The frigid reality of a half century of cold war between MLB players and owners

The lords of the realm will be back in full force as Major League Baseball is once again staring at a less-than-desirable labor war brewing between the players and owners. Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports gets Nestor primed for the MLB season on the field and how the contentious labor situation will inevitably affect this season and everything that follows.

Nestor Aparicio and Eric Fisher discussed the upcoming MLB season and the Orioles’ prospects. Eric highlighted the team’s recent acquisitions, including Pete Alonso, and expressed cautious optimism. They also delved into the broader issues of baseball, including the upcoming labor negotiations, the impact of the World Baseball Classic, and the evolving media landscape. Eric emphasized the need for a balanced revenue model and the challenges of nationalizing revenue. Nestor expressed concerns about the new ownership’s strategy and the team’s lack of transparency. Both agreed on the importance of addressing the imbalance in revenue and the potential impact of labor disputes on the sport.

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Upcoming Events

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland crab cake tour, sponsored by the Maryland lottery, and mentions various events and locations.
• Nestor discusses the tour’s purpose, which includes giving away Harlem Globetrotter scratch-offs.
• Nestor highlights the tour’s itinerary, including stops at Gertrudes, Costas, and Dundalk.
• Nestor mentions the tour’s focus on baseball, politics, and Baltimore, and his plans to write letters to various people, including John Harbaugh and Pete Alonso.

Introduction of Eric Fisher and His Background

• Nestor introduces Eric Fisher, noting his long career in sports journalism and his current role at Front Office Sports.
• Eric Fisher shares his excitement about the upcoming baseball season and the recent snowstorm in his area.
• Nestor and Eric discuss their history of covering baseball and the changes in media access to games.
• Nestor asks Eric for his state of the Orioles, given the recent ownership changes and the team’s performance.

State of the Orioles and Ownership Changes

• Eric Fisher expresses initial disappointment with the new ownership’s performance but is more hopeful after recent offseason moves.
• Eric mentions the team’s aggressive signing of Pete Alonso and the challenges of competing in a tough division.
• Nestor and Eric discuss the impact of the balanced schedule and the potential for more global participation in baseball.
• Eric highlights the importance of the Orioles making it back into the postseason and the need for better cohesion and health among the players.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Orioles

• Nestor and Eric discuss the Orioles’ recent struggles, including losing half a million fans in the first year of new ownership.
• Eric mentions the team’s spending on Pete Alonso and the lack of investment in pitching after Corbin Burnes’ departure.
• Nestor reflects on the team’s history and the challenges of competing with the Yankees and Red Sox.
• Eric emphasizes the need for the Orioles to improve and the potential for better performance with better health and cohesion.

State of the Game and World Baseball Classic

• Nestor and Eric discuss the upcoming World Baseball Classic and the global interest in the tournament.
• Eric highlights the top-line talent in the sport, including Shohei Otani and Aaron Judge, and the potential for the tournament to be a hit.
• Nestor mentions the political and geopolitical aspects of the tournament, including the participation of teams like Cuba and Venezuela.
• Eric discusses the importance of the labor negotiations and the potential impact on the sport’s momentum.

Labor Negotiations and Ownership Perspectives

• Eric Fisher explains the current state of labor negotiations and the potential for a salary cap or other changes.
• Nestor and Eric discuss the historical context of labor disputes in baseball and the challenges of reaching a deal.
• Eric mentions the recent changes in MLB Players Association leadership and the potential impact on negotiations.
• Nestor reflects on the ownership’s role in labor disputes and the need for trust and partnership between owners and players.

Impact of Ownership on Labor Disputes

• Nestor and Eric discuss the role of ownership in labor disputes and the challenges of reaching a deal.
• Eric mentions the historical context of labor disputes and the need for trust and partnership between owners and players.
• Nestor reflects on the ownership’s role in labor disputes and the need for transparency and communication with fans.
• Eric highlights the importance of addressing the imbalance in revenue and the potential for a Grand Bargain.

Future of Media and Revenue in Baseball

• Eric Fisher discusses the future of media and revenue in baseball, including the impact of streaming services and international markets.
• Nestor and Eric discuss the challenges of generating revenue in a changing media landscape and the need for innovation.
• Eric mentions the potential for new revenue streams and the importance of finding ways to expand the total addressable market.
• Nestor reflects on the challenges of generating revenue in a local market and the need for a comprehensive strategy.

Bullish on Baseball Talent

• Eric Fisher expresses optimism about the talent in baseball, including players like Shohei Otani, Aaron Judge, and Tarek Skubal.
• Nestor and Eric discuss the potential for young players like Gunner Henderson and Adley Rutschman to make an impact.
• Eric highlights the importance of developing talent and the potential for a new generation of stars.
• Nestor reflects on the potential for the Orioles to improve with better performance and health among their players.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Eric discuss the future of the Orioles and the potential for improvement in the upcoming season.
• Eric mentions the importance of trust and communication between ownership and fans.
• Nestor reflects on the challenges of covering baseball and the need for transparency and honesty from ownership.
• Eric highlights the importance of addressing the imbalance in revenue and the potential for a new era in baseball.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

MLB season, labor war, Orioles, Pete Alonso, Rubenstein, Eric Fisher, baseball business, World Baseball Classic, labor negotiations, revenue streams, media landscape, player talent, ownership strategy, Baltimore sports, Maryland lottery.

SPEAKERS

8

Nestor Aparicio, Eric Fisher

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Well, welcome home. We are W N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, getting it out on the road this week, we have the Maryland crab cake tour coming to you. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I’ll have Harlem Globetrotter scratch offs to give away. I hear a little sweet Georgia brown going as I get it. Uh, Wednesday, gertrudes at the BMA got Dan Rogers in the 1966 show. Friday, we were at Costas. And Dundalk Allen and Luke are going to join me. We’re going to do a lot of baseball chatter, and then on Tuesday, we’re going to be at missoney’s in Perry Hall. Little bit of politics, a little bit of sports, a little bit of Baltimore, and certainly some springtime. As we get into this, it is baseball season. I am previewing baseball all month long, as well as writing. I’m a man of letters at this point, and I’ll be writing letters to all sorts of people, beginning with John Harbaugh this week, Jesse Minter, amongst others. But there will be the Craig Albernaz letter and the Katie Griggs letter, and the Pete Alonso letter that and the gunner Henderson letter, because it’s baseball season. I love having friends on Eric Fisher has become a friend of mine over two decades. He once covered the Peter Angelo’s mess in sweepstakes in 2005 and six in Washington as a member of The Washington Times long career at the Sports Business Journal. Now is it front office sports and sticking to the front office in the business of sports and but more than that, you’re a baseball nerd like me, and you like baseball, and we talk about on the field, off the field, but you do a lot more than that. How are you happy spring training, World Baseball class, whatever you want to call it at this point, but it is baseball season.

Eric Fisher  01:35

Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s great. You know, been a busy football season. Was out at the Super Bowl. You know, came home we got pounded with a foot and a half of snow, but it’s melting fast. I can see the shoots of grass coming through, which means baseball’s around the corner.

Nestor Aparicio  01:51

Well, you and I have done a lot of things about massing and the television network. This is the first year that, as a fan and a banished media member, some would say, discriminated against, but I’ve managed to watch like five Orioles spring training games just in the first week, and feel like I’m I know more about the team than I used to in the past, because you couldn’t watch the games, and I know it was an archaic thing here. Give me your 50,000 feet, because people can find us out on YouTube and see that we’ve talked dozens and dozens. And dozens of times when Mr. Angelos was alive and when he passed, when Rubenstein took over, like well, you and I, we get at labor peace at the end of the year and all that, but give me your state of the Orioles and what you’ve seen from the outside, because it is really been a rocky patch of everything since these guys got here, and they haven’t even hit the labor discord yet.

8

Eric Fisher  02:44

Yeah, as we’ve discussed in prior appearances, I was pretty you know, when the sale happened, I was hopeful that it would be a whole new era after all these decades, and was pretty disappointed with what I had seen on and off the field initially. And you know, you had a talented core that was really to kind of take the next level, and with some, you know, additional resources and some forward thinking and thought that all the pieces were there to do that first couple of years, we hadn’t seen that. I’m a little more encouraged by what I saw. In the offseason, they went out and got Alonso a little more aggressive, you know, maybe with some better health and better cohesion, that maybe it’ll be a little better. It’s a brutal division, you know, because, as we’ve discussed, Toronto is for real bought. You know, Baltimore should be a little better razor under new ownership. Yankees are the Yankees. I’m a little more hopeful than I was a few months ago about the Orioles. But again, it’s still very much a show me kind of thing that okay, you know, what is the next step going to look like? So I just still very guarded in my optimism.

Nestor Aparicio  03:55

Look, man, I’ve known you 20 years, and when they made the move with Masson and the Nationals came on, I was on the radio in Baltimore, saying they should move to the National League. They’d have a better chance of winning. They could create a thing with the Phillies. They, you know, they’d be like, there’s a lot of things. Let the Nationals deal with the Yankees and the Red Sox, and having to deal with that, Mr. Angelos wanted the gate that was associated at that time with the Red Sox and the Yankees playing three series a year, which felt like about 20 games, a lot of years, where there was built in. They didn’t have to give anything away. They sold the stadium out. The Yankees would bring the messinas and the whomever and the jeters in, and the Red Sox would bring the Pedros and the shillings and the puppies in and all of that. But I think in this modern era, the fact that you would say, well, the division stacked, they don’t play the stacked way anymore. That this is a benefit. Not a lot is broken, right for the Orioles this century, and including the new ownership, from my eyes, but the one thing that they do have going. For them in the old days, I would say, you don’t see the Yankees, Blue Jays and Red Sox, you know, 21 times a year each. They don’t have to do that anymore. And I think for that, that plus the fact that more teams get in the playoffs, plus the fact that 8788 wins, so all of that saying, and then once you get into the playoffs, it’s a roll of the dice. You know, it’s times are better for them than they used to be, where you had to win 101 games in 1981 in the American League just to make the playoffs, right? Like they have a chance for real. And I can sell it as such, yeah.

Eric Fisher  05:33

And it is important to know you sort of hint at a correct thing, that we’re in a balanced schedule now, where it’s not the unbalanced schedule, where it was those divisional foes so many more times as the league overall tries to nationalize the sport. And now there’s an opportunity for, you know, Paul Skeens or an Otani or somebody like that, to come through with some you know, regularity, through a place like Baltimore. And it’s going to be even more like that, once we get to some sense of realignment, which is probably coming down the pike in some matter of years. But right now, what I was kind of referring to is what the pathway is to get into the postseason. Because that would, you know, this year, next year, that would be the, you know, what I would consider, you know, getting back into the tournament that you know they were in for a couple of years there, and it looked like again, they were on the on the upswing, and then we had this marked retreat. And so I think first step one for this team is getting back into the postseason. Getting back into the postseason means holding your own against the teams I just mentioned. Eric Fisher’s here.

Nestor Aparicio  06:39

8

He covers baseball as well as all the sports in the business of sports, at front office sports, they were last place team. Last year, they lost a half a million fans in the first real year of ownership of the new group. Some lucky fans got a Rubenstein bobble head out of this. The money spent on Alonso, I sign off on the money not spent on big arm pitching after Corbin burns last year, kind of turned their money down. Didn’t want to play here, wanted to play in Arizona. Blew his arm out, getting Bradish back, having the Rogers trade smell a lot better than it did at the All Star break, when Kyle Stowers had 30 home runs, or whatever it was, and then where rushman is, Westburn holiday injured cows are. They’re going to have Kobe mayo with third base for a minute here and try to figure out if they got a bat the Tyler Ward thing for for Grayson rodrigo’s, who was going to be the next Jim Palmer, if not storm Davis or rocky Coppinger? I don’t know, but there’s been a lot of tumult here, let’s say, since Angelos died, which we’re only going back 24 months now, in regard to it is hard to believe Angelos departure, Elias change of manager in all of that. And now this sort of importing from Masson, oh yeah, for the business side, for sure, but importing Pete Alonso, and to my way of thinking, and I’ve been at this a long time, they spent $19 million on a number four pitcher in on Valentine’s Day and, and I’m like the Angelos group never did that. They maybe in 1997 David Wells, Jimmy key, whatever. But like that was not a part of the modern vernacular, which is have a little bit of throw $20 million because we need a little more pitching so we can make the playoffs. That was not something that was part of the vernacular. So for that, I’m going to give him points,

Eric Fisher  08:34

and as do I, and that’s where this kind of guarded optimism comes from, that and Alonso and just showing a little bit more of a pulse than we had 612, months ago, and that you again, with better cohesion and better health among the existing core. You know, I think this is way better than a last place team. You know, are they a jug or not? Not necessarily, but I do think they’re far better than what they showed last year.

Nestor Aparicio  08:59

Let’s talk state of the game. And because we can do WBC, and you can blend that into me wanting to go to the Venezuela Dominican game in Miami, finding I was 300 bucks to get in, but I can do, you know, Israel in the Netherlands or whatever, for seven bucks. But it there is a level of fervor in regard to the Olympics. And you can jump on that, because you do the business of all of that as well. And the hockey teams and Trump being so divisive that he divided the men’s and women’s gold medal winning hockey teams along gender and along politics crazy but, and maybe you’ll throw some toilet paper to Puerto Rico, and he bombed Venezuela and took the leader. And they’re in the tournament. And Cuba, by the way, they’re not letting some of the guys in. And these are the guys that played against the Orioles in 1999 that are part of the scouting and the coaching, like even the World Baseball Classic and part of like how all of that blends into the politics of all of this and where the game is and where the game’s headed into labor hell at the end of the year, because this is a really weird year for baseball. All the way around because of the war drums that sit at the bottom of this that only people like you and me ever talk about, like, it’s not people don’t want to talk about we want to talk about who’s starting on opening day and all of this stuff. But everywhere I go, they’re like, this is really problematic for the sport right now. Yeah.

Eric Fisher  10:17

So there are a number of different threads in there that sort of the top line of the sport in and of itself, just like the state of baseball as a entertainment property tenants up, ratings up. We’ve got Otani judge, great collection of stars, you know, that sort of very top line level. Really good, the International stuff that you reference also really good. That this is becoming a more global game. And yes, there is a geopolitical undercurrent that obviously Major League Baseball doesn’t control, but this world baseball class, this tournament, is going to be a hit. It’s going to do very well. You’ve got a number of stack teams, you know, of course, the defending champion Japan, but you know us is bringing everybody with Judge and wit and schemes and school bowl and Bryce Harper and, you know, they’re they’re emptying out the cupboard as well. And so that tournament’s going to be really great as well. But as the season goes on, we’re going to be increasingly worried about where the labor negotiations are. This is a labor year, as we like to say, because the current deal that was signed in early 22 expires on December 1. You know, we’ve got these very sort of existential questions as to whether it’s going to be a salary cap, not a salary cap. And in the midst of all of that, we just had a change at the top with the MLB Players Association, where there’s, you know, some scandal surrounding the former executive director, Tony Clark, his number two, Bruce Meyer, has been elevated. He’s running the show. There’s the same kind of philosophical bent within the organization. But how those labor negotiations unfold this summer, it’s going to say a lot as to whether this momentum that I’m referencing continues into 27 and beyond.

8

Nestor Aparicio  12:05

Well, anybody that’s listening to you and me at this point knows we are. OGS about all of this, back to Nestor Smith and Lords of the Realm and me being on the radio in the in the in the spring and summer 1994 and beyond. I’ve been at this a long time back. I’m so old that I remember when Angelo’s bought the team and took the side of the players, and now we have these rich guys from New York to come in, and they’re Mr. Money Bags and arroghetti, and they’re all into this. I’ve wondered a lot if they even know when they signed up two years ago, that Rubenstein even really knows enough about baseball because Peter didn’t. Peter did not know at all what he was signing up for. In regard to, I just want to team and be famous and own the Orioles and whatever Rubenstein had the same thing, not really realizing how bloody the gloves can get in these fights. And there’s always the battle drums. And look, I knew Mark Belanger back in the day, and I had Don fear on, and I’ve had Marvin Miller on my show, and I’ve had Faye Vincent through all of these years of discussing all of this stuff, I’ve never had John hell you’re on, although I do want to. But for me, in discussing it, the modern part of this, and how much money in the pie. To me, it feels very, very like Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, like the original sin of they were all too greedy all along. The NFL owners figured this out. The NHL and NBA owners figured it out because they got labored into it. The baseball thing was such a war and such a divide that I don’t know how you adjudicate the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. I don’t I don’t know how you find the middle. It’d be like finding Towson State to find the middle with Alabama or UCLA. I just don’t know when there’s different revenue streams. How they’re going to figure this out, but it’s the same exact argument we had 1994 it’s just more money in a wider divide.

Eric Fisher  14:09

Yeah, there, there are a lot of generational echoes, to be sure, and I think a lot of this, it comes from, you know, my personal view is that the top of the funnel is not really the issue. They’re going all out and maximizing what they can. I have much more issue with the bottom of the funnel. And this sort of speaks to what I you know, over the years in current ownership and prior ownership, what the Orioles could and should be in teams, other teams like the Orioles, you know, pirates and so on, could and should be. It’s a matter of how you bring up that bottom and create a more equitable standpoint, and all these other leagues that you reference, you know, there are a lot of historical parallels there. There’s sort of two buckets as to whether you sort of break the union, like hockey did, most notably, or you make the Grand Bargain like the NFL. Did in the early 90s, essentially swapping unrestricted free agency in exchange for the salary cap to not have any lost games next year. I think you got to push this closer to the Grand Bargain. But what is the grand bargain that the players would accept when they’re just still so hell no on anything that looks like a cap. I wonder if there’s something there that you sort of make salary or free agency eligibility earlier, salary arbitration eligibility earlier, and try to make some kind of grand bargain. That’s the task in front of Rob Manfred right now. But whether or not he can do that, that’s what these next six months or so are going to tell us.

Nestor Aparicio  15:44

Well, local revenue is just so imbalanced and further and

Eric Fisher  15:49

8

balance it more, you can smooth out those differences and get more to an NFL model, because somebody like Dallas or the New York Giants, they’re nowhere near Jacksonville, but Jacksonville can be a playoff team, because everything is kind of nationalized, and I think that’s the direction the league would like to go to.

Nestor Aparicio  16:06

Well, I remember Curt Schilling sitting on a couch 30 years ago talking to me about this as the angry player rep, then, and Jimmy pool and Mike Messina and all the guys of that era talking about the money, and the fact that really, this is an argument amongst the owners, not amongst the players. This is about rich owners and richer owners, and a guy like Angelos in my market, who swore up and down that they got the net the revenue of mass and and siphoned off of that that they could put a competitive baseball team here to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox, and really, the money just went into his pockets. And that was the story. Then it’s what got me thrown out telling that story. It was true 20 years ago. It’s true now. And I don’t know how that will never be a part of how the players feel about, okay, where’s the floor and who’s in charge of the floor. And in every sport, there’s a Mike Brown, or there’s a Donald Sterling, or there’s just somebody Al Davis, somebody that just is going to participate differently. And in baseball, it’s always been, every five years, we get together and reenact whatever the Scrum is going to be, or the war or the big battle is going to be, and it really does come down to owners being up and on the up and up about whether they’re going to win or not, or whether they’re trying to win, or whether they’re trying to build taxes take money and just give a PAP a wave while they make money, and the players make money, and they don’t really care about whether they win or not, tanking. And the NBA is a great example of that, right?

Eric Fisher  17:42

And this, this is what I’m saying about sort of having the bottom come up. They’ve got more work to do. And I think your point is well taken, that there is definitely sort of a hawk and dove thing that’s got to be resolved within the management side before we can really get anything done with the players. The other half of this is that if you’re going to do anything like this system, you actually have to strike a full on partnership. And yes, the League and the union have been able to get along and do things on a number of levels, and they co own and operate the World Baseball Classic, for example. But to do a deal like this and the kind of scale that we’re talking about, you really have to have an enhanced level of trust, and it’s hard right now to get to that enhanced level of trust, because from the players standpoint, they look at literally the last century plus of baseball history, and there is a long and documented history of owners screwing players out of compensation through a variety of means, whether it be the collusion in the late 80s or screwing players out of bonuses or what have you that there’s got to be a way to sort of push all that fully to the past and get to a new era where there is a different level of trust. And that’s going to be really hard to do, but if something like that could be done, I think you do get a situation where the imbalance gets addressed, because that’s the fundamental problem that we’re talking about here, is that they’re, you know, real and perceived. There are some imbalance issues that need to be addressed.

Nestor Aparicio  19:10

My guess is Eric Fisher. He’s with front office sports. So we like talk about the business of baseball. Is an important year to do that. And, you know, we talk enough about on the field and who’s going to play and how many home runs Pete Alonso is going to end how much Maryland lottery is gonna have to spend at home run riches and all. We’ll get into all that. But I, I knew the history of this incredibly well, because I lived it in the early 90s on the radio when I had to explain it and there was no internet. So I, you know, red Lords of the Realm. I talked to players, I talked to management, I talked to lawyers. I tried to talk to smart people like you, your lawyer as well. Try to talk to people I know, to get educated about this, but I’m not current on this, and to me, it always felt like humans. George Steinbrenner, Peter angelos, Bud Selig, who was an owner at heart and always was, and whatever the lawyers were, whether that was Mar. And Miller in the beginning, or whether it was Don fear later, or whether it was Rob Manfred, you know, coming in Peter Angelos and being good cop, bad cop, when these negotiations would happen, whether it was Alan Trammell or mark Belanger or or, you know, Tony Clark, I guess, in the modern era of all of this, who are the humans that are really involved in this, above and beyond Rob Manfred and Meyer? But I have wondered aloud, and you could correct me on this, but Eric Getty and Rubenstein come into this, I have been led to believe that era Getty might actually have more money involved in the deal. He’s certainly the younger guy, certainly the more baseball guy, but I look to him, and he has no public persona in Baltimore. Neither does Rubenstein. They’ve owned the team for two years. They’ve made bobbleheads of themselves, but they’ve said nothing about anything, not even the $600 million that they’ve gotten to throw the media out of the press box and build $38,000 a piece season tickets. I wonder where they stand, because the players are all I think are going to get pissed off and line up behind Bryce Harper and Verlander and Scherzer and the angriest and the angry we have the pitcher here this year, a Bassett who is a union guy that the angry 30 something guys that all have $100 million in the bank already are going to be the ones getting the gunner Henderson’s and the Adley rutschmans sort of fired up about, hey, do this for Brooks. Do this for you know, every Louis Aparicio, all the guys that never could get there, Steve Carlton couldn’t get there.

8

Eric Fisher  21:41

Really interesting point, because in the 2002 negotiations, there actually was a divide between the union leadership and the rank and file that the union staff and the executive committee were all against. The last deal that the league put on the table, oh and eight among the executive subcommittee of the Union rank and file actually approved this deal, and which is how we got it done. And there actually was a because we have kind of a declining middle class in the sport, that there is a certainly a monetary and a philosophical divide between

Nestor Aparicio  22:17

how do you get guys that can’t afford to get off the field? Same thing happens in football that they need to play to get paid. You’re telling me not to go to work today. Come on, dude, you know that’s where scab lay. That’s when all hell breaks loose, right?

Eric Fisher  22:28

Yeah, and so how the So, yes, the owners absolutely do have a hawk and dove issue on their side. There’s a little bit of one on the player side as well. There’s plenty

Nestor Aparicio  22:37

8

of strike pay. They have a battle chest that are ready to walk next April, they’re they’re not going to starve by walking. But it’s hard to explain to a 25 year old who’s got $6.2 million on deal like, I don’t want to take a month off and lose a million dollars when you’re that guy, right?

Eric Fisher  22:54

And you’re also in literally at that stage in your competitive prime, and you know those mid to late 20 years when you’re quite possibly going to put up the best numbers you will in your entire career.

Nestor Aparicio  23:05

Yeah, well, that’s where the players have to stick together, and is Meyer the better. What do you make of the politics of the Tony Clark thing? That’s crazy, right?

Eric Fisher  23:13

All of it? Well, I think there is a bunch of issues surrounding Tony that didn’t really necessarily have a lot to do with the matters that we’re talking about. There were some interpersonal, you know, staff and family things. There was the whole bit with the licensing and the one team partners, the core operation of the Union, and these labor bargaining matters. That’s really not kind of germane to what Tony’s undoing was, you know, as for Bruce, he’s, he’s a hardcore labor lawyer. He’s very much cut in the same cloth as Rob Manfred, and, you know, and his crew are on the other side. And did you

8

Nestor Aparicio  23:50

expect Clark to be the one to battle this, or all along was, was there some movement?

Eric Fisher  23:55

Yeah, they had an intro. They had a great sort of partnership, the two of them together, where, again, Bruce is a hardcore labor lawyer. Tony brings the player perspective and has a whole series of relationships, you know, on that level, you know that on the field level that Bruce obviously doesn’t have, and I thought they complemented each other very well in that regard. So now Bruce is going to be sort of going at it alone and probably relying a little bit more on the, you know, the eight guys in particular on the executive subcommittee, and the big name on that one, Tarek skubel, who just won a massive, historic arbitration

Nestor Aparicio  24:34

so he will be the heavy for the young guys. Yes, that’s what I’m essentially asking you, who are going to be the headline makers once the manure hits the fan? Yeah.

Eric Fisher  24:44

8

And I would say, particularly, look at, you know, there are a bunch of other guys, and bassett’s Another great name that you mentioned, because he’s very active as well. But since Google just went through the war on this arbitration thing, and, you know, got what I would consider. Laughable offer in return. I mean, the guys, you know, no worse than the second best pitcher in the league, and to come back with a $19 million offer, you know, an arbitration from the team. I mean, it was just absurdly low. Now, whether 32 is the right number, that’s obviously what the panel agreed upon, but I think we can all agree that 19 was too low. So he’s just been through that war. That’s a big win, by the way. It’s a huge win. And so, you know, he’s just personally had that experience in the battle. But he’s also, again, a headline guy that, you know a lot of these you know, a lot of your superstars are not exactly, necessarily, your biggest union guys. You mentioned, blander, great player. I don’t want to slouch him, but you know, he’s not Cal Brooks and Eddie, you know, like, you know, it’s very rare when it’s

Nestor Aparicio  25:45

different, when it’s Bryce Harper getting the manfred’s face saying, Get out of clubhouse. Yeah.

Eric Fisher  25:49

So although, you know, that’s a little bit of a different thing that I think that had less to do with, you know, Harper’s position with the union than his own temperament, because, you know, he runs hot, and Rob can run hot too. And I think you know that, you know that, you know boiled up. And I think they ultimately talked later and kind of smoothed it out, at least for the moment. But the point that I’m making is that in a lot of these instances, your frontline guys are not necessarily the ones foremost in the trenches on this stuff, but Scoob is going to be one of those guys. Eric Fisher,

Nestor Aparicio  26:23

educating me. Thank you. By the way, that’s really at the crux, in the heart of bringing people like you on and say, teach me this a little bit now, teach me the other side. Because I lived through Angelos here both times. You know, when he saved Bud Selig eight years after the strike, and he was on the player side, then he was on bud side, and then in the end he was, he’s always on Peter’s side. So I was on Team Angeles. I don’t know where these cats sit with arroghetti and Rubenstein. I know they’re billionaires. I know they put a lot of money up. I know Mr. Eric Getty especially expects a return on his investment. And things aren’t selling so well. Here, their last place team, they bought a first baseman. They, you know, like they there’s no real enthusiasm here. The Ravens have the Lamar thing going on, and both teams have new leaders, coaches, managers, whatever you would say. So it’s a weird, squishy time for Baltimore sports in a general sense. But there’s also the part where people bought into the new owners. Last year, I had friends that bought Birdland stuff and got really pissed off by the raising of the prices, the lowering of the value. Katie Griggs had told me she’s going to sit with me. They didn’t like I just the city’s tepid, lukewarm. You’ll see, you’ll see, when they start selling tickets in April, that the stadium’s more empty than it is full. They’re doing a lot of bobble heads. They’re doing giveaways of Star Wars night, doing all that stuff. But the battle drums are coming, even if the team’s good, right, if the team has a magnificent summer, that’s not going to change labor. And I’m wondering where the steinbrenners and this the rheinsdorfs, and you know all the names, the O’Malley, the people that used to run baseball, and names and venerable names who are going to be hawks and doves, and a lot of these things are owned by consortiums now and this and that, who are the humans around Rob Manfred, who are the five Jerry Jones’s and Bob crafts and Mr. Biggs that are going to come in and put their foot down one way or another in regard to how ownership is going to deal with the players this time around, because I do think it is a different era than the reserve clause we’ve moved on from Kurt flood. It’s a different era of people than even Don fear and all the names I’ve given you. How will they get a deal done? Who, I mean at the end of the day, who’s going to be reasonable at any point to get whatever a reasonable deal is done so that they’re actually playing baseball this time next year instead

8

Eric Fisher  28:47

of warring? Yeah, and I think you’re going to have to, you know, look for teams like, you know, Boston, maybe the Cubs, you know, sort of like your bigger market teams, but not necessarily at that Dodger level that could maybe sort of speak to both sides of the table a little bit, because you do have people like Colorado out there, you know, and Dick Monfort who are like hell bent for more existential change. And like, you know, basically, he’s already on record saying that what’s going on with him having to try to compete with the Dodgers is past the point of ludicro City. So he’s going to be on sort of one side.

Nestor Aparicio  29:24

By the way, Steve bishati, when I used to drink beer with him, before he threw me out, 20 years ago, told me that he didn’t buy a baseball team because he didn’t think it was fair. He just said, basically, like, I just didn’t want to buy into a sport where we would never have enough money. Like, literally, that was fundamentally, this gets to what kept him out. That’s a billionaire just didn’t want in the game. Even though he loved baseball. He just like, Nah, I’m not gonna fight that. Now, Rubenstein, I don’t know what he knew. These guys knew about this war that they’re gonna have, but and what side they’re gonna be on, I guess that’s I’m trying to read the tea leaves and saying, what? Do the Baltimore Orioles want? What do the Washington Nationals want? And how are we going to get to a point where they can figure this out? Because all of our lifetime, we’ve been arguing about this, and I, I don’t know that we won’t a year from now, but I’m trying to figure out, like, when the light’s going to go on for all of them.

Eric Fisher  30:17

Yeah, and again, they’re sort of chasing a moving target. Because, again, this whole bit that I’m talking about in terms of nationalizing the revenue that really doesn’t happen until after the 2028, season that we’re in, this labor thing now, and the deal that they’re going to make the first two years of whatever deal they do, or even if they just do a two year bridge deal, it’s for a revenue situation that exists now, but is not the revenue situation that Rob Manfred and others want to create. And what they want to do is take their existing national TV rights, a bunch of additional games that normally would be on a regional sports network, but all these RSNs are dying, and take a bunch of that inventory and completely repackage it, and so a bunch more games and a situation like yours could show up on a different platform, whether it be Amazon, Netflix, what have you Paramount now that they’re buying, you know, Warner Brothers, you know, the whole media landscape is changing, but the broader point that I’m making is that they’re kind of chasing a moving target, and that sort of informs how all these owners think about this, because if you can shuffle the decks and nationalize the revenue a little bit more that teams like an Orioles or Pittsburgh or even a Colorado could feel a little bit more comfortable in their ability to compete, because this whole situation has been smoothed out. But again, there’s a lot of ifs and buts in there.

Nestor Aparicio  31:47

8

Well, that’s why I think, like Eric Getty and Rubenstein throwing money at Peter Lonzo, throwing a little money at at Bassett. You know, I’ll hear all of that. No one, including Katie Griggs and certainly Eric Getty and Rubenstein, will never speak to me or anybody like me, or probably not even you. So I don’t even you. Get to talk to Manford once or twice a year and ask him some questions, and he’ll pick up the phone for you maybe, and maybe Barry bloom and a couple other guys I know who will talk to someone like him. And this is the question I keep asking, and this is what I would ask Katie Griggs, if she and I ever had a real relationship, to sit and talk to her and say, All right, Katie, just between you and me, what’s the plan? What’s the plan? Not the plan to beat the union up, not with the bullshit we’re going to sell the fans about how much the tickets are. What’s the inside plan? You bought the team. You paid 2 billion for the team. You think the city’s going to do what, and the state’s going to do what, and the land is going to do what, and you’re going to battery what, and you’re going to warehouse what, and you’re going to have what, and where’s the revenue stream for that. And then there’s the media side. That whenever I turn to you, and you’re one of the smartest people I know, you well, the revenue and the regional and now they’re trying to, they’re reorganizing that a little bit. And then I asked you to explain it to me, and you don’t really have the answer. Rob didn’t really have the answer. The cosmos doesn’t have the answer because they keep betting that I’m going to put Apple TV on on Friday night and give Apple six bucks. And I ate, and I was in Toronto for the second game of the year last year, that wasn’t on television anywhere in the city, because it was a Friday night. It was Apple TV. And what bar would have Apple TV? And certainly I can’t find that at Cooper’s pub or cost us in the games aren’t on, and they don’t think about all that. They just think like everybody’s going to be bending over backwards to buy all of these subscriptions, and then all of a sudden, the game’s not on, and you don’t watch it. You don’t care that. You don’t watch it, and you lose a half a million fans in your stadium the first year you bought the team, like last year, and then you snip it the Nationals here. So my question is always about my team, my market, my city, my franchise, all of that. I can’t get any answers out of the new people. The new woman here only cares about the all star game in 2028 or 29 that they’re going to get and how they’re going to revenue eyes that. And I like, I don’t know who these buyers are, but the television and the media part of this is, I can’t find anybody, and I know you write about it every day. Give me the strategy of what this looks like in 2029 once we beat the union up, we get the salary. Like, what do the Dodgers look like, and what are the rays look like? And what are the pirates look like in a perfect world if they could fix it, and then what does the where’s the revenue coming from? What am I buying per month, per year, my subscription, and what am I getting for it? And I’ve not seen anything that even looks speculative. I’ve just seen a bunch of we’ll get to that, and we get to that in the regional sports thing’s dry, and it’s a little different, and we’re going to take it in house, but I still haven’t figured out how they’re going to get the kind of revenue they need for the Colorado Rockies to keep up with the Los Angeles Dodgers, no matter what they do. And I’ve been trying. I’ve been chasing that tail for 40 years on the

Eric Fisher  34:50

radio, yeah, and it’s it’s going to be hard, because fundamentally, in any of these scenarios, what we’re talking about is a situation where. Or instead of getting revenue from people whether or not they watch the game, which is the traditional cable model, is it’s going to be much more direct one to one in terms of getting revenue from somebody who actually does consume the game. And that is a smaller, what they call a total addressable market, and they’re gonna have to get more money from each of those people, right? And they’re gonna have to get more money from each of those people, but also they’re gonna have to find other ways to expand the total addressable market. And so this gets to things like the league, doing more stuff on Tiktok, and doing more stuff internationally, and trying to find new fans beyond people like me. Who are you? Mean you are going to be there regardless. They gotta find, they gotta start looking under. They’re looking. They’re beginning to look under more rocks as well. But regardless of all of that, it’s only going to be getting revenue from people who are consuming the games. It was a great situation that all sports had before that you’re getting all this passive income. Those days are over, and so, you know, the whole magic eight ball has been shaken up. And you know, all of this, the entire rest of the decade, we’re going to be in this transitory phase.

Nestor Aparicio  36:10

Yeah, they’re almost like a hockey team. They always have to figure it out at the local level. Eric Fisher’s here, all right, so last thing, because I am Baltimore pub, what are you bullish about with baseball and, you know, last year here, and that’s just for us, but, I mean, just on baseball, give me something good,

Eric Fisher  36:27

yeah, the thing I’m really bullish about is the talent of the players we are watching, a, you know, a really great group of generational talent who are like locks for Cooper’s town. And I’m talking about judge and Otani and Paul Skeens and Tarek skuba that I mentioned before, you know. And you can rattle down all the other lists of stars you know. You know, Yamamoto coming in and starring the way he did last year, and Vladdy doing what he’s doing in Toronto. And you can name 20 of these guys. And obviously it always kind of starts with Judge and Otani, but this talent base is just and even the younger guys like Ellie de la Cruz, who are just getting started, that what gives me hope is that, for a variety of reasons, we’re getting a better athlete in the game. And I think some of it may be just, you know, folks not wanting to play football or basketball or whatever, for a variety of reasons, but the the star players and the crop of guys that we have right now, they’re just fantastic.

8

Nestor Aparicio  37:28

And you mean gunner Henderson and Adley rutchman? Yes, something magic happens. Well, I mean, it is an embarrassment of riches in regard to talent in Baltimore and one ones and all of that. But it doesn’t help you when Jackson holiday and Westberg aren’t out there to start the season. Start the season, but, you know, the kids start worse than they did last year, getting the manager fired on Preakness day. So we’re hoping for better things ahead. So is Eric Fisher, who covers the business of all sports. Tell me what you’re doing in front office sports these days here.

Eric Fisher  37:55

Yeah, we’re just, we’re growing like a weed. It’s a great problem to have. It not really a problem that, you know, we are a successful, growing entity in sports media, and there’s not a lot of us out there that, you know, we’ve got our website, we’ve got multiple newsletters that we’re doing, I’m still doing a lot on our flagship newsletter, The memo, getting a little bit more into live events. We just had a massive space on radio row out at the Super Bowl, you know, largest space, and just a list guests all week long. You know, we’re just, you know, we’re a true multimedia, multi platform sports media company, and we’re having a great time doing it.

Nestor Aparicio  38:35

Well, I tell you what, man, I appreciate you always and the insights you bring. And certainly more important than ever if you are a baseball fan. And I know it’s thick, and I know people don’t, didn’t want to hear about the mass and money and like all of that, that’s a big part of the Orioles, though, right? Like that, the auras broke up this mass and thing now it is more sing for your supper. Rubenstein believed this when he got into this. It really is go time for the Baltimore Orioles, in a way that it is never been the whole time I’ve been on the radio here, in the way that they were managed and operated, right?

Eric Fisher  39:07

8

Yeah, it’s a really interesting thing. And just to sort of recap for your listeners, that we had 20 years of legal fights between the Nationals and the Orioles, they finally resolved this, you know, pretty much this time last year, that there was a legal settlement that you know, resolved everything, and the swords were finally put down after all these years, the Nationals ostensibly won and got the additional money that they had been fighting for all these years. And as part of that settlement, they had one final year under Madison’s control, which was last year. So they served that year. They finished out, and now they’re doing their own thing, and they’re part of the in house media model, the MLB media model, at least for the time being, where the league is producing and distributing the Nationals local games, which then means the NAT the Orioles under mass and they’re a one team operation, and so that’s less game fewer. Games fewer, you know, less revenue, and they’re going to have to figure it out. And what I am curious about is, what is the long term viability of mass and does that network continue to exist? Do they try to merge with somebody else? Do they just shutter and fold into MLB media? Well, they

Nestor Aparicio  40:16

better figure something out, because there’s not a lot of revenue coming to that. There are not a lot of baseball fans. There’s not a lot of baseball fans that want to just reach and give money to them. And when the games go away, if the team’s not very good, they’ll cancel the this and the that they’ll have no subscribers and all like, I Eric, dude, I love you, and I love talking about all of this, and I’ve been on the radio forever. I worry about all of it because, like, I live here in the middle of it, and I know the way they’ve treated me, and I know the way they’ve treated Jim Palmer and others, and I thought this new group would be really raring to go to change things, and it has been a sleepy effort above and beyond Pete Alonso and a couple of this and a couple of that. I mean, they had their winter carnival blizzarded out. You know what I mean? Like, they just, they’ve, they don’t, they don’t work hard here, and they never have and, and it’s really a weird thing watching them try to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox, when they think, like the Durham Bulls. Well, this gets

Eric Fisher  41:15

back to what I was saying before. And you talk about, like, what is the plan? Like, we, I bring up the Cubs. And I know I’ve done this before. I’ll do it again here on your show, the Cubs and the Astros. When those new owners, Jim crane and Tom Ricketts, came in, they they went to everything. They were going to the opening of the door, every Chamber of Commerce, church suppers, you name it. You know, all, obviously, all the fan fest stuff. And it like, this is our plan. This is what we want to do. And, oh, by the way, both of those, it took a number of years, and they were terrible for enough for a while.

Nestor Aparicio  41:44

Yeah, these people haven’t even asked us what to buy into yet. They haven’t come and said, here’s our plan. Are you buying it instead? It’s, we’re the Orioles. Buy it. Literally.

8

Eric Fisher  41:54

What I’m saying they they need to be practicing the retail politics that the cubs in the Astros successfully did and got people to buy in and, oh, by the way, they both been a little wobbly since they won the World Series, although their cubs went back to the postseason, but they’ve continued to draw well, even when there was a little bit more blood in the water. About their on field performance, it never really sank. Super bad, because there was a trust level there. And I think a trust level still exists, and you’ve got a sense that both of those owners still want to win. And I just having, you know, we shouldn’t having to be asking so hard for these answers in the case of the Orioles, because they should be out there telling anybody who will listen,

Nestor Aparicio  42:35

yeah, I worry for all of it, just in a general sense, even if they win this year, the labor thing may really hamstring them in the end, because I don’t. And this is the thing about guys like Rubenstein and araghetti, they’re in control of everything because they’re wealthy guys. They nobody. Ain’t nobody controlling a labor situation in baseball. I’ve been around long enough to know nobody knows where that ends, literally, right? That is a black hole. Well.

Eric Fisher  42:58

And also, again, the 2002 situation was really instructive that, you know, it’s kind of percolating for a little while, and we weren’t sure which way it was going to go, and the management imposed the lockout, and it got really dark for a while, 99 days, and then, you know, January turned into February, and then it turned into March, and we weren’t sure if we were going to get the season done. And it was right there at the end of March. And they finally figured it out, and they were able to kind of rejigger the schedule a little bit, and they got in the full 162 but it was very dicey until the very end. And it was the whole situation I was describing before, where the union leadership and the rank and file were at kind of opposite ends on out of that. So those last 710, days all over the map, and I could see if situation like this really coming through again this year, where, you know, everybody involved in that situation don’t make any Thanksgiving plans, because their Thanksgiving is just trash at this point. And that whole late November period going up to the December 1 deadline. That’s going to be one wave of this, and then going into and

Nestor Aparicio  44:04

8

there’s no offseason, right? They would have no they wouldn’t sign. No players would sign. There’d be no, yeah, that would all be we’d have the homestead homies again,

Eric Fisher  44:13

in a lockout situation. All that would be frozen. But then there would be another wave in that February, March period, where it would be very fluid yet again, and your point is well taken, that we’re going to not know until we know. And this could break a lot of different ways, because it gets into leverage intolerance in a lot of respects.

Nestor Aparicio  44:34

And I keep asking, Where do the Orioles stand in this? Where, what is their ethos on all of this, and what would they like to see happen, because I feel like we’re the poor guys here. You know, I remember we were the rich guys when there was no team in DC and we had to, you know, the Cal Ripken and all that. Certainly that’s not the modern situation for the Baltimore Orioles playing at a 35 year old Camden, you know, like times have changed. A little bit. Revenues changed a little bit. Certainly, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Ravens exist in a way that they didn’t. I just, I just worry about him. I love baseball. I want it to go well, Eric Fisher loves baseball too. He’s at front office sports. He covers the game as well as other things. But no one knows no one knows the mess and laws better than you. I’m glad that part of it’s over. I don’t have to bother you about that anymore? They feel nice.

Eric Fisher  45:22

Yeah. And like I said, the structures are going to change a little bit, but both teams can now just do whatever they’re going to do, which is kind of what we were always talking about way back in 2005 and a lot of what’s happening now is undoing a 2005 business model, but conceptually it gets to what I think we you know, a lot of us said should have happened from the start. Let each team just do their thing and let you know. Let the chips fall where they may. And now we’re kind of getting to that point.

8

Nestor Aparicio  45:51

All right, something magic happens on March 26 it’s opening day, Luke and I will keep you abreast of all things breaking news between now and then, whether it’s Lamar Jackson or Tyler Linder bomb or the tampering period. I didn’t even, I could have done a whole hour on tampering period on the NFL with Eric Fisher. They do sort of rule the roost, although we like baseball around here. Always appreciate you. Man, fist bump to you get down here to Baltimore. Hey, faith is for a crab cake when you get down here.

Eric Fisher  46:14

Now, gotta get, gotta do it.

Nestor Aparicio  46:17

Hey, man, we’re taking Luke’s niece to her first game. She’s four. She’ll be five in May, and it’s Nelly Knight, and they’re playing the the athletics franchise of Sacramento ver Oakland via so come on down. We’ll get some crab cakes on. I’m going to go to some games this year. I’m excited about it.

Eric Fisher  46:37

8

Yeah, the team, like I said, team should be better. Pete Alonso,

Nestor Aparicio  46:40

going to cost John Martin a lot of money at the Maryland lottery. Home run. Riches is alive and well with our friends at the Maryland lottery. And baseball is right around the corner, which gives me a chance to bother my old friends, like Eric Fisher from front office sports. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive. Stay with us.