New WNST protest planned

[NewMarketSean]

If someone is doing the right thing for selfish reasons, say giving a homeless person a million dollars because the guy gets more out of it than the homeless person, does that make it any worse than it is?

Not comparing Nestor's protest to a random act of kindness, but does it really matter why Nestor is doing this? All that matters is that he IS doing it, and people who don't have the same self-interests as Nestor have a way to vent their frustrations in a way that actually means something other than NOT going to the games.

[TGO]

Heh. See, don't lump us all in here. Most of us agree that a protest is warranted. But most of us also think that while a protest is warranted, Nestor's motivations for staging one aren't completely selfless. That's all, really.

There are some people that are dismissing the protest out of spite for Nestor though, that's a bit much. It'd probably be better, for the protest itself, if Nestor disinvolved himself. But he's pretty incapable of that.

This all reminds me of what people in politics call "astroturfing." A lobbying organization will create a "grassroots" campaign, but it's a fake grassroots campaign because it's all being driven by a lobbying organization. Fake grass=astroturf.

I was conflicted on whether the first protest was a good idea. There were arguments both ways. But I definitely think this one is useless. It's just going to piss off the players and confuse Angelos, who has taken some positive steps this year (spending money, supposedly turning over baseball ops to MacPhail), if not all the steps we want.

[NewMarketSean]

This all reminds me of what people in politics call "astroturfing." A lobbying organization will create a "grassroots" campaign, but it's a fake grassroots campaign because it's all being driven by a lobbying organization. Fake grass=astroturf.

I was conflicted on whether the first protest was a good idea. There were arguments both ways. But I definitely think this one is useless. It's just going to piss off the players and confuse Angelos, who has taken some positive steps this year (spending money, supposedly turning over baseball ops to MacPhail), if not all the steps we want.

Can't it just be a protest to protest bad baseball? Regardless of the moves they've made to "fix" things?

[fix it now]

I don't think Angelos should be commenting on anyone and their "delusions". This is coming from a man who has said "things will be different next year, I promise" for 7 years.

I wish you guys could take a step back and listen to yourselves and see how foolish you look/sound. All over someone who is holding a protest because the team absolutely sucks.

No one has been more foolish on this board than you....

Protests, Baltimore on the road jerseys, BAL on the scorebaord, managers who live in Baltimore, "wine and cheese fans", blah, blah, blah.....None of that makes the team win more games. This team has been bad for decades. The team needs better players. How they get them, I do not know.

And I don't want to hear about "how having Baltimore on the road jerseys is for the fans". We know where the team is from. Hardly any of us actually live in Baltimore City anyway. We're all out in the counties. Baltimore on the road jerseys would not even be mentioned if the Orioles had won the AL East for the last 10 years instead of the Yankees.

[howie14]

The campus station doesn't want them. The sports broadcasts are slowly going to other stations because TMD has being playing the passive aggression game with athletics broadcasts in the hopes that they'd leave on their own. It's already a disgrace that the campus station doesn't allow students on air anymore, now this. They shouldn't even be the campus station anymore, but a station that happens to be housed on campus. But that's a separate point. NST doesn't care as much about their coverage because of the internet and streaming broadcasts. It's probably a lot cheaper to increase coverage by internet streaming than to attempt to up their tower wattage.

Yes, I know. I'm a contributor and know the deal. I've been posting similar complaints over at DCRTV.com and a lot of posters over there are complaining about the lack student staffing as well.

Their connection to TU is becoming about the same as WAMU's is to American U.

Putting the Tigers on a station I can't hear in my car or at my kid's soccer field is a travesty.

Oh, well. Back to the Nestor argument...

[howie14]

Before PA agreed to a decent sized payroll, before he put MacPhail in charge over one of his "insiders", the protest made some sense (although I personally still didn't support it).

Now to hold another one because everything isn't fixed in 3 months is a little silly.

[jimbones]

I don't see any harm in what Nasty's doing. There is no walkout planned so it seems like the leftfield bleachers will be filled more than normal with some loud and roudy cheers going on thruout the game. I sense this years protest will not garner the publicity that last year's walkout did.

[howie14]

I don't see any harm in what Nasty's doing. There is no walkout planned so it seems like the leftfield bleachers will be filled more than normal with some loud and roudy cheers going on thruout the game. I sense this years protest will not garner the publicity that last year's walkout did.

The LF bleachers should already be filled more than usual because it's Dugout Club night. I go out there on those nights to enjoy a little baseball and I suspect that Nestor's "rowdy" crew rooting against the team (yes, that's what they're doing no mater how they try to spin it) will probably ruin my last game of the year for me.

[SilentJames]

Can't it just be a protest to protest bad baseball? Regardless of the moves they've made to "fix" things?

Wait.

So you are going to buy tickets to an inferior product. See half of said inferior product. Leave the inferior product, after you have already paid. All because it is an inferioir product?

Some sort of demonstration outside the stadium, ya know without buying tickets, would be fine in my book. Because that makes sense.

I mean, by BUYING a ticket you are patronizing the thing you are protesting against. You are voluntarily giving money to the thing you are railing against.

If it is truly an inferior product than just don't buy it like everyone else until it is NOT an inferior product.

The idea of it isn't bad. But the execution and promotion of it strike me as shallow and self-serving.

[btownoriole]

Highly targeted audience is another term for SMALL. Angelos was right when he said Nestor has delusions of grandeur. Nestor thinks he's some kind of king maker in Baltimore. There's barely anyone listening to that station.

There's barely anyone listening to WJFK too, and they've got a ton more resources than WNST. That indicates that the SPORTS RADIO MARKET IN BALTIMORE is SMALL. While it's never going to be big, given the level of interest in sports in the market, it could certainly be bigger.

My point is that comparing the audience size of WNST to radio stations going after a much broader audience is irrelevant. Neither NST or JFK are supposed to be at the top of the ratings. They are both going after a targeted group of advertisers who don't want to pay WBAL-type ads rates when they only need to reach a subset of that audience. Being "small" does not mean you can't be very profitable.

I don't know Nestor but he seems to be a smart businessman. If the Orioles were a contender annually and treated their fans well the size of the sports radio market would increase, probably dramatically. Even if he splits that audience with JFK, he's doing better than CBS because at least some of JFK's gains would be offset by losses from other CBS stations.

[Dipper9]

Or it could've been the same ol' same ol'. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me ten years running, shame on me.

Until MacPhail attempts to trade a "fan favorite," I have no faith that Angelos is still not pulling the strings on the puppetry of the FO. You feel differently and I've got no quibble with that.

And - this is not directly solely towards you BTW - the "grace period" for MacPhail seems to have been extended indefinitely by some people here. When he first came on board, the overwhelming sentiment was "Great! Now we can get something done." The non-waiver deadline passed with no moves made, and a few people defected to the "Well, he's only been here a month" camp. The waiver deadline passed with only Trax being traded. Now, more and more people are in the "we have to give MacPhail the off-season." And if he doesn't do sh!t this off-season -- what excuse then? "Well, he's only been here 6 months"? A few weeks turns into 6 months turns into 10 years. I've had enough excuses. It's time to start seeing some action.

And when the same said owner interferes and nixes a trade during the same off-season that he opened up the coffers -- what of that? Disregard for a moment who the principals were in that nixed trade. Angelos can't get a pat on the back for increasing the payroll without taking the shots for nixing trades. Whether the trade was a bad one or not, it should not be his call. It should be the GMs job to determine whether the trade improves the ballclub and to execute the trade. Unless the trade involves an increase in payroll, the owner should be a non-factor. And he never is.

Bottom-line, the Orioles' owner and FO personnel do not get the benefit of the doubt from me any longer.

Witchy

I hear where you are coming from, and I can't say I disagree with too much of what you're saying, but I will say that Angelos nixing that trade WAS a good move. He tried to let his baseball guys have control, and they almost made a collosally bad trade. He nixed it because it stunk, and maybe, just maybe, THAT and the fact that they spend A LOT of his money this offseason on more worthless players was the reason for MacPhail's hiring. Maybe PA wants like hell to let his baseball people run the show, but saw just how incompetent Flanny and Duke were and didn't want them to make things even worse.

I agree an owner should not be calling all shots, but when you are about to trade a guy that is a hot commodity for the junk we were receiving from Atlanta, he has EVERY right in my mind as the owner of the team to nix that trade.

[NewMarketSean]

Wait.

So you are going to buy tickets to an inferior product. See half of said inferior product. Leave the inferior product, after you have already paid. All because it is an inferioir product?

Some sort of demonstration outside the stadium, ya know without buying tickets, would be fine in my book. Because that makes sense.

I mean, by BUYING a ticket you are patronizing the thing you are protesting against. You are voluntarily giving money to the thing you are railing against.

If it is truly an inferior product than just don't buy it like everyone else until it is NOT an inferior product.

The idea of it isn't bad. But the execution and promotion of it strike me as shallow and self-serving.

The point of the protest is to show Angelos what he could get if he made the team a winner. Loud, cheerful fans. You can't do that from outside of the stadium.

[btownoriole]

No one has been more foolish on this board than you....

Protests, Baltimore on the road jerseys, BAL on the scorebaord, managers who live in Baltimore, "wine and cheese fans", blah, blah, blah.....None of that makes the team win more games. This team has been bad for decades. The team needs better players. How they get them, I do not know.

And I don't want to hear about "how having Baltimore on the road jerseys is for the fans". We know where the team is from. Hardly any of us actually live in Baltimore City anyway. We're all out in the counties. Baltimore on the road jerseys would not even be mentioned if the Orioles had won the AL East for the last 10 years instead of the Yankees.

This is exactly why the Orioles SHOULD do the little things like putting Baltimore on the road jerseys. You represent a large number of fans who don't care one way or the other about these "blah, blah" things. However, there is a very loyal core group of fans who DO care. So why not do these little things for these loyal fans since it's not going to negatively impact the "majority", it makes these fans (who are certainly willing to spend more money to support the team) happier, and it's CHEAP! What is the downside?

This team could learn so much by taking a Marketing 101 class. It's just amazing.

[SilentJames]

The point of the protest is to show Angelos what he could get if he made the team a winner. Loud, cheerful fans. You can't do that from outside of the stadium.

i thought the point of the protest was to call Angelos out? I thought the point of the protest was to get national media attention to the problems in Baltimore?

That is a dumb protest. You know why. Angelos has your money already.

If he is truly the man you say he is why would he care if you walked out? He already has your money, he won.

[Dipper9]

He doesn't seem like a fan, though. That's the problem. He's gone out of his way to piss all over the team for years, but now he's organizing protests. It doesn't wash very well, so you're bound to get very skeptical people who, while agreeing that there is something to protest, wonder about the primary motivation.

That's two Wedge posts in a row that I completely 100% agree with. (Can't give ya rep since I just did for the last post.)

Its not that we dislike Drew or Nestor. It's the fact that they "claim" to be Orioles fans and "claim" to want the Orioles to get better, all the while bashing EVERY single thing they do! You want to rant and rave about ownership and the FO mistakes over the past 10 years, I would have no defense against that and would probably jump aboard. But why throw the players into the mix? Why bash Huff AFTER he hits for the cycle? Why is signign Weiters "lucky" instead of a good sign for the franchise? Why not praise Roberts and our new sensation Markakis? Why the constant freaking bashing? This is a local run radio station that I think we can all say we want to succeed, but when you push away the fans of ONE of the TWO professional sports teams in town, you're taking money out of your own pocket?

Nestor is like Vince McMahon, only less successful. Instead of realizing the potential for making money and for becoming a true icon, instead they use their company as a playground for thier own personal convictions. I truly wish that I could like Nestor and Drew. I sincerely wish I could listen to Drew's show in the morning while I'm the only one at work. But instead I get hit in the head time after time with their anti-Orioles crusade, and I've just had enough. If they want to run this protest and raise money for their station, mor epower to them. But please don't act like this is gonna change anything, make the team better, or force Angelos to sell. Its propaganda for a radio station, nothing more, nothing less.