Maury Brown of Forbes talks MLB goals and Orioles realities in new world of digital and streaming beyond leaving the disaster of Angelos and the MASN debacle behind for Baltimore and Washington baseball.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
orioles, years, team, owner, baltimore, baseball, major league baseball, nestor, money, franchise, mari, man, good, clubs, oakland, stadium, sports, angelo, people, play
SPEAKERS
Maury Brown, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home we are wn st am 1570, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive I’m probably doing that wrong if you’re watching on the video because we are celebrating the WakaWaka of the PacMan. Maryland lottery scratch off giveaways we’re gonna be given these way on Wednesday at Greenmount bowl, that’s the half duck pin half 10 pin house up in Greenmount station. Parking Lot in Hampstead. We’re gonna be having the crabcake over Greenmount station so come on up and enjoy that four o’clock watching the Orioles. Take on the California animal Angels of Anaheim via LA and then we come home to the Oakland Athletics on Friday. That will be at fadeless on Friday. Luke will be joining us there so political candidates, hopefully some baseball on Friday night. Certainly some draft results this weekend, as Luke will keep you abreast of all things draft. As it’s going on. You’ll get breaking news on the WNS T tech service. And last but not least our 25th anniversary documentary. No one listens. everyone hears debuts at 5:08pm. Eastern time. This guy won’t have to worry about that because he’s always just a little bit behind usually about three hours because he lives out on the West Coast. Bobby Brown Georgia CSR defending champion baseball Maury guitarist in ACDC cover band shoot the thrill and now probably to honor not just Matt Holliday, Jackson holiday and all good German people by being in a cover band for Scarpia Swiss a holiday we welcome Mari brown back on the program what’s going on brother Appi I tried to get you on for opening day and all that that was so three weeks ago man we’re on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now we’re on to documentaries. We’re on to your Houston Texans story how you been out there in Portland Oregon.
8
Maury Brown 01:47
Pretty good. I mean the weather’s you know snapping out of it you know we’re coming out of our you know hole and yeah, man doing some gigs gigs are starting to pick up. Baseball season in full swing pretty much nine now. And so. Yeah, man, it’s actually been a really fun time right now.
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:05
Do you do the song holiday in the scorpions cover? Man?
Maury Brown 02:08
We’re not because we wanted to keep it upbeat. We got so much other stuff, but I love the song. Yeah, we do loving you Sunday morning and love drive coast to coast off that album. You know the love drive album, which is awesome. But yeah, man, it’s a lot of hits and stuff. So
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:24
8you’re rocking shaker Flying V. What are you? What are you rocking it?
Maury Brown 02:28
Yeah, man. I don’t know if you can see one of them in the background here. I got that. Yeah, I got I got a white Dean V for that. I’ve also got another woodgrain one. And then I borrow a couple other ones, man. I’m like, using three or four guitars for that one. So yeah, I mean, that’s a lot more fun. I mean, we’re doing Malcolm young, you’re really walking just back and forth to the mic. And so I get to run around and play Rudolph Shankar and you know, get my old knees in action. There’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:55
no one like you Mario Brown. Let me tell you that right. Maurice covered sports for a long time. It covers the business of sports, amongst other things. I don’t know why I thought of you. But when I thought of the business of sports and West Coast, and I know we’ve had these conversations, I sort of plotted to have you on when we’re playing the Oakland A’s Right? Or the Sacramento A’s Las Vegas A’s whatever we’re going to call them this week, the Charlie Finley A’s. So I’ve sort of gone to the Wayback Machine. I’ve had a Susan for an off on who got the rat from Dave, Dave Kingman 40 years ago and is also from Baltimore. Susan Ford offs a bit of a Baltimore sports writing legend, but also Jason turbowash Who wrote the Oakland book and then you cover this a lot of people cover this but for me and with what’s happened with the Orioles and we’ll bring it full circle, the Masson f up attitude and Peter Angelos and all of that major league baseball and I know you love them and you write about in the man for it’s been good to you. They get things wrong so often and they’re here. I mean, they’re 20 years unraveling, how badly they picked up the Nationals Orioles mass in dealing with Angelo’s, we’re that far gone and screwing up the San Juan, all the things that happen there. And here we are a quarter of a century later on like, this is icky. Every part of this is just I said to many people, if they were hotel chain, they would rip the Marriott or the Hyatt brand off the front. And they wouldn’t allow and this is this is obviously the real major league baseball logo. They wouldn’t allow this kind of brand to be stuck on something like the Oakland Athletics Mari. Yeah.
Maury Brown 04:31
You know, there’s a long history of short term decisions to the long term detriment. I mean, what they’re doing here is they probably got tired of it. And this includes the players, right? I mean, in the latest collective bargaining agreement that we’re in the midst of, they basically said, Look, you either get a stadium sorted out, or you’re going to have your revenue share and taken away from you You
8Nestor J. Aparicio 05:00
know, the PCL, right? I mean, literally, you know, go back with Finley and go play with the St. Louis Browns and the Kansas City athletics. It’s not Major League Baseball, Mari, you know, it’s,
Maury Brown 05:10
it’s bad. And the problem with this thing that I don’t get is, all right, I get that you want to get this thing sorted out so you could get to expansion. This is what it’s all about. You have the A’s, you get the a’s and the rays out of the way, it opens up the door, there are going to be two clubs paying $2 billion, that’s $4 billion, that gets infused to the 30 owners. And they can’t do that until they get the A’s in the race sorted out. So they just you know, it’s very been a ham handed, it’s just been handled really badly. The fact that there’s no $300 million relocation fee speaks to the fact that John Fisher just didn’t have the money. And he just was not going to be able to pull this thing off if they did that. So they look the other way on that. And then, you know, they’ve just botched this every which way they possibly can. And the only logical answer to the thing is, we’ll get past this. Eventually, John Fisher is gone. And then the A’s will maybe be rebranded and a new owner will come along, and it’ll all work itself out. But again, I mean, you mentioned what happened, the long term effects of what happened when the league bowed down to Peter Angelos on the relocation of the expos and placated them by creating massive and that they
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:24
killed the franchise five years before that, Laurie, I’m doing this 25th anniversary documentary. I know you’re gonna watch it, I would. But I used to have when I was syndicated turn of the century. I had Jesse The Body Ventura on, I was actually trying to find the tape of that, because I wanted to like maybe get it in. The reason he used to call my show is they were trying to contract the Minnesota Twins and he wasn’t going to hear it when he was the governor of Minnesota. And at that time, they started effing with the expos, right. We’re going to contract the Expos what a Quebec say they gave them to giant French middle fingers. I don’t know how to say fu in French, but that’s what they said. And nobody went and they had they had a desperate, awful bleeding franchise, much like the Florida Marlins were that when they were winning series, much like the Padres were that when they were firesale in the Orioles have been that most of the last 20 years really since Rifkin retired. It’s been a manure show and the Redskins in Washington, right? Like you go through these, these franchises in these leagues that they have allowed this lawlessness and it really just dates back to Al Davis and are afraid they were of Al Davis in the NFL, and how much power an individual owner has in these leagues, and that they can’t just come and strip the franchise away. Maybe in the LA Clippers case they did. But are they Charlotte? Panthers, the Carolina Panthers when the owner was having problems, but they managed to divest themselves of these creeps when needed. And then they’ve allowed Dan Snyder to hang around a decade too long Angeles two decades too long. And this Oakland thinks the latest eyesore to me. It does harken back to Montreal and saying y’all have always mismanaged your your bottom three or four franchises and allowed there to be no bottom. I mean, there was no bottom for the Washington Redskins. And for that creep, there really was no bottom. There’s no bottom for Peter here. There’s no bottom right now for the Chicago White Sox as far as what they’re putting on the field.
Maury Brown 08:25
8Yeah, I think the thing that’s important to remember here Nestor is it’s not that easy to eject owners. And you’ve really got to have them over a barrel. I mean, they have got to mess up extraordinarily, right. Certainly, Dan Snyder was one of those. But even he was harder showed the door. John Fisher, you could say, well, he’s not, you know, he’s not able to go ahead and feel the team and he’s thumbing his nose at running at the margins and running a profit. I don’t know if that’s enough to say it’s, you know, we’re removing you in the best interests of baseball, because there’s a lot of other guys out there that I’m sure are, you know, to a lesser extent doing that sort of thing. What I think happens with the A’s is similar to what happened with Jeffrey Loria, who own the Marlins, right? He was a horrible owner, David Sampson, their their president was horrible. And so what happens, they get the stadium and about a year or two later, they sell at this massive profit. But they get it over the finish line. They say thank you very much. And away you go. Now you did. You mentioned Sterling with the clippers, and that was you know, obviously something especially with the NBA that was never gonna fly. So that was a good one. The last time we really saw this in baseball. You can’t use the Expos because the league bought the Expos from Jeffrey Loria, so it was like they’re not going to hurt themselves but ceiling and you know, 29 other guys owning the last time was Frank McCourt, who owned the Dodgers and he had put it into bankruptcy because he mismanaged straight and was gonna sell he was in the middle of this horrible divorce one of the most expensive divorces in LA County history.
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:06
They used to go to more native Jamie McCourt. Right? Yes. Right. You know, the parking, parking lots and I know all about the limo driver. Come on now. Come on now. Yeah, I mean, it’s right up there with the wire as far as the greatest stories ever told, right? Yeah. So he
Maury Brown 10:20
was going to go ahead and basically sell the media rights at a huge discount, and stealing and the owners were wise enough to say you can’t do that. And you’re now you’re mucking with a core thing. You set the bar, just like with player salaries, right? player reaches a certain salary that sets the bar for others, you go in messing around with a TV deal, you’re setting the bar for others, and so they weren’t gonna let them set the market for especially the Dodgers. So that to me is the last time you saw somebody really shoved out. But I mean, again, look at how the Angelo’s family did that was no shining, you know, beacon on the hill, certainly the A’s, there will always be these teams, right? It’s sad, but true. I look at the Dolan’s and running the next and it’s just terrible, right? I mean, you just don’t want to see that. But it does mention that that every league seems to have one or two of them. And they’re a black guy for whatever league they’re in. Yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:19
Dolan’s the biggest creep in the world. But he he did make a nice concert venue in a nice sphere in Vegas, right? Mari Yeah. Have you been to the sphere yet?
8Maury Brown 11:28
I have not. I wanted to go see. So I know the YouTube thing was, you know, that was largely the same set. The I watched the video for the fish that the four days that they did there and that was insane.
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:42
It seemed different every night, right? Yeah, it was completely different, right? Completely
Maury Brown 11:46
different. And there were like Easter eggs that they’d put it in the video. The video was ridiculous again. So you know, I gotta go check it out. I really do. I just you know, trying to figure out maybe the well it ain’t gonna happen. Because Alex has said it’s not going to happen but can always dream of a Lea lifeson tour right? I would maybe Danny Carey from tool and drums or whatever. I’d love to see what rush could have done in a setting like that. It would have been amazing. Yeah, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:15
8saw him on stage at Massey Hall together doing the book tour and it warmed my heart I even wore my major league baseball shirt, especially for you. Mari Bran is here. He is baseball Mari at Forbes and covering the business of sports. You can follow them anywhere a good social media fans, you said something that that you may always learn stuff when I have you on which Why have you on but you said 2 billion will be the fee for expansion. The Orioles sold for 1,000,000,007 and came with $600 million of public money to fix the stadium. Did the Orioles just sell for less than an expansion team?
Maury Brown 12:54
I can’t I don’t think you want to look at it that way NAFTA. I think there’s there’s other clubs, right? That you would say that that is? Well what it’s really doing is you could sit there I so I’m gonna go use a different example. I remember when Steve Ballmer bought the clippers, right you brought up Sterling. So now let’s back in my mind. When Ballmer bought the clippers. It was for $2 billion. And everybody thought he was insane. It was way over market value. And now he looks really smart. Right? The value of the clubs have all gone up and they grow at this rapid rate. The Agile
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:32
family made $1 million a week. For every week. They own the team. They bought it for 29 million in cash. They made a million a week for 16 150 weeks. That’s a that’s $1,000,000,001.6 billion. They made in addition to pulling the 50 100 100 and 50 million a year that they were annually pocketing from Masson and from profit divestitures. So like, and all they did was destroy the team for the market. All they did was fight with people, they never had a peaceful day ever. But they no never ever went to bed a night in their lives without making $150,000 off the well and now having it just owning it
Maury Brown 14:17
that, but that’s why that $2 billion expansion, expansion fee for each one, right? So it’ll be two of them, they’ll be you know, we’re gonna go ahead and we’re gonna get to 32. So there’ll be two of them. That’s the reason anybody that gets into the club, understand, so once you get in there, you’re basically printing money. And if you even if you go in there, you know, some clubs will see a down period where their operating income, their profit will be down. But for the most part, right over a period of time, they’re making a bunch of money, and the value of that club continues to increase over and over and over it. The value of sports franchises outpace I don’t care what Rob Manfred said They outpaced the stock market. And he said, Hey, if you take the money that you invest in our clubs and you put it in the
8Nestor J. Aparicio 15:08
letter Raskind said the Orioles is 14% annual compounded interest is what they got from the minute they bought it 14%, over 31 years, every minute of every day they were getting 14%. Yeah. And so I don’t listen, first of all, I don’t make the asset. That’s not even the profit. That’s just the asset. That’s
Maury Brown 15:31
just that’s just the operating income of the thing that’s churning, not what you get on the back end of it. But listen, I you know, I don’t have a problem if somebody wants to get involved in business to make money. What bothers me is when you making money and putting a crappy product on the field, and not doing right to the fans, it’s different than purchasing some other business entity. It’s a civic asset. So you have to do something with it. But again, I don’t begrudge these guys aren’t doing this stuff to make their heads spin. Now, some clubs have gone in and had periods of time. The Padres are a good example of this. They’re probably in over their head. I know they are, they have to be right. They did that because there was an owner that was on his deathbed that wanted to go ahead and really try and bring a World Series championship to San Diego. More power to him, right. At some point, there are windows of opportunity. And what bothers me and it should bother every other fan of any sport, is when a team hangs around the bottom and isn’t doing anything to win, but they’re making money off of fans. They’re making
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:37
sure yeah, a lot of places the
Maury Brown 16:40
8hope and we’re not going to know for a while Nestor is how new ownership of the Orioles treat the fans and run the operation. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:49
by the way, my media credential you’ll be happy to know, I’m under review Mari there. I’m efficiently under review. So they’re, they’re listening. I you know, I hope over 40 years in my video show that I’ve I’ve earned my press credential but so new ownership, but I it’s something I’ve never really spoken to you about or anyone else i I think I’ve said over the last 90 days, I’ve never spoken to my son, my wife about Peter Angelos dying the day he dies, I think I thought he would never die. And I thought that even if he did, the kid would be as honoree as Mark Davis, you know what I mean? Like it just you weren’t, you weren’t going to remove them. My understanding on the Angelus side is mom made this happen as much as Major League Baseball, told John, you’re you’re not getting the team yet. We’re gonna Well, whatever we can do to make sure you don’t get the team. It
Maury Brown 17:46
didn’t help Nestor, that there was all that rumblings about going to Nashville and trying to do that. And then Rob’s got to get out there and say no, I mean, it would never have made any sense. For one thing, they need those doggone markets for expansion. You can’t back to the A’s. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why you would go and burn your best relocation and expansion market. For the A’s. It’s just a bad
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:14
idea. Same reason, they were never going to let Al Davis in LA. Anybody can come to LA but our we don’t want our Davis’s people marked. We’re not letting the Raiders come to LA, even though the raiders were the native home team in LA.
8Maury Brown 18:27
Yeah. And that was like, Look, man, I grew up as a kid. And in the Bay Area. I went to the Raiders games, I went to A’s games, you know, they’re this idea that it’s somehow different. Now, the only thing that is different is I think social media has made and to a larger extent the internet and people that are covering the business side, people are more educated. And Al Davis really did he he completely altered and up ended sports by going to LA and then threatening LA and going back to Oakland. And then here we are they go off to Las Vegas. You don’t want to see it’s just bad business. But we’re gonna see
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:11
the damage the Raiders at all though, as a brand. No, you know it. And honestly, the worst thing that they did was play in Oakland those years when it was awful and empty in the plane on a baseball field. Like all of that, like that was the most damaging thing was hanging around as long as they did in Oakland because it felt like they were never stay in. I mean, like it just never did and the age. I’m shocked more you grew up in that area. How many people really thought that that was going to get saved in some way, like and I thought, who’s going to save it. It’s not going to be the citizens of California, building a tent for the A’s. And now that you look at the City of Oakland with the Warriors, Raiders gone now the A’s where they are, I mean, it’s really it’s a tragedy for people of that region who loves sports. For what has happened there, and I juxtapose juxtaposition of like, we got to awful owner here in this new stadium, and the state went gave him $600 million, or his heirs. Now we have a new owner, thank God. Football side, same thing. Here. They just pushed 1,000,000,002 through, gave it a shot and gave it to the Angelo’s people, no questions asked, that’s not going on in Kansas City. That’s not going on in Northern Virginia for Ted Leone’s this or whatever. I mean, what’s happened here for these teams is different, unique special. I don’t know if you heard we lost our bridge three weeks ago, you know what I mean? Like, we got crime problems in school prom, like all of these issues, and every other municipality as Kansas City gave to flaming middle fingers to the Royals and the chiefs, right? Like in the state of Missouri, like this in California, this is unheard of that you would spend money on this. And in other places, Nashville, maybe maybe Portland, they’re begging to say we want a franchise we were willing to play ball.
Maury Brown 21:01
I think this is where it speaks to Vegas. Man, if there’s a place that knows how to do development, that’s the place, man, they’re so business centric, right? They’re blown up hotels and build new ones every five seconds, right? So the ability to get stuff to go through, they can always go well look, you know, we’ll go ahead and we’ll push a you know, a rental car tax or hotels tax, because we’re a big tourist location. So it’s a lot easier for it to happen there. You mentioned Portland, man, I don’t know how to tell you this. But this place is the most anti business about that sort of thing. They’re like, Hey, man, we just had a strike with teachers. And you’re talking about laying off, you know, teachers and stuff. No way we’re gonna go and give you money of that magnitude for a baseball ballpark. Right? Like Fisher
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:52
8literally, right? I mean, it’s always these bandit guys moving these teams in general, right? Like, you’re not getting a new citizen, you’re you’re you’re getting a pirate, I mean, a known pirate, quite frankly, well,
Maury Brown 22:05
and the thing that I think is important to understand is that when these cities and these these, you know, become get the teams, let’s say it’s expansion or relocation, Vegas, it’s like, man, that’s 680. And we’ve got teachers going, let’s fight this thing and get a referendum, trying to get it removed. But let’s say it goes through, I can put it on a timer, how long it’ll be before John Fisher, or whoever the next owner is, starts asking for upgrades to the ballpark. It happens in every single market in the country with every professional league Major League Baseball is not the exception here. Every you know, you’re looking at what’s going on with the bears, right? Or look at what was going on, you know, with the commander’s and trying to get, you know, a stadium built, again, out of state, you know, moving across state lines and getting stuff done elsewhere
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:58
as a Marylander. You can have them, I’ll tell you, as a Marylander, you can handle. So,
Maury Brown 23:04
but the thing, right, there’s always going to be, you know, about five years after something’s put together, there will start to be murmurs and at 10 years, it gets serious. Well, you know, if we don’t get this thing we might have to relocate, you know, it does start to happen. The shelf life on stadiums and facilities seems to be about 20 years now. I
8Nestor J. Aparicio 23:24
was in Arlington. It’s amazing. Why gone down there. They have two major league baseball stadium sitting on top of each other.
Maury Brown 23:31
I know. So and you know, it was interesting. I did this story again, with the Texans and it was just weird to drive the NRG stadium and see the Astrodome still there. Now that I you don’t get rid of that because it’s historic. But it’s just like, it’s still there. You know, it’s still Still Still,
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:50
it still looks like a pinkie sitting next. Right?
Maury Brown 23:54
8It does. But again, that idea that was whether it’s the Raiders finally, you know, I’m waiting for it to happen with the Raiders. We saw it we will see this right. Well, you just mentioned what’s happening with the Orioles. And the ravens, right? How much money justice is coming in from the state. So it never ends. It really doesn’t. And the question always is, how many it’s a private enterprise, but it’s a matter of civic pride. How do you quantify what what the Ravens mean to a fan or what the Orioles mean to a fan in Baltimore? It’s hard to quantify it. It’s like asking what museums or zoos mean to them. But is it worth the amount of public money that goes into them? And that is always the question. And look, it’s way over skewed. Like we mentioned all this money that the owners are making that the league’s are making. Okay.
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:47
CPAs is the citizens of California all getting together to give this prick $2 billion when they have crime issues, school issues, money issues, funding issues, potholes. All of these things that it is outrageous. You know, I went on the air here 32 years ago doing radio without a football team. Crying boo hooing crawling, please give us a team. We’ll build you a stick will do anything. Miss front Thierry will do anything. Mr. Davis will do anything Mr. Brown. Oh, Mr. modell. You like our deal? Come on and we’ll get the dogs. Well, we’ll have a team for you. And then 28 years later there’s a brick and Romans, the team bands, media members, he ran from me. He ran for me like a coward three weeks ago when all I have was questions primarily about my press pass. But then the next thing would be about the $600 million of civic money they’re taking and honoring Ray Rice amongst other things, but like no questions for the owners either. That’s all that’s the other part of this. The other part of this is they take the money they sit down Peter oh, we’re gonna do great things. If I’m a very available individual. He said this on my show. Never heard from him again. So there really is this ability in the Donald Trump World to just run and hide but lawyers out in front of it put out of town guys like Sashi Brown and Chad Steele out in front of it and just say no questions, no questions for you. And that that’s another part of this is the PR and the communication which I want to bring it full circle to Baltimore. Maury Brown is here the Oakland A’s are in town this weekend. Luke and I are going to be at fade Lee’s on Friday with a Maryland lottery scratch offs with the Pac Man scratch offs. crabcakes trips out with our friends at Liberty pure solutions supporting us as well as Jiffy Lube. MultiCare show a new owner gets teen billionaire doing it seven Baltimore guy. Good guy apparently from all expectations. Cal Ripken is involved. Kirk smokes involved, celebrities involved all this stuff happens. They got the best young baseball America core in the sport. And and I’ve said this many times about Deepak Chopra, the last couple weeks it is pure potentiality for what the Orioles could be and what the next five years they have $600 million and funny money to build decks and stadium and bathrooms and point of sale and whatever they need to build down there. What do you expect to happen? I mean, this is an interesting sale for a baseball nerd like you 3000 miles away. And one point you’re trying to steal expansion teams out there in Portland. We were never going to be that candidate. But this thing fell into a hellish state for a long, long time. And I’m trying to explain to Mr. Rubinstein’s people about the trauma and the terrorism that that Peter Angelos begat on sort of everybody that came in his wake and how you repair that how you fix that. And at every point Mari I bring it to you. It comes to mass and money, media and whatever the new model of how we’re going to get sports and how we’re going to grow sports in a lacrosse market here because we have a special thing here with lacrosse in springtime websites got his hands full but it from your perspective you’re thinking Jesus the Orioles we can you can fix that you can get two and a half million people back to Orioles games, seeing this group of baseball players. Yeah, I
Maury Brown 28:08
think that there’s always the how do you balance that between the old days of the Orioles where they were overpaying right? For bad or over? Talent veteran talent started out that was over into their decline years, right. And so I like of course, where they’ve landed finally. Right in terms of their development pool and their development path. So in my mind, the model has always been what the St. Louis Cardinals have done. And if you talk to Jim crane, you know, who owns the Astros. He wanted to mirror the Astros after the how the Cardinals were built, which was solid, smart development, augment smartly and free agency. And that should keep the machine churning well and keep your windows open. And if I look at the Astros, they pretty much did that, that I had to tear it down to the axles to make it happen. So new ownership is walking into a doggone near perfect situation. Still on my mind the way that it has to be is this. Okay, cool. You’ve got your development going? Great, awesome, who you’re going to extend? And how are you going to augment? And that I think will be the telling thing because then it will be not some blip, not some anomaly in the development cycle and the history of the Orioles but something that’s sustainable. I mean, they really are a fantastic team, they should be able to go up against the Yankees, right? Which are, you know, solid this year, but they shouldn’t be able to do that. I would expect again, you mentioned it already. They’re going to make updates to you know, they’re gonna make updates to Camden Yards. You’re gonna do those updates. It’s, it’s, you know, a jewel, you’re not going to leave it. You’re going to augment it and keep the the, you know, the quaintness and Uh, the historic nature of it around, that is the success path for me, I don’t think it needs to be like Herky jerky, they certainly need to do more than nothing. They need to do something to show that this thing where like we’re developing, and then it’s just gonna go by the wayside, which is kind of what the pirates have done. and to a lesser extent, the mariners, they should be able to do something with it. So that’s what I’m watching, and you can’t do it. And well, you can try Steve Cohen tried to deal with the Mets in the worst way, right? Well, I’m just gonna go by success right away. So I’m looking to see how smart this guy is. And again, you’re not going to get that idea until next season in the year after. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 30:41
there’s nothing desperate about the Baltimore situation right now. And that Peters dead, John’s gone. The problem is really healing. A lot of the people like myself who’ve been very sideways for a long, long time, and not just Aparicio, is but, you know, other famous last names who actually played the games, who the surf offs and the board x, and the Crowley’s and all of these people that had been mistreated, you know, literally, for years and years and years, let alone the businesses and people and the crime issues and getting people back there. 10 Mark, we had 35,000 people to Sunday game, first weekend of the year, like, I really feel like this is they call it a sleeping giant. I mean, I don’t know, Rob, man, for whatever, share that with you. But that’s what everybody who talked about the bad side of the Angelo’s thing, even when they were drafting one, one and losing 120 games. This is a sleeping giant because of the history of the franchise because of the ballpark because of the location because of the pedigree of the fan base here. That it could be quickly revived and resuscitated. I’m interested in seeing that from a financial standpoint, because I pointed this out now get a little rock and roll you know that I went to Syracuse last week to see Springsteen and I was literally up there. And you know, I’m a cheapskate kind of legend legendarily. I went to the Carrier Dome. I’d never been there. I had my first beer when I walked in. I was feeling all yo, I’m gonna get me a beer. I got $14 beer. And I drank my $14 beer and I couldn’t get to the bathroom in the bathroom. So substandard there, they have troughs. I love it. But so I didn’t want to miss the show. And when I went back to get a second beer, I looked off at his $14 and I touch my credit card. And I said yeah, not that thirsty only hour left in the show. I’m not paying $14 for beer. I like the that the credit card and grabbing the money and how much money the Orioles are going to get from the population here and what it’s going to take to sustain that whether it’s the subscription package the mass and package, the 13 game package, giving them money being a part of the orange club, like all of those things. I really do question how much how much money is here for them, with the Nationals being sold off to the gypsies 20 years ago. So people aren’t driving up from Reston. People aren’t driving up from DC or taking the mark train the way they were 30 years ago. And we’re certainly not getting that, that money that that DC Skybox money that they were getting 30 years ago, which really funded all that you saw in the 90s all the Roberto Alomar is all of that was really funded by the greater marketing arm of the Orioles being able to get DC money that they’ll never ever get again. I really am questioning whether they are the Tampa rays, or whether this guy’s wealthy and like the San Diego Padres and you just want or ill it’s just wants to spend too much money to be nice. I’d love that even if they give me a press pass. overspend dude, spend some of your billion dollars, you’re not gonna give me the money or give me a press past but make the team good. But I am wondering whether they’re going to be a mid market, low market high market what the real opportunity is your because I don’t know if you know this, it’s Baltimore and we’re not rich, we’re not sky boxy. We’re not $650 Just sit at center rice like they are in DC for caps playoff games. This isn’t that kind of town. And I I wonder where all the money’s gonna come from. Because I don’t know that baseball, Major League Baseball is so good at generating all of this outside revenue that’s going to fund this thing. So we can afford, I don’t know, two or three of our $50 million Youngstars. Yeah,
8Maury Brown 34:11
you know, you mentioned the streaming thing, you pick your phone up earlier. And it’s important to talk about it, because it will affect mass and it will affect everybody. It’s affecting everybody now. And it’s just that the the contracts all come up at different times, Nestor, they’re staggered and they’re done that way for a reason. So it’s kind of like players reaching free agency, right? Going back to the 80s Charlie Finley said make them all free agents, which terrified Marvin Miller because he understood that it would flood the market. Same deal with television deals. You want to be able to stagger them so that you can go ahead and maximize the market for them. So as those things come up for renewal, we’re going to see them drop and either their renewals for lesser amounts and streaming right. We’re at this tipping point. So we’re massive gets into that right is a core thing. Now obviously you go into that with eyes wide open. There’s nobody that’s buying a club right now that hasn’t done their due diligence hasn’t thought about that. But the but the
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:11
numbers don’t match the new numbers though for Rubenstein, whatever mass and threw off and Angelos is baked and stalled. There’s run off with the money like that money never got seen by the learner family. It never got seen by the players. It never it was a poison pill in the contract that anything they paid the Nationals they had to pay the orals. So everything they did for 20 years was to tourniquet them their own revenue for their baseball players, because they were anything they gave their own players, they had to pay the Nationals players so that there was the dumbest thing that’s ever been negotiated by but
Maury Brown 35:47
it was crazy. But I will say this. I think that as hard as this is to believe that under the Angelo’s tenure, the Orioles became a depressed asset, which seems damn near impossible. And you got a historic legacy franchise would that had this incredible surge going through with the Ironman run with with Rivkin the ballpark opening up? So all of that is there, then there’s this, you know, fan base, and others outside of just Baltimore nationally that see the Orioles has stood have been in a better position. And so I do think that there’s upside, I, I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be. So look, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:32
8was a fan going to pay for cable TV, and how many of them alright, I am worried for franchises that don’t have the Cubs fan base, or the Braves fan base, because they’re going to have all the subscribers, what you when it comes down to it. How many people identify as an Oreo fan and enough of an Oreo fan to pay 2030 $50 a month in season to have the games maybe get a free T shirt or a discount on a hotdog and they want to go to the games and how often they’re gonna go to the games and pay $14 for beers, right? Like, and how often are they going to like, I just don’t know, in the old world, they had all of these subs, they had grandmother’s at the end of every street paying them $3 A month, that model is completely over with and I keep going back to the hockey model of the 80s and 90s. Where you got to earn your keep it’s going to be local sales going to be gay sales is going to be spigots and beer. It’s going to be local sponsorships gonna be local TV, local radio, which is dead. And I say that as an FCC license owner that I’m celebrating here. I don’t know where the pie of revenue is. If it’s not shared the way it is in the NFL, and we know it’ll never be properly shared Major League Baseball because the Lord’s didn’t set that up back in 1994.
Maury Brown 37:48
Yeah, it’s I mean, the the pie on the central revenue thing has grown significantly. I mean, that’s how the A’s are surviving on revenue sharing.
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:57
That’s bam, bam and licensing. Yeah, I
Maury Brown 38:01
mean, that’s that’s a large part of it. I mean, obviously, the streaming deal is significant. But the big thing Nestor is this, and I say that this might be actually a good thing. So yes, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Cubs, the Red Sox are going to have those legacy, you know, Cornerstone valued brands that are going to be able to sustain themselves through good and bad. God forbid, teams would have to be competitive to earn money on their rights. Right now remember, you had our authentic deals that would be maybe 10 years in length. So that money was locked in so good, bad or indifferent once that deal was signed? They were making that money now with somebody can go hey, this year I’m into him, they look good. I’ll buy your package. I’ll do that. Are
8Nestor J. Aparicio 38:53
you who would be buying in Chicago? What would their revenue stream be for Chicago White Sox right now or next year? Just given like, I don’t want the games I’m not buying this year. I’m not buying next year. And then once you get into not buying even when you win and the Orioles are good example that right now, they’re winning. They’re back. They’re trying to maybe my wife and I haven’t given them any money yet. And they’ve given me my press pass back yet my rightful press pass so I haven’t given any money. But when the time comes for me to reach for my wallet, how much am I willing to give them and what’s what’s in it for me and it’s a new world in that way for baseball not for the Orioles for baseball is going to have to face that in reselling to their own fan base and completely redeveloping what a subscription a fan base my fandom means and what it directly costs me because it’s not just coming into my living room anymore. It’s just not Yeah, a
Maury Brown 39:49
big, big switch recently Nestor has been focused on sponsorships. That’s another one that you can lock in right naming rights and on the on the ballpark itself. Oh, look, I don’t see, you know, I don’t see Camden Yards. Although there was talk at Wrigley Field there was going to be like, you know, I don’t know, Sony field at Wrigley Field, you know, I mean something crazy like that. There, there was that stuff that was floated around other clubs, patches, whatever it is, you’re starting to see obviously digital ads on the back of the mound on the batter’s eye, they are always finding ways to find new inventory for advertisement. So that isn’t what you wind up doing is going, Okay, well, if this revenue stream is dropping, then let’s look over here. Let’s make our hey where we can and try and see what we could do to at least keep an aggregate the revenues up. And so again, I mean, there’s skittishness going on all over the place. And so how long does that window look? How long does it take? Two clubs have to go into the streaming deal? See what happens to get an idea of what their expectations are. That’s the big problem is there’s a bunch of atrophy going on right now. The the Orioles are in actually in a good spot, I think in this way, because the actual team, right and the value of the stadium experience is good. The mariners are up and down all over the place. They’re absolutely like in shellshock right now because they don’t know what’s going on with their streaming deal. So they dumped payroll and they’re you know, they’re a 500 club right now I know they’re in second or whatever it is, but that’s only because they’ve been playing you know, the reds in the Rockies. So again, it is it’s a difficult and time to figure out exactly what’s going on. If I’m an Orioles fan I go well, the ballpark is the ballpark the product on the field seems pretty good we got a new guys so let’s hang our hat on hope
Nestor J. Aparicio 41:49
let’s buy in Mario brand is here he’s baseball Mari No, it covers sports better than he at Forbes as well as add on social media places and he’s playing the rock and roll as always, I don’t I don’t have anything rock and roll to give you other than you know I I’ve been on a little bit of a classic rock band just wander around a little bit and yeah, I got nothing for you music wise man. I mean, we got to put rush back together. We got to we got to resuscitate Neil, we gotta go back to the you gotta get back to the 80s You and me Maurice. Well, I
Maury Brown 42:18
8I’m upset because they don’t get this tour. But I’m all jacked about this King Crimson thing that’s got see by and Danny Carey and Tony Levin and Adrian Balu. Lux raising my kids a huge crimson fan. And so we don’t have anything close. I’d have to go to Vegas or San Jose to go see it. So that was the thing I’m kind of jacked about. I’m going to a bunch of says I’m gonna go to the big tribute band known as Leonard skittered, because I never saw him in the day so I’m gonna go there’s my classic rock thing to get out of the way. But you know, I’ll go to a continue to go to a lot of them today. Last time through was amazing as they always are. That was the best show I’ve seen in a long time. So all right.
Nestor J. Aparicio 43:05
Man, you are simple man. You play the guitar like Curtis slow, I probably play me a song. One day I’m gonna come out I’m gonna see you. I’m gonna see the band play or one of your two bands play one of the scorpions bands or the ACDC cover band. I love your work, love having you on and I I’m glad we waited to like kind of get some air under the business of baseball now that we’re back at it because the Yankees come in this next week. And we’re here we go. And there’ll be 20,000 Yankee fans in there, which there always are. They’re good all of a sudden, and then we don’t play him as much as we used to in the American League East. This is where we’re going to start to make hay next week and say how can we be that and we’re going to be out of Richmond and Anderson and Jackson Holliday will hit the ball eventually. And eventually I hope you guys play the ballot holiday by scorpions because I’ve been thinking about that a lot. There you go. All right.
Maury Brown 43:53
There you go, man. All right. Great to see you Nestor. Oh, he’s great. Mari
Nestor J. Aparicio 43:57
brown baseball Mari my dude defending champion around here we’re gonna be Wednesday Cream Ale bowl. Duck pins for me. They don’t even know what the hell duck pins are out in Oregon. But we’re gonna we’re gonna have bumper cream apple on Wednesday will be cream outstation watching the Orioles take on the A’s and then a Friday we’re watching the Affer mentioned athletics of Oakland via Sacramento via Las Vegas and I go back to Charlie Finley and I’ve had one orange baseball held up on the air already this week. So I’m not going to put up with any more of that Susan Ford off Jason turbo. Brad volution, who wrote the wax pack came on and did a whole bunch of WrestleMania stuff. But I’ve been reaching out to all my old East Bay heads, including Mike Silva, who has turned me down to something like this NFL draft going on this week. But we’re gonna get him on next week as well. To recap the draft Luke is doing draft stuff, and it is our 25th anniversary in the capital off. Greg Landry at Blue Rock productions and TAs and transfers has helped me put together my story our story, the Baltimore positive story, it is 25 years of no one lives listening but everyone hearing so I took my cheap shot in that make sure you you check it out if you get an opportunity it is released at five away pm on Thursday draft night you ain’t got nothing else to do because they’re picking 30 And you’re probably going to deal into Friday. Anyway, I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive and my best PacMan waka waka waka thing
