MASN refuses to pay for travel costs

[Ruzious]

19 hours ago, SteveA said:

And absolutely no one is buying it.   Connolly pretty much calls it out in his article.

Yeah, at least admit that it's to cut costs for the Baltimore oligarch.  

[interloper]

One of the more useful articles Connolly has written in years, probably. The more MASN gets called out, the more pressure exists for it to improve. 

[Sports Guy]

7 minutes ago, interloper said:

One of the more useful articles Connolly has written in years, probably. The more MASN gets called out, the more pressure exists for it to improve. 

Where is the pressure coming from and what will happen if they don’t succumb to the pressure?

The least amount of pressure in pro sports comes from the Orioles.  They embrace losing and they embrace cheapness.  Hell, they have even convinced the fan base that this is ok and the fans actually buy into it.

The media applies zero pressure to them as well.

[accinfo]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Where is the pressure coming from and what will happen if they don’t succumb to the pressure?

The least amount of pressure in pro sports comes from the Orioles.  They embrace losing and they embrace cheapness.  Hell, they have even convinced the fan base that this is ok and the fans actually buy into it.

The media applies zero pressure to them as well.

I think you are mostly correct but I do think there is a limit.  Everyone in my office who cares about the Orioles was talking about this today.  

[NCRaven]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Where is the pressure coming from and what will happen if they don’t succumb to the pressure?

The least amount of pressure in pro sports comes from the Orioles.  They embrace losing and they embrace cheapness.  Hell, they have even convinced the fan base that this is ok and the fans actually buy into it.

The media applies zero pressure to them as well.

If viewers stop subscribing to MASN, that would exert pressure.  Unfortunately, while I think this policy sucks, I can't give up my O's.  I'd have to check into the 5 Star accomadations at Recovery Centers of America to break the habit.  

By the way, am I the only person that sees these commercials everywhere and wonders how I can't afford to stay in a five star hotel, but if I was an addict, my insurance company would pay for five star accommodations at a rehab center?

[DrungoHazewood]

7 minutes ago, NCRaven said:

If viewers stop subscribing to MASN, that would exert pressure. 

Can you stop subscribing to MASN as a stand-alone decision?  I stopped subscribing, but that's because I dumped DirecTV and moved on to streaming, and the only way to stream MASN is to sign up for that AT&T service that's $100 a month and I don't want.

Do other cable/satellite services offer à la carte MASN?  I thought most every service bundled it with other stuff most people wouldn't want to cut.  So 50% of Orioles' local media revenues are from 78-year-old ladies who just watch the Flower Channel but get MASN in some kind of package.  My aunt has Directv in rural western Virginia, and I think she gets MASN and pays for it without even having any sports package whatsoever.  So you really have to want to stick it to the Angeloses to figure out some way to watch the other stuff you want but still cut MASN.

[spiritof66]

16 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'd say it falls under #1.

They are basically mandatory at this stage.

Be nice if we got an update on the one they are building.

My thought -- and I've said this, at greater length, in a bunch of previous posts -- is that a prospective buyer of the Orioles will know that the Orioles historically have been disadvantaged by their limited investments in analytics and in international signings and development. There are probably other, less visible weaknesses or vulnerabilities in the franchise due to the Angeloses' stupidity, lack of interest in investment to build the team's future), and now stinginess. If you put the team up for sale while badly lagging behind the rest of MLB in those areas, a prospective buyer likely would figure that (a) I'm going to have to spend a lot to catch up with my competitors in these areas, and doing so will take time (in particular, it will be years before I can get ML talent flowing through an international pipeline that I have build largely from scratch) and (b) and I'm going to have to devote significant executive time and resources to building out these areas, and I'd rather have myself and my executives focused on the challenge of improving the performance of a franchise that has no significant gaps or impairments other than a crappy team that I know I have to turn around by, among other things, overpaying for expensive free-agent talent and building attendance, either in Baltimore or somewhere else. I'm probably going to factor the cost, the delay and the diversion of repairing those things into what I'm willing to pay. I believe that's at least part of the reason the Orioles have been willing to spend what's needed in certain areas to bring them into line with the rest of MLB -- though, it appears, as one of the smaller spenders: they figure they'll get that investment back, and then some, when the team is sold.

Of course, the fact that the Orioles have been historically bad will also drag down the price that the owners of the team can expect to receive in a near-term sale. But that's harder and much more expensive to fix. Improving the team in the conventional way would involve adding to payroll by signing free agents and by trading prospects and other low-salaried guys for established players with higher salaries. There is no assurance that those increases to the MLB payroll would improve the team. It seems unlikely that a prospective buyer will pay more for a bad 65-win team than for an even worse 55-win team. A buyer will have his own plan for making the Orioles a competitive team, or at least a plan for whom he would hire to direct the process of building a competitive team. There's no economic advantage to spending money to bring in players that may not advance, and may even be inconsistent with, an unknown next owner's plans for the team.

So, rather than sign a decent major-league shortstop for a few years at $5 million a year, better to sign a marginal guy at a million, and retain the $3 million-plus ($4 million times 80 per cent, the portion of the team the Angeloses are believed to own, though it may be more) for the family's coffers. It's certainly possible that some of that will be invested in a higher payroll in a couple years, but I see no reason to expect that -- or to expect that the current owners will still be in that position in 2024 or 2025.

 

 

[NCRaven]

I think MASN is part of a sports package on Comcast, sO you probably do lose more than just that one item.  

[geschinger]

22 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Do other cable/satellite services offer à la carte MASN?  I thought most every service bundled it with other stuff most people wouldn't want to cut.  So 50% of Orioles' local media revenues are from 78-year-old ladies who just watch the Flower Channel but get MASN in some kind of package.  My aunt has Directv in rural western Virginia, and I think she gets MASN and pays for it without even having any sports package whatsoever.  So you really have to want to stick it to the Angeloses to figure out some way to watch the other stuff you want but still cut MASN.

I'm pretty sure that is still the case almost everywhere - basic cable subscribers who have no interest in sports are forced to subsidize sports programming.  

[Oriole1940]

I hope the next owner of the Orioles is a baseball man/men.  Does not guarantee anything, but sure raises the odds from where they are now.   Or at least a lover of baseball/fan.    Not a tight fisted rich man who probably does not even LIKE baseball, much less is a Fan.   

[seak05]

38 minutes ago, Oriole1940 said:

I hope the next owner of the Orioles is a baseball man/men.  Does not guarantee anything, but sure raises the odds from where they are now.   Or at least a lover of baseball/fan.    Not a tight fisted rich man who probably does not even LIKE baseball, much less is a Fan.   

Angelos wasn't even remotely tight fisted when he bought the team, and he clearly loved baseball. He meddled because he loved, not because he didn't care. As he got older and sicker, the money seemed to dry up. It might be his sons, or that he doesn't have the assets anymore, or he's just bitter 

[Goober Noodles]

Can't read the article due to the paywall.  Was there any evidence or quote from the Orioles to indicate that this was to save money?  Has anyone considered the announcers might be the ones that wanted this?

[spiritof66]

1 hour ago, seak05 said:

Angelos wasn't even remotely tight fisted when he bought the team, and he clearly loved baseball. He meddled because he loved, not because he didn't care. As he got older and sicker, the money seemed to dry up. It might be his sons, or that he doesn't have the assets anymore, or he's just bitter 

I never thought Peter Angelos had much interest, let alone love for, baseball. I believe he was motivated to buy the team by a desire for self-aggrandizement and by a concern that another buyer might move the team to the detriment of Baltimore, which he clearly did love. Angelos was convinced that his team would be very successful because he was so much smarter than and somehow morally superior to the other owners, whom he saw as inheritors of great wealth who hadn't worked their way up the hard way as he had. Driven by his competitive juices and a desire to prove that he and Baltimore were superior to the other owners (especially Steinbrenner) and cities, he sometimes did spend freely -- much of it stupidly. I don't think Angelos knew or understood much about the game (as opposed to the business) of baseball beyond the level of the casual fan. It's likely that whatever he knew when his group bought the team in 1993 is all that he ever knew. He was widely regarded as the worst owner in professional sports, and he earned that distinction.

There's little public information available about Peter Angelos's wealth from sources other than the Orioles, and some of what's out there is inconsistent. But it's pretty clear that the enormous revenues he derived in the '80s and '90s as the only partner in his large law firm, almost entirely from asbestos cases, have dried up. For years, he has not been listed by the firm as a practicing lawyer, and the firm has dwindled to 24 lawyers (including Lou Angelos). So far as I can tell, the Angeloses, unlike most MLB owners, have no significant business income outside of baseball. 

[OriolesMagic83]

58 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

I never thought Peter Angelos had much interest, let alone love for, baseball. I believe he was motivated to buy the team by a desire for self-aggrandizement and by a concern that another buyer might move the team to the detriment of Baltimore, which he clearly did love. Angelos was convinced that his team would be very successful because he was so much smarter than and somehow morally superior to the other owners, whom he saw as inheritors of great wealth who hadn't worked their way up the hard way as he had. Driven by his competitive juices and a desire to prove that he and Baltimore were superior to the other owners (especially Steinbrenner) and cities, he sometimes did spend freely -- much of it stupidly. I don't think Angelos knew or understood much about the game (as opposed to the business) of baseball beyond the level of the casual fan. It's likely that whatever he knew when his group bought the team in 1993 is all that he ever knew. He was widely regarded as the worst owner in professional sports, and he earned that distinction.

There's little public information available about Peter Angelos's wealth from sources other than the Orioles, and some of what's out there is inconsistent. But it's pretty clear that the enormous revenues he derived in the '80s and '90s as the only partner in his large law firm, almost entirely from asbestos cases, have dried up. For years, he has not been listed by the firm as a practicing lawyer, and the firm has dwindled to 24 lawyers (including Lou Angelos). So far as I can tell, the Angeloses, unlike most MLB owners, have no significant business income outside of baseball. 

I believe this is true and why I think the quicker the Angelos brothers sell the O's, the better.  The Angelos brothers are not going to be investing in the O's, they are going to be pulling income out of the O's.  Of course, can they still sell the O's while Peter is alive is a good question.  I'm sure the horde of lawyers on this board will have a quick answer.

[NCRaven]

The only thing more fun than watching the Hangout’s amateur psychologists analyze a man they’ve never met would be having real psychologists analyze some of us.  I do not volunteer.