Update: Future of Orioles Hangout announcement next week

[OrioleMagic]

I would hope that Mr. Bader will be equally transparent about where the money will go... that was spent on advertising here on OH. A business decision usually means that money is either cut or re-directed. If the advertising budget was cut from last year's amount, I think that would be understandable from a business perspective.

Where the Orioles organization doesn't have a leg to stand on is cutting what has to be a paltry sum of advertising dollars on a local fan-base web-site when compared to the long list of poor expenditures over the last 14 years.

[DuffMan]

But the reluctance to commit to ANY Hangout Nights and the lack of responses is a pretty crappy way to treat someone you've been doing business with for several years.

That's the Oriole Way for ya!

[Frobby]

Honestly, I was very surprised that Greg decided to go that route. It's an unwritten rule that you don't disclose that type of information and I'm surprised that he did that.

Kind of like not bunting in the 9th inning when a guy is throwing a no hitter?

The amounts aren't very relevant to me. I have no idea what it costs to run the Hangout on an annual basis, and how much comes from advertising and how much from Plus memberships. All I know is, whatever changes are coming won't be good for the Hangout community, nor will they be good for the Orioles, and for the Orioles to think there would be no consequence to the Hangout from their cutbacks is ridiculous.

[Slappy]

Interested to hear more detail from Tony's side. I think the Orioles' case has been fully stated. Thanks for that Greg, and I hope to see more contributions from official sources.

[srh523]

That's the Oriole Way for ya!

For me the Oriole way died in the late 1990's.......

[Dr. FLK]

Typically, the only reason for defending yourself preemptively is because you know you're going to end up looking silly...right? Like - when I hear my 1year old crying, and my 3 year runs up to me explaining why it's not her fault, I can typically assume pretty safely that my 3 year old is to blame. And my 3 year old is much more trustworthy than the Orioles.

[Spoonless]

[...] we were told that unless we matched or came close to matching last year?s level of commitment, the site would be changed, the operators would no longer work with us to squelch rumors that were patently false, and the days of the club being presented in a fair manner would be over [...]

Now obviously I'm not privy to the actual conversations, but I can't help but doubt the way this position is presented. I don't doubt that these things were mentioned, but feel that more likely it was in the vein of such a loss of ad revenue resulting in a deficit in monetary resources essential to keeping the moderation level high.

[allstar1579]

I would hope that Mr. Bader will be equally transparent about where the money will go... that was spent on advertising here on OH. A business decision usually means that money is either cut or re-directed. If the advertising budget was cut from last year's amount, I think that would be understandable from a business perspective.

Where the Orioles organization doesn't have a leg to stand on is cutting what has to be a paltry sum of advertising dollars on a local fan-base web-site when compared to the long list of poor expenditures over the last 14 years.

What we do know is that they say the money is too much to spend on players like Cespedes or Sano that would potentially interest more fans in coming out, then they go to a program (advertising dollars in this case) that directly reaches out to encourage fans to come out to games and say they have no interest in funding that as well.

Sounds to me like an awful lot of we have no interest in trying to make the fans happier with our product to get them to the stadium, and we are going to rely on more short-sighted and casual fans (like the idiot who posted and deleted said comment a few minutes ago) to continue to blindly spend money like lemmings at the park which makes ownership feel like what they are doing is ok. Maybe it's just me, but over half of my paying customers NOT coming out to watch my product any more would tell me something is NOT ok.

[TiredofLosing20]

Amazing how Greg (ergo the Orioles) are more than happy to share financial information related to their participation in the OH, however when it comes to the organization's other finances its like trying to find the Bat Cave.

Kudos to the Orioles for further lowering my opinion of them.

Lots of things can be considered "business decisions". Here are some thoughts.

They are going to start advertising on WNST
The new VP of Operations doesn't see a real need to connect to the remaining Orioles fans. Besides clearly those fans don't have a clue as they didn't see the value of the Guthrie Trade
Money spent on OH advertising was the difference maker in affording Prince Fielder
They are saving up pennies for Joey Votto.
MASN money isn't quite as good as we thought.
Their strategic focus on the Maine demographic is rendered useless by the pending departure of JTrea
ChaosLex barely makes polls anymore.
Tony really insulted DD during his dinner date. DD will not be insulted
Advertising on the OH and NationalsHangout.com is becoming more redundant.
The money apportioned to the Hangout will be needed to repair South Korean relations

Just a couple of thoughts.

[Dr. FLK]

Rumor has it that the Orioles have used the $50k they saved on advertizing to sign a 12-year-old boy from a middle school in Madagascar. Problem is, they didn't ask his mother first and they have subsequently been banned from scouting in the country. It's a shame too, because at 12 years old, he would be the only person within the organization who had a shot at being alive the next time they had a winning season.

[Barnaby Graves]

Amazing how Greg (ergo the Orioles) are more than happy to share financial information related to their participation in the OH, however when it comes to the organization's other finances its like trying to find the Bat Cave.

I hadn't even thought of that but you're totally, 100% correct.

[LookinUp]

I keep telling myself that the O's are paring back all of their spending in an effort to inflate the value of the franchise (lower overhead) for sale.

Rather than hear the details of this peeing match, I'm more interested in hearing what it means for OH. Why do I get the feeling that + membership is about to become a little more expensive?

[Pedro Cerrano]

Trust me, the Orioles would not even commit to any Hangout nights so all of that stuff from Greg must be his internal thoughts, not what he was telling me. All they kept doing was putting us off. We normally have a deal done by December for the next season. Greg constantly kept blowing me off with cryptic e-mails and non-responses. I would have to follow up my e-mails and or proposals with more e-mails asking him for some feedback. After 7-8 years of doing business, you would think we earned a little more respect than that. Either way, Greg kept pushing us off, and pushing us off so I sent him an e-mail asking him for a commitment for Hangout nights because I know people need to make plans because some come in from out of state. My last proposal included three Hangout nights down from 6 and 25% cut of advertising dollars. I was given a response that they were not comfortable with that as well I asked what were they comfortable with and I was again not given an offer.

Everything I've done over the years with the Hangout was in the best interest of Orioles fans. Heck, the Hangout has always been about and for Orioles fans. The Orioles can blow millions of dollars every year, but they want to cut back on one of the last bastions of die-hard fans by cutting about their support for Hangout nights and their advertising dollars, the very dollars that go back into paying for the coverage your guys have gotten over the last 7-8 years.

I'm sorry this is all becoming public, but since Greg decided to be unprofessional by posting some financial aspects of our dealings, I figured all of the truth will have to be spilled. I will have more later.

[...] we were told that unless we matched or came close to matching last year?s level of commitment, the site would be changed, the operators would no longer work with us to squelch rumors that were patently false, and the days of the club being presented in a fair manner would be over [...]

I don't think a 25% cut in advertising dollars comes "close" to matching previous commitment levels, but that just might be semantics.

Either way, I hope this gets resolved but based on the tone of Tony's posts I am doubting that will happen.

[canonfaz]

Well, I guess I can add this to my thread that I created last week. "What is the Next Random Terrible Orioles Decision?"

This Organization is just so terrible. Every time that I think that it can't get any worse..... ugh.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Rumor has it that the Orioles have used the $50k they saved on advertizing to sign a 12-year-old boy from a middle school in Madagascar. Problem is, they didn't ask his mother first and they have subsequently been banned from scouting in the country. It's a shame too, because at 12 years old, he would be the only person within the organization who had a shot at being alive the next time they had a winning season.

50K over the course of 10 years or whatever for a big league team isn't that much money when you think about it. I'd really like to hear the O's rationalization as to why it's a smart business decision to cut advertising.

This whole thing reeks.