WP: Nats MASN deal renegotations will have a huge impact

[Dave in Fairfax]

Yeah, it's an Os thing. In Atlanta, it's yelling "Braves" over "brave" in "home of the brave". No idea if there are any other regional variants.

[Five Banners]

I rarely hear it outside of DC, NoVA, and Maryland. And usually if I do, its because it involves one of those teams. Its very much a Baltimore Orioles centric thing

https://www.mlb.com/news/why-orioles-fans-scream-oh-during-national-anthem?partnerID=web_article-share

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/baltimore-tradition-fans-shouting-o-during-national-anthem-214111912.html

http://www.collegiatetimes.com/opinion/column-yelling-oh-only-offends-those-unfamiliar-with-the-tradition/article_c986187e-efa0-5f0e-8d78-eac7d4e379c5.html

From what seems a laughable collegiate times article:

“However, these sporting events will always have fans who find the "Oh!" to be "disrespectful."  But in truth, no one is really outraged over the yell.  The argument stems from an underlying rivalry among sports fans that makes people reject traditions that are foreign to them. So what is inappropriate in observing the national anthem?  This, of course, is completely subjective.“

Playing the national anthem has to do with honoring the country, and yelling out a team centric saying works to negate that and diminish the entire thing into a “yay team“ exercise, which fans have plenty of time to do before or after.

Why bother removing hats if you’re not going to uphold the intended respect for the couple of minutes that the anthem runs? It doesn’t seem to be a matter of some incomprehensible thing that scholars are still debating as to why people would have a legitimate issue with it, let alone something that outsiders simply can’t understand.

[1995hoo]

Yeah, it's an Os thing. In Atlanta, it's yelling "Braves" over "brave" in "home of the brave". No idea if there are any other regional variants.

Dallas Stars fans yell "Stars"; Vegas Golden Knights fans yell "Knights" at the line "gave proof through the night." UVA fans used to yell "Hoos" at the line "Whose broad stripes and bright stars," but that largely died out after September 11 when the university made a real effort to try to get people to stop doing it.

It's all stupid and childish.

[HondoKillebrew]

Dallas Stars fans yell "Stars"; Vegas Golden Knights fans yell "Knights" at the line "gave proof through the night." UVA fans used to yell "Hoos" at the line "Whose broad stripes and bright stars," but that largely died out after September 11 when the university made a real effort to try to get people to stop doing it.

It's all stupid and childish.

I agree. Not on the same level, but sort of of the same mentality as the wave.

[nfotiu]

From what seems a laughable collegiate times article:

“However, these sporting events will always have fans who find the "Oh!" to be "disrespectful."  But in truth, no one is really outraged over the yell.  The argument stems from an underlying rivalry among sports fans that makes people reject traditions that are foreign to them. So what is inappropriate in observing the national anthem?  This, of course, is completely subjective.“

Playing the national anthem has to do with honoring the country, and yelling out a team centric saying works to negate that and diminish the entire thing into a “yay team“ exercise, which fans have plenty of time to do before or after.

Why bother removing hats if you’re not going to uphold the intended respect for the couple of minutes that the anthem runs? It doesn’t seem to be a matter of some incomprehensible thing that scholars are still debating as to why people would have a legitimate issue with it, let alone something that outsiders simply can’t understand.

I have no idea why we have national anthems before pro sports anyway.  I guess its tradition now, but doesn't really make sense to play the one or two anthems where the city is from, when the players can be from any number of countries.

[blue911]

I have no idea why we have national anthems before pro sports anyway.  I guess its tradition now, but doesn't really make sense to play the one or two anthems where the city is from, when the players can be from any number of countries.

I believe it started in the early 1940s.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I believe it started in the early 1940s.

I thought it was in 1918 when baseball played through WWI.  Looks like it was played in the 1918 World Series with live bands, but that was before it officially became the national anthem.  WWII was when it started before every game. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2021/02/10/national-anthem-sports-why-played-mark-cuban-colin-kaepernick/6702871002/

IIRC, Ken Burns or someone on his Baseball speculated that it was as cover for the fact that the owners didn't shut down for the war.  Wrapped themselves up in the flag to show it was patriotic.

[comish4lif]

Last year the Nats had the 4th most expensive experience of the MLB teams. They had the 5th most expensive ticket prices. Seems to me when the payroll plummets the ticket prices should go down also.

As far as the Padres Manfred says they're going to lose money this year. Some guy on Baltimore sports talk radio went on a long rant yesterday about these huge long term contracts teams are agreeing to now. His thing was it's a bad thing for baseball because at the end of the day the fans will keep paying with higher prices of tickets, parking and concessions. I think that's obvious but at what point is it too much for fans to pay.

Prices of tickets, parking and concessions are what they are because ownership has figured out how to maximize those revenue streams from the fans.
When teams cut payrolls (even due to year over year fluctuations), they never cut ticket prices. Owners/teams pocket the savings.

[welch]

to be fair,  you'd have to add the columbia MD area to the Baltimore market as well as areas north toward and including Aberdeen.

Columbia was more of a design idea in the mid-50's when MLB forced Bill Veeck to sell the Browns to the Hoffburgers. James Rouse began planning Columbia about 1960. And I don't think that the Baltimore suburbs had spread to Aberdeen, either. They became real only as Baltimore began to die and as DC dwarfed metro Baltimore. The Orioles wedged themselves into a minor-league town about 40 miles from DC, and successive owners tried, and failed, to capture the Washington market. As best I remember, Washington became Redskin-land, all year round, in 1971, when Crazy George Allen got the Skins into the NFL playoffs a few months after MLB Shorted Washington a second time.

Note that the Washington against Baltimore suit will be heard in a few days.

[IanRubbish]

Re: geography, the Baltimore urbanized area has 2.2 million and is only 716 sq miles vs. 5.0 million and 1,322 sq miles for DC.  As DC has grown it's stretched way out west to Leesburg.  Baltimore not having grown gets rural 10-15 miles west of town past Ellicott City,and that 716 sq miles includes Columbia, MD.  On top of that, metro DC permitted 6x as many houses and apartments last year than metro Baltimore. 

It's more important for the Nats marketing efforts that they deepen support among the millions of people now living in Reston, Ashburn, Manassas, Stafford, Fredericksburg, Arlington, DC, Bethesda, etc, rather than battling for the thousands in border areas like Laurel and Columbia.   

This MASN thing is temporary because cable TV is a dying medium for MLB and will account for a smaller share of revenues going forward.  Long term, this DC welfare payment to Baltimore cannot make the latter a viable MLB market.  It's not like the Orioles will ever get a share of the Nats gate, which is likely about 50-100% higher per fan than Baltimore's.

[welch]

Re: geography, the Baltimore urbanized area has 2.2 million and is only 716 sq miles vs. 5.0 million and 1,322 sq miles for DC.  As DC has grown it's stretched way out west to Leesburg.  Baltimore not having grown gets rural 10-15 miles west of town past Ellicott City,and that 716 sq miles includes Columbia, MD.  On top of that, metro DC permitted 6x as many houses and apartments last year than metro Baltimore. 

It's more important for the Nats marketing efforts that they deepen support among the millions of people now living in Reston, Ashburn, Manassas, Stafford, Fredericksburg, Arlington, DC, Bethesda, etc, rather than battling for the thousands in border areas like Laurel and Columbia.   

This MASN thing is temporary because cable TV is a dying medium for MLB and will account for a smaller share of revenues going forward.  Long term, this DC welfare payment to Baltimore cannot make the latter a viable MLB market.  It's not like the Orioles will ever get a share of the Nats gate, which is likely about 50-100% higher per fan than Baltimore's.

Laurel was always Nats territory. And our Lewisdale team used to play them in Boys Club Baseball. Nobody ever thought that Washington was part of or even slightly related to Baltimore. The New Nationals should not, as IanR says, continue to subsidize baseball in Baltimore -- a good minor league town, but not an MLB city. "Baltimore is a bush league town", from the "crying towels" of their baseball fans to the brief bit when the Colts were good.

[Natsinpwc]

Laurel was always Nats territory. And our Lewisdale team used to play them in Boys Club Baseball. Nobody ever thought that Washington was part of or even slightly related to Baltimore. The New Nationals should not, as IanR says, continue to subsidize baseball in Baltimore -- a good minor league town, but not an MLB city. "Baltimore is a bush league town", from the "crying towels" of their baseball fans to the brief bit when the Colts were good.

If remember correctly you moved out of the DC area probably before I moved in. 1988. It was clearly Orioles territory from that time until DC got a team back. Even in NOVA. Times change. I don’t think the past matters. It’s debatable whether or not Baltimore can support an MLB team. I just wish MLB would step in and solve the MASN issue. Or that it goes bankrupt.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Laurel was always Nats territory.

Hah.  Sorry, but that's pure nonsense.

There was a sports bar in Laurel that used to be my dive and it was easily 2:1 O's fans on a good night for our side.  And that same bar had plenty of Caps fans, so it wasn't some weird niche anti-DC thing.  Maaaaybe that changed around 2017-2020 because of the multiple playoffs + WS run while the Woes started tripping over themselves, but I doubt it's kept up through last year.

Even my old stomping ground of Boo-ie, which is squarely in PG County (unlike Laurel which is some weird Howard/PG/Anne-A-Grundle hybrid), took ages to realize it wasn't 1997 anymore and finally acted like Nats territory sometime around 2013-14. 

You could chalk that up to the Baysox being there, but the locals stopped really caring about the Baysox around the early 00s, around the same time when most of Maryland stopped caring about the Brawltimore Woebegones.

Granted, these places should be 100% Nats territory given that the Angelos family is baseball's answer to the Kims of North Korea, but Maryland's a weird place that struggles with any sort of real identity besides the Terps and Old Bay.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

I remember you telling me at the time that this was here to stay.

I believe it started in the early 1940s.

[welch]

If remember correctly you moved out of the DC area probably before I moved in. 1988. It was clearly Orioles territory from that time until DC got a team back. Even in NOVA. Times change. I don’t think the past matters. It’s debatable whether or not Baltimore can support an MLB team. I just wish MLB would step in and solve the MASN issue. Or that it goes bankrupt.

Yes, I went away to college in 1966, but the family stayed put until 1988. Dad and I both swore off baseball when Short moved the Expansion Senators to Texas. He had been a Nats fan since he was a little kid in the '20s, and Granddad had seen Walter Johnson pitch. Nobody in the family, and I come from a big extended family, switched to the Orioles.

Point was that Washington went 200% for the Redskins during the 1971 NFL season, and never stopped. The Post ran Redskin stories all year round. In 1984, I got a job with a division of GE that was headquartered in Rockville, so I was back all the time. I once saw a guy in a Baltimore hat, but otherwise it was Redskin hats and other paraphernalia. Or Caps.   

About 1999, I was recruited from GE to a company that had a development center and a data center in Northern Virginia. Again, no Baltimore Orioles stuff, but everywhere I looked, and everyplace I listened, it was either Skins or Caps.

Overall, the Washington metro area was bigger than Baltimore metro in the mid-50s, and grew while Baltimore spiraled.

[Senatorswin]

I was 15 and lived in Hyattsville when the Senators moved. Me and most the people I knew became Orioles fans. When it became apparent baseball was not going to continue in Montreal and Angelos fought them moving to Washington every step of the way it became easy to dislike the O's. Now everyone I know who had become O's fans are now back to Washington fans and could care less about the O's.

The good thing is at least most of the years Washington didn't have baseball it was the glory years for the O's with Ripken, Murray, Weaver etc.

[IanRubbish]

If remember correctly you moved out of the DC area probably before I moved in. 1988. It was clearly Orioles territory from that time until DC got a team back. Even in NOVA.

I lived near Dulles in the early 2000s and very few people cared about the Orioles, it was a lot of Yankees/Red Sox/other, even among long time area residents.  We tried to organize a neighborhood ballpark trip, and only got enough people to trek to Baltimore when it was a Red Sox game and everyone was cheering for Boston.  Baltimore was way too far, especially in rush hour, and we joked that it would have been faster to go to Dulles and catch a flight to Fenway than deal with 2+ hours each way in traffic on a weekend.  Weeknights were obviously impossible.

MLB left a lot of $ on the table kissing Angelos' butt for all those years and having no presence in Washington, made worse by the lobsided growth of metro DC south and west away from Baltimore.  It was really bad for baseball to deny the sport to kids in these areas until 2005.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

With respect to the Os and Nats followings, I think a psychological difference between PG and a chunk of Montgomery county vs NoVA is that you don't have to go by Nats Park or the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in order to go the park.  Traffic matters, and if it is about the same pain in the butt to get to both stadiums, that helps make your family free agents. From Largo, Bouie, even probably Rockville north, it's just about as easy to drive to Camden Yards as it is to the Navy Yard.  Don't forget it was Edward Bennett Williams who figured out that Camden Yards was a much better location to draw from DC than Memorial. EBW also opened the Os stores in Farragut Square. It's not just Angelos that targeted DC. 

[Five Banners]

I worked in tysons around that time frame until 5:30 PM and had a friend that was in a sports related field who I think had more flexibility to get up there. When he would get me an extra ticket, I’d have to go through two metronrush hours and recall invariably getting there between the second and the fifth inning depending how bad one or two of the rush hours were.

I was eagerly pushing for baseball’s return at that point and couldn’t stomach how many talking heads here and there seemed to refuse to acknowledge how it was a non-starter for much of those in this metro area to empty out their gas tanks and actually make games regularly there.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I was eagerly pushing for baseball’s return at that point and couldn’t stomach how many talking heads here and there seemed to refuse to acknowledge how it was a non-starter for much of those in this metro area to empty out their gas tanks and actually make games regularly there.

didn't help to have vehicle miles travelled explode in the 1990s. It was feasible to get to the start of 7:30 games without leaving ridiculously early back when the park opened, but by the early 2000s and the 7 PM starts, it became impossible.

[PowerBoater69]

Happy Pi Day. In case anyone was wondering what happens if the NY appeals court ends up tied 3-3. They add a judge and do the whole thing over.

[welch]

Ah...the NY State court fiasco. Gov. Hochul nominated a judge that the legislature rejected. I didn't think it would matter to the Nats' suit against the Orioles...but the Nationals' case is so strong that the vote will be 6 - 0. No need to break a tie.

[IanRubbish]

They'll do whatever they can to keep MLB going in a minor league town.  Here comes Squeegee Kid Park at Camden Yards.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/03/09/orioles-shopping-naming-rights-camden-yards

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Traffic matters, and if it is about the same pain in the butt to get to both stadiums, that helps make your family free agents. From Largo, Bouie, even probably Rockville north, it's just about as easy to drive to Camden Yards as it is to the Navy Yard. 

Nah, Nats Park is a much easier drive from the vast majority of PG County.  Most places in PG are close to either 295, 50 (which eventually hits 295), or Suitland Parkway.  Traffic isn't as much of an issue because most of it is flowing away from DC around 5-7 PM.

OTOH, getting to Camden Yards from those places involves taking 295 north, 95 north, or 97 north at rush hour.  It's a safe bet that at least one of those highways will turn into a crapshow at rush hour on a weekday, and sometimes all three turn into a parking lot.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

You are right about PG. It got to the point that when I'd meet friends for a midweek night game at OPACY, I'd book leave at 3 PM and take off straight from Fed Triangle to make it up before the game to meet up at 6 or so.  Even if traffic were smooth and I got there in an hour or so, you'd be so nervous about back ups that you could never count on a less time-consuming ride.