationals come in the Orioles have been the sleeping giant. And as an Orioles, fan, local person, whatever. I’m really wondering how this membership club thing Birdland will work, because I seen the first parts of this where you get a special french fry price, you get a special thing, you get $65, you come to the ballpark on all of these offers above and beyond getting free stuff. And if that, that has been their model to sell tickets to get asses in the seats, free stuff, give some more statues away, you know, do like any of that. Those kinds of promotions work. But the more than that, I’m trying to figure out the media model where you make me pay for all of the games, and I find it benign enough to do it. And not restricted because I find a lot of the Apple TV stuff and the Amazon like all of these come on Disney plus paramount. Like, I’m 55 I got a lot of life left in me and I’m still a customer and I can afford it. But I don’t want any of it. And I want to opt out of all of it. And but my Oriole thing or my capital thing, or my the NFL is different and they’re going to charge you for the Super Bowl at some point. But the point to where they lock you out. And you can’t just watch the game tonight. We’ve all experienced that now with apple plus, right? We’ve all had that Friday game or that Sunday thing that they’re doing on one of these whack job networks that we don’t have. And we’re like, you know what, we’re just what not watching the game tonight. I mean, I had that happen with the Miami Kansas City game back in the in the playoffs, right? So I just think there’s there’s a point where you start to restrict the people who might come and you only preach to your own choir. And in that case, it’s very old, very, very white and baseball, and my mother was still alive she would bristle at these Apple, you know, like, like don’t make it hard for me to get your game and you and I could do 15 minutes because Luke and I’ve done this a million years because he lives in Pennsylvania and can’t get Oreo games because of blackout like all of the nonsense that goes on in a Phillies market and all of that stuff. They’ve they’ve got to fix this so that People like me want to give them some money, but not too much money so that I can still have the games, or I’m not going to have any of the games and I’m just gonna go watch lacrosse or something. You know what I mean? Like they’re only really going to get hardcore hardcore people in the way that concerts when the tickets are 200 bucks, you’re just price that anybody that might want to come and check out your band. And baseball’s got to figure that out. Yeah,
Eric Fisher 20:23
there’s a lot of friction in the streaming landscape, particularly in your complaint, we’ve heard a lot. And it’s part of why you’re already seeing a lot of this bundling. We’ve got venue sports coming out this fall, we’ve got Comcast, they are bundling Netflix and Apple TV. Plus, you’ve obviously got Disney’s own bundle, you’ve got other bundles that T Mobile and Verizon are putting out. And you’re seeing these early steps to putting two three streaming services together, what ultimately we all want is all of these major streaming services that have the rights put it together. And actually, it’s gonna look a lot like cable, put it all together in one product, and give me all the games one price and create a frictionless experience, but because the way the rights are carved up and how the networks have their own walled gardens, we’re not there yet. We might get there. I’m not sure. Maybe we won’t. But I’m hopeful that maybe we will, because exactly what you described, that if we’re going to have a situation where it’s very much eat what you kill, and you can’t have this passive income anymore, and it’s all got to be direct engagement with your fan, you’ve got to create a more frictionless experience. What
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:36
would the Oakland A’s be worth if they just talked to their own fans and only got that money? Right? If that’s the only money they got that they had access to? Or the Tampa rays? Like I don’t? Yeah, we’ve seen what those brands represent versus the Yankees or the Dodgers, and how much money those kinds of brands, I mean, it, it then becomes premiership and second division really? Yeah,
Eric Fisher 22:00
100%. And again, this is a shaking out as we say, because again, we’re moving from that old cable model passive income, and to very much eat what you kill. And if it’s eat, what you kill, you got to get out there and do your hunting and gathering.
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:16
I don’t know that they’re good at that. Now, we’re good at that here. I mean, the Angelus family didn’t recruit anybody, Jason everybody. They didn’t recruit anybody for 30 years here. So this new group as the the the new owner has to get out and pass out hats on camera and dance on the dugout and do that stuff, because and it’s all been well received here. It’s all well and good. But to your point, it’s gonna come down to are you signing players? Are you managing the team the right way, like, and these are those crossroads when you’re this good. And there’s much as expected at this point, people here expect the parade at some point, which is a really crazy bar. But compare
Eric Fisher 22:54
that to three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, we are yes, big decisions have to be made. It’s not perfect. But you can pinch yourself a little bit because think about how different it was not that long ago. Oh, do
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:09
tell. And it’s so much fun. To have great players to watch great broadcasts with Ben McDonald and Kevin Brown are doing the game. I mean, the experience of it here, it’s come back, as well as the ravens, and then they’re out on the field practice and Luke’s out there right now. These are the good times. And that’s why I’m saying you how much money is in my market? How much money is there for these teams for sky boxes in a while competition revenue,
Eric Fisher 23:36
you got to nationalize the sport more. And if you do that, then then your market has a better chance long term. And I guarantee you that what we’re talking about now, you may probably have friends in Pittsburgh, certainly through your Steelers connections. They’re having they’re about a year behind in this conversation, maybe two years, because everything we’re talking about now in your market, it’s all starting to coalesce around pulse gains, and pulse gains, the real we all seen it. He’s the real deal. And Pittsburgh’s even it’s even smaller, even more challenged. And the same conversation that we’re having here is going to start to play out in Pittsburgh to
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:15
the angels had Otani and they had, and they had trout and they got they got bubkis. Right, like so it this, this can can go the wrong way. And I’m trying to monitor it on a day by day basis because it’s such rarefied air. You know, Eric Fisher is here to help me with front office sports so I get that out there for you. So
Eric Fisher 24:35
we are a multi platform media operation primarily online. I work on the newsletters, but we’ve got a podcast, getting more into video getting more into live events, all centered around the business of sports as a as a mainstream not just as for a niche audience for people working in the business, but really for everybody and the kinds of things that we’re talking about for your mass audiences. Well, we are a multi-platform operation serving that that whole operation.
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:04
Well, you know that I love the business of this going back to Lords of the Realm and being on the radio in the summer of 1994 and the winter of 1995. And talking about all of these issues back to bud Seelig and Faye Vinson and the Garden of Eden and Steinbrenner Reinsdorf, and then never really getting this fixed in the 90s. And that’s what Mr. Rubinstein has inherited here. Now, you and I talked baseball forever and Angelo’s and revenue, we just went through where they are benders football, football season starting, and I saw the numbers drop for what the national revenue is. And the wonder they throw people like me out and mistreat everybody else and have their own media, you know, sort of monopoly on their own practices and their own personality, like all of that stuff@ravens.com where you can get tickets to, but they’ve really turned it into reality TV from a media perspective the Ravens have and a lot of social media accounts. This is where that side of the media is going, which is we’re hard knocks 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we’re gonna make it look like hard knocks but it’s completely sanitized, completely run through PR and legal. And you know, all of that. The football side of where their business is, and the rocket ship that International has been they’re going to Brazil in a couple of weeks. I saw it with my own eyes over Wembley a couple years ago, the Ravens went back and played at Tottenham last year, where their revenue is where Mr. Mashad he is on a golf course somewhere in Florida doesn’t care, doesn’t know the care stopped doing press conferences after Ray Rice ran for me off the veranda at a media event back in March. Like there’s there will be no more questions there’ll be no more answers. Because the amount of money that’s flooding in funds, the team, the operation, the profit center, the bill, all of it. And we just gave $600 million to build the black wing on their their facility so they can go and play everything and charge $23 for a martini. It’s amazing but the NFL thing we don’t even talk about it because it’s such a machine right like we never have to worry about whether our team can afford this they never have the Oakland A’s situation hit them they have lots of black eyes and we’ve had a lot of in DC but they’ve never had that hit them poverty in the NFL not they’ve they’re the ones that have figured this out how to how to really melt this. Yeah,
Eric Fisher 27:28
so you look at just look at the TV stuff that the nine of the 100 top programs and tell all of us television last year regardless of genre 93 were NFL games and we just saw the numbers dropped from the Packers making you know $650 million a you know in national revenue just insane amounts of money and it’s running an NFL teams almost idiot proof at this point that
Nestor J. Aparicio 27:56
idiot Purdue say that I’ll say that again for Sashi. Brown, it’s idiot proof it Brett’s an amazing business. It really is.
Eric Fisher 28:03
Yeah, it it is the it is we are so divided on race, politics, gender, anything you name, the NFL is our mono culture, it’s the closest thing that we have to a monoculture.
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:16
And gambling is at the center of that has been introduced any any thoughts on I mean, you and I can’t talk about the business of sports as long as we’ve been doing it and to talk about where that piece of the revenue is was always in the black market and the bookmaker salad made famous here in Baltimore. But they’re now the bookies. And that’s just the facts. And they got the dice, they own the game. They own the refereeing they own the outcomes. Like all they own the replays, they own them, they own all of it. That part of the rocket ship? Where do you really think that factors in in a society that likes to bet
Eric Fisher 28:55
it’s meaningful, but I do think that, you know, particularly when you’re getting 120 120 million plus people watching the Superbowl that you’ve got a very significant percentage of that that has no interest and no out you know, no involvement in gambling. I’m not trying to poopoo it, but the NFL is so big that they can sort of have their cake and eating it too. and eat it too. That is meaningful, and it helps to drive interest, just like fantasy help drive interest in in very meaningful way. But they’re so big now that there’s a whole other audience out there and people like me, I don’t I used to play fantasy don’t play fantasy, but I certainly respect it. You know, I’m not a gambler, and I can just watch the NFL to watch the NFL. And there’s plenty of people like me out there as well. Yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:44
I mean, I would agree with that. I thought nobody would bet on baseball ever. And because I never even understood how to bet on it. I go to Vegas and see seven and a half and this starting pitchers and I’m like a foreign language tool. I go play play Jack, you know, like literally, it’s kind of how people get confused by racing form or whatever had. But But I understand, I like Ryan mountcastle. And I want to root for him all night and I’ll put $5 down and he hits a homerun. And if he hits it, I went 40 bucks or whatever. And it’s almost like putting the number down at the bingo hall or, you know, a couple of bucks that you like, I’ve seen people open accounts and just do it that way. And it’s five bucks, 10 bucks here or there and have a good time with it. I’ve I’ve advocated for, you know, gambling, addiction, all of those things. But I, I never knew anybody to gamble on baseball, and I’ve owned a radio sports radio station in a baseball city. I’ve never known anybody to ever call me to talk about betting on a game. That was baseball game. But I think the baseball thing on a nightly basis there. I think there’s more revenue there than maybe I thought and maybe that’s because I watch cricket and other things in other cultures. And I’ve been near Macau and I’ve been to Vegas and seen that flood Fred Flintstone bet bet bet bet bet there’s a lot of action available in baseball. And for that, I think that if I were behind closed doors up there, I’d say that’s a growth model for baseball.
Eric Fisher 31:09
Yeah, and they’re in there trying to figure but after the show, hey, Otani thing and, you know, obviously, what we saw in basketball with John J. Porter, that it’s a delicate line for them that yes, they want to use it as a fan engagement tool and get people involved if, you know, obviously, they’re of age and all of that. But by the same token, it’s a delicate dance because among your players and people within the player community, that’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:36
a Hall of Famer that was in steroids with a hose out showering people with money and a gamble. Yeah, like, I can’t get out of me, right? I mean, they’re not shy. It’s not shy.
Eric Fisher 31:47
Right. So that’s why it’s a it’s, it’s a it’s a delicate, it’s a, you know, tough needle to thread for them to mix my metaphors. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:56
there’s no doubt about that. Eric Fisher’s here. He covers the business of sports. So from the baseball side of things, um, a top down biggest concerns rsmeans, the Oakland situation. I mean, there’s always Players Association, there’s always the next work stoppage. There’s always all of that. And this is the stuff that we don’t talk about a lot around here because it’s Adly this and gunner that and Corbin this and the lie is like and that’s cool. But underneath all of that. I don’t wanna say it’s a troubled sport, but I think it has troubles and I think Mr. Rubenstein inherits some of these, some of it in a good time where Boston feels like it’s down a little bit. And Toronto can’t get out of its own way. Tampa is never going to have any money but they might need a stadium. But this is a really interesting time for Mr. Rubenstein to be here for the next five to seven years to own the team for growth, selling it for more money, all of that. But but the money of baseball, this is a really weird, tender spot for the sport and its future and paying Gunnar Henderson $50 million.
Eric Fisher 32:56
Yeah, we’re kind of in a transition mode. There’s certainly upside in the sense that attendance is up the pitch clock has been a huge hit. National ratings are up there was a great base of talent, much like your guys, and Otani. And Paul skeans. And all the guys that we mentioned, there’s there’s a lot of great talent for a fan to latch on to those are all upsides but yeah, we’re the entire media model has to be redrawn. We’ve got a very problematic franchises in the Bay Area, as you mentioned, there’s some other Hornet’s nests out there. But we’re sort of in a transition period where there’s a base to work with that the sports not dead by any stretch, but then how do you sort of tackle these sort of thorny issues and that’s, you know, and as we we and others have been writing that’s going to be a big part of how the the final chapter of Rob Manfred ‘s legacy is written? Well, the
Nestor J. Aparicio 33:49
low hanging fruit is to fix the All Star Game uniforms. We can all agree on that right, Eric.
Eric Fisher 33:53
And actually, I’m actually feeling good about that. The fact that they’re the fact that you know, admitting a problem is the first step to correcting it. Manfred admitted last week that there is a problem that he is heard the the outcry is loud and clear. And I’m actually feeling pretty hopeful that by the time we get to Atlanta for next year’s game, that the players will be back in their team uniforms as they should be, you
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:18
know, you have so many things on your wall behind you and I’m not playing room Raider, and some people are listening on the radio, but I see that you too. Behind you. Is that moving pictures from Russia next to that
Eric Fisher 34:29
100% Yeah, so I’ve got I’ve got a whole sort of, sort of gallery of some of my favorite albums and you know, it’s YouTube’s Joshua Tree knocked on baby REM is automatic for the people rushes moving pictures Pearl Jam 10. Tom Petty into the great wide open Bruce Springsteen,
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:49
collect these these specific belt buckles you know about this right? Before? Yes, I got to take my Van Halen out for a test drive last week with Sammy Hagar, which is really nice because Michael With that he was there and he appreciate it. And you know that you mentioned Raj and I saw the moving picture. So this is where Raj pockle So yeah, I mean, like, but that I saw that is that like, what is that? Is that some sort of sell you what is that?
Eric Fisher 35:13
So it’s basically it’s um, in some cases it’s an actual vinyl album cover in some cases it’s a print the same dimensions as the vinyl album cover and the there are album frames that you can get. lithograph
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:28
of some kind, it looks a little like, like in a special edition thing or something or, you know, well, it’s
Eric Fisher 35:33
yeah, like I said, it’s either the actual vinyl album cover or a printed replica of it, frame it up. And you know, it sort of looks like a vinyl hung on a wall. You
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:45
can learn a lot about a man by the music he listens to So Fisher is here. Rocket did you get the sphere to see you too.
Eric Fisher 35:53
I did. I was in the middle of the run out of shows. The 40 shows I was at showed number 17 Right in the middle of it. Actually, I went when I thought there was only gonna be 25 of them. But I was right on the floor. And it was one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:08
It was spectacular and lots and lots of ways. But I met Alice Cooper that night so that met it and made it even better. I was there the night of game one of the World Series i i got half an abbreviated a tacos and beer during the pregame and I finished the job when I get over the Alice Cooper and then the sphere took me in so I it’s been a summer great rock and roll have had the guys from hooting the blowfish on and had great guests. Greg Hawkes from the cars came on a Marylander he’s doing this incredible tour with this band doing all these cars. So like the 80s are still alive, Eric, you know, they still are to some degree. Oh,
Eric Fisher 36:47
yeah. Without without question. And, you know, I talked about mono culture before and you know, everybody can listen to whatever they want. And that’s great in a certain sense, but, you know, having pop music, rock music as a, you know, we all grew up in the age of MTV and sort of having that as a dominant source of culture that doesn’t really exist it for all the availability of Spotify and everything else. I sort of miss you know, music having, you know, that sort of mono culture status and being a bigger deal in our society. Like it was when we were younger, it
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:24
would be more effective for us than the NFL I promise you that so but but but yeah, music doesn’t have any violence. It’s all love and aspiration and all that good stuff and, and harder and harder. If you’re Taylor Swift, you know, you can do a little bit of that. And she’s coming back to life here soon too, because her guy opens the season against us. So the defending champions on September 5, Eric Fisher, he is our defending champion, you can find him at a front office sports you can find him at Eric Fisher out on the X Twitter thing and the threads and all those other places, covering the business of sports but really an OG here with a lot of roots in the wall, Washington and Baltimore markets and I spent a lot of time around here covering the massive dispute the bill still not pay there. One time you’re gonna come on the show and the bills gonna be paid and it’s gonna be figured out but it’s not today, right?
Eric Fisher 38:11
Not today.
Nestor J. Aparicio 38:14
Keep rockin man have a great summer. Eric Fisher joins us here at the Maryland crab cakes. We’re back out on the road open crabcake invite for you Eric and for all of our guests to join us i Angela alsobrooks. gonna join us on the 13th down at the State Fair in Catonsville. Then we get back down to fate. Lee’s when the Chiefs rose come to town. At the end of August we’ll have the mayor of the lottery Gold Rush sevens doublers to giveaway and we’re also going to be thanking our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care as well as our friends and liberty pure solutions for keeping our water crystal clear. It has been a really interesting summer here with a great baseball team. Luke is at a training camp Luke is monitoring the Orioles in the Padres all weekend as well. We’re crossing our fingers on the mike Elias and Elias we trust and all that good stuff. It’s a fun sports summer. It’s just getting started on Nesta. We’re wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore. And we never stopped talking to the good guests and the good stuff at Baltimore positive
