Maury Brown on MLB sponsorship BOOM + Toronto watch parties & hotel suites with a World Series view

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Mary Brown joining us right now, senior contributor to Forbes. Moury, great to have you and hope you're enjoying the World Series. Your thoughts so far?

00:00:14
Speaker 2: You know, I think it was a lot more competitive than I anticipated. I thought the Dodgers were going to go in and run ramsh I mostly due to pitching. But you know, I think that it's been largely exciting. I mean, we've got a dog on series, guys. I think the thing that's most amazing is that we're going to have a World Series begin and end in Canada, and we've never seen that before. So yeah, I think it's good. I think that it's great for the game.

00:00:43
Speaker 3: Maury.

00:00:44
Speaker 1: We enjoyed your article and tweet about the business of baseball and the World Series. But let's start with what you put out there last night. Can you explain to everyone how MLB sponsorship works and how much it's up the year and why.

00:01:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the story centers on team sponsorship, right, which this is a little bit different than the league sponsorship. So if you think about this, the number I'm going to give you add more to it. So just for the clubs, for the thirty clubs, it exceeded two billion dollars this year, which is a substantial amount, right, I mean it's climbed over sixty percent since twenty twenty two. So you ask yourself, how in the world does this happen. Well, there's a lot of business sectors that get involve financial as you see in the graphic right there, leads the way. And when talking to the folks that put this report together, a sponsor united about this, I asked, why is this? Why is baseball doing so well? Baseball is the only sport other than the NFL that has exceeded this two billion dollar threshold. So why Well, it's largely been conservative. I mean, it's you know, it's a fan sport. You know, it's really family oriented, it's in the summer. I think the changes to the game have absolutely made more engagement and that's involved a lot more sponsors. But look, guys, the big driver, the biggest driver and all this is the Dodgers. They have twenty Japanese sponsors this year, and that's obviously due to show Ao Tani, but also Yamamoto and Sake, So you add that together. The Dodgers have been the outlier that have made this extreme growth that we've seen over time. But I mean it's a cash cow. It's it's something that I think is largely underreported. We look a lot at television, which of course is still super important, but the way that baseball has continued to grow major League Baseball to I would assume we're going to get to thirteen billion dollars in gross revenues next year. I mean, you know, when people say baseball is dying, I don't think they really understand what that means.

00:03:01
Speaker 4: Well, listen, but Showhey was bad for the game when he signed with the Dodgers, and Yamamoto signing was bad, and Sazaki signing was bad, and we need a salary cap and we need Dodgers are bad for baseball.

00:03:12
Speaker 5: Everything you're telling me.

00:03:14
Speaker 4: First of all, they clearly there's teams that have money. Second of all, the Dodgers have been great for not only the Dodgers but for every other team. If they're bringing in all this money, you know, and then they have to give it to the Pirates, and they have to give it to the Rays, and they have to give it to the Marlins. So I don't know why people say baseball is dying. Viewerships up revenues are up, sponsorships are up. I just don't I agree with you, Moore. I don't understand why people keep saying this other than to sell a narrative that's false.

00:03:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, the idea that there could be more economic parody, Okay, I mean it's not gonna come with the salary cap, guys. I think that what you're gonna see is an attempt to have that happen. But again, I think that what you're going to continue to see is tightening up of the system that we have now. I think that'll just continue to be happening. I think one thing that does come into play here if we don't have deferred compensation, and that really leans heavily into clubs like the Dodgers and the Mets, where they know that their revenues are going to be really strong over a long period of time, so that they don't run into a position to where you know, they're overleveraged. That played a large part into the Dodgers being able to go out and get additional talent by deferring that salary for Shoeotani. So you know, it's good for the game in the sense that right now we have star power in the World Series, and that's great. I'm sure that there are a lot of clubs out there that want to have this. But guys, I mean, I don't know how to tell fans. There's no way that a salary cap fixes the Pirates or the A's or the Rays. It will maybe help the middle class maybe a little bit more. It might, but even then I don't think so. I think you would continue to see the usual suspects, the Phillies, Dodgers, Cubs, obviously you know, the Yankees, Red Sox, and you're gonna see those clubs year in and year out. But again, if I go back to that sponsorship money that we're talking about, while the Dodgers are far and away more they have enough to basically find another club, right, That's how far and away they have more sponsorship money. Right behind them are the likes of the Yankees and the Red Sox, the clubs that you would expect to see a large amount of sponsorship dollars right large markets, big brands, historic brands. And that's why you continue to see that Mary, how did the Angels completely screw this up?

00:05:43
Speaker 6: Like it'd be one thing if show he was like Okay, he was in Milwaukee or Arley in Texas or Houston, and then he went to the Dodgers like, oh man, well you know the big market LA. He was up in Los Angeles, Savannaheim.

00:05:57
Speaker 5: I get it.

00:05:58
Speaker 6: But how did the you'll screw this up? And how if you were to guess, how much money do you feel like they left on the table the fact that essentially a Dodgers are bringing in enough money right now to cover his salary plus some based on the fact that they had showhey for the last seven or for seven years.

00:06:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I can speculate. I don't. I don't think this has to do terribly much with you know, the competency of the people around the sponsorship side. I mean, the Dodgers have always tied in tightly in the Pacific rim just as a general rule, and they just have I think an incredible amount of gravity given the name Dodger Stadium. You know, I think Artie Moreno is a very hands on owner. I think that that has not necessarily played out well for the club, whether it's them trying to get a new ballpark or whether obviously the situation that we have going now with care and the situation with Skags and that whole scandal that's going on around a drug overdose, and I don't know, I mean, I would say that if you're gonna say screw it up. I think that it's largely around the flexibility that the Dodgers created with this deal, and they just have this incredible amount I think of I'll say it again gravity, They just they just have turned into the Yankees. And for those obviously old enough to remember, I mean, it was like the Yankees just seem to have owned the universe, right, I mean, the Red Sox were right there. I think the Dodgers are that team now, and they're smart. I just you know, Stan Kas and everybody at the top is not dumb. Everybody thought that when Mark Walter and Gougenheim Partners went out and purchased the Dodgers for what they did, that they over they spent too much. Well, I mean, come on, guys, and they're making so much money right now they're gonna make you know, I don't know, they'll make probably over the next couple two or three years. I think that they could approach five hundred million dollars in sponsorship money. I mean that idea that the the Otani contract was somehow bad, just did not look at how the business side of sports works and how the Dodgers have parlayed that into you know, obviously even more money. Let's think about this when we talk about a salary cap. If the Dodgers are making this much money now in an uncapped system, how much money are they going to be making in a cap system? And I think a cap system really just really lends itself to the owners right to make more money. Otherwise they wouldn't push so hard for it.

00:08:50
Speaker 1: This episode of FT is brought to you Byule Cheers. We got a new Hewel addition here the daily Greens. I've got blueberry, lemon and time you've got.

00:09:03
Speaker 7: I got myself peach and a biscus. I love peach. This is delicious fuel for the go man. And this is really good for your body. It's really good for your systems. Anything that has greens in it, especially from Huel, is pretty fantastic. This will get you going a little energy, a little boost, and keep your inside feeling well too.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:09:20
Speaker 1: Develop a registered nutritionists and dietitians who vitamins, minerals and superfoods only twenty five calories, four grams of fiber, only one gram of sugar.

00:09:28
Speaker 3: That's the goods.

00:09:29
Speaker 1: Of course, we still love the cule black addition, I got chocolate peanut butter.

00:09:33
Speaker 3: How you doous, Let's go.

00:09:35
Speaker 1: Fuel makes healthy eating simple. They also just launched into Target stores nation. Why try both products today with fifteen percent off your purchase for new customers with the exclusive code foul at quel dot com slash foul. Use that code and fill out the post checkout survey to help support the show way way more. On a cap system, they would be profiting like crazy, and then what would happen, Maury? If you're Japanese player, you would say, Okay, money's going to be about the same because now my salary is suppressed. I'm definitely signing with Dodgers every time because my marketing money is going to be one hundred x if I sign with them.

00:10:11
Speaker 3: And that's my question.

00:10:12
Speaker 1: Even under the current system, for fans that don't care how much money the teams, the league, even the players are making, they might want to know, how do we prevent the Dodgers from signing the top talent really in Asia, but definitely in Japan. Right, So, for example, this past offseason, they bring over Kim and then of course they get Roki Sasaki. Any team could have afforded him. Based on what you're saying right now, is there any pathway for fans of other teams to try and recruit Japanese players? If someone like Roki Sazaki can sign with any team for the same amount of money, Like fans want to know, how do we stop that as Roki is now the closer for LA during this run.

00:10:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think you can. And the reason I say that is it's not like other sports don't have this problem. You know, you just cannot create a holy socialist system where everybody's going to be on an even playing field. I mean, Otani pulls in about I want to say, pulled in one hundred and twenty five million dollars in individual endorsement money. A lot of that is, of course, his star power, but the fact that he's in Los Angeles and guys, we've seen this across all sports, right, I mean, maybe the NFL to a lesser extent where a skill player can really move the needle quickly, but you're always going to see players go to larger markets. I mean, it's just it makes for easier sponsorship deals. Now that said, cal Ralely has the most sponsorship deals out of any player right now in Major League Baseball. I believe he's at seventeen now. His money's not approaching what Shoi Otani is. But I mean the opportunities are there and so on an individual level, as you'd say him in Seattle, which you know isn't a tiny market, but it isn't large mindy, you know, stretching the imagination. I think that there are opportunities there globally to do that, but there will always be I think those larger markets, the New York's. I think New York in some senses actually hinders itself due to the media pressure. Right. You just don't get that on the West Coast. It's just a lot mellower as somebody that lives out here. You just don't see people living and dying that much by it. And there's not that much scrutiny. I mean, it's their scrutiny, but not on the level that you would see if you were at the Yankees. And I think that that actually lends itself to some players wanting to go to the likes of the Dodgers, right so again, I just don't know how you can say, hey, if we put a salary cap system in, suddenly Pittsburgh is that much more attractive. I think that the problem for the Pittsburghs and any well soon to be Las Vegas or Tampa Bay is that they're pocketing revenue sharing money instead of trying to be more competitive. And you can be more competitive. Clubs absolutely have windows. Now as we saw the Brewers, the Guardians right, which were in the bottom, you know, third and some of them, right, I think the Guardians, I think we're twenty five by payroll rank. I mean, you can get in, and you know, if we expand the playoffs even further, you know, certainly with expansion there's talk about adding another couple of teams. I know that the owners try to get that the last round of collective bargaining. Okay, now you can get your foot in the door, and then then it becomes a question of well is their hope then, and for me, that should be a good sign. Get yourself in. That increases season ticket sales the next year, you know, and in a wild card series, guys, you know this, there's so much chaos if you line up right with your front end starter. Anything can happen. I mean, you can see big club get knockoff just as easily as low small markets.

00:14:06
Speaker 4: Mariy, you kind of hit on this a little bit with cal Rawley. But who are the players other than show Hey that are getting some deals off the field.

00:14:12
Speaker 5: I know cal Rawley is a big one.

00:14:14
Speaker 4: You see starting to see schemes a little bit out there with the Tea mobile and he does the raising canes. It plays like I swear every commercial break it's Paul Skeins eating a chicken finger, right. I know there's an LSU connection there with him. Julio Rodriguez is the Team Mobile and Adidas guy. But who are some of the other guys out there that are really making big strides off the field besides Shohey. Obviously show Hay is on a different level. But who are the other guys that really are doing things that are special.

00:14:41
Speaker 2: Well, certainly Aaron Judge, I'm sure is doing more than well. Right, Francisco Lindor, you know you're gonna see guys that you would expect again here we go, Right, most of these guys, with the exception of the two Mariner players that you see listed here, by total volume of sponsorship deals. They're in larger markets, right, and that would be something that you would probably expect. They're going to have a lot more media spotlight. It's surprising to me the number there that we look at justin Turner, right, and I know it is always surprising and he is always there. But again I think that the question becomes then, right, like how how many deals you know, as opposed to the amounts, and the amounts are always kind of hard to suss out. I will say this, I think that the Players Association has done a better job of trying to go ahead and you know, have that happen certainly. I mean, guys, you know this. The agencies are the ones that really I think helped us a lot. And if you again you go look at cal Raley, you know, I think he's a bores client. So you start to get into stuff like that, that's stuff really largely plays out. And again I think that ball is moving in a positive direction, right. I mean, for all of the pain and suffering that Rob Manfred went through with the implementation of the pitch clock and the rule changes, once we've gotten past that, it is a lot crisper and it is pulling in I think more fringe fans that are then becoming you know, your core hardcore fans. That's that's what you want. So attendance was pretty much flat. Television was up, you know again, Sponsorship money's up. Some of that, of course, is gonna ebb and flow, depending upon competitiveness. It never hurts, obviously to have the Dodgers or the Yankees or the Cubs Red Sox involved in it. But we're starting again to see you know, Seattle. You know, I don't think they're going to squander this opportunity this time. Guys. I think they did when they made the wild card last time. I think that they felt that maybe they weren't on the development path, and fully there I would expect them to try and really continue to move forward and stay in this window. So I think you're going to continue to see the likes of you know, Julio, you know again, cal Raley, if he continues to have that season that he had again, which of course was extraordinary in and of itself, whether he's able to repeat it now, I think he becomes more of a household name, so you know, look for guys like that.

00:17:27
Speaker 6: Cal Rally is actually with Excel Sports, not with boris. Just to just to clarify, but yeah, where does baseball? Where does baseball screw this up? Where compared to the other sports because of how monstrous the NFL is, but all the players have masks on, you know, the NBA, there's just less players. Where does baseball? Where can baseball grow compared to the other sports from a sponsorship standpoint for each individual player?

00:17:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the difficulty is baseball's Does you know if I if I and this actually happened, right, I take Lebron James and he's in Cleveland, I take him to Miami and they win a championship. I have him go back to Cleveland and they win a championship. You know, that star player is able to be on the screen for the duration of a game, right, and they just have a lot more visibility. Of course, you know, if you're on the offensive side in baseball, you're up what every inning and a half, maybe every fourth day if you're a a front end pitcher. So I think that's been the problem that we haven't leaned into stars. And of course you guys mentioned the Angels. I mean here they had Mike Trout, they had show a Toni and they couldn't make the postseason. So you know, their ability to get stars elevated is has largely been I think the issue, and that, of course, you know, centers around again the game's design. You just have to be built with the oster that's solid from front to back, one through nine. You just have to have that, whereas a skill player in basketball or football can really move the needle. I guess the only other thing, and I don't know how we do this, guys, We're starting to see more and more of it. But you know, in basketball and football, college is the theater system, and that gives a lot of players additional visibility through television. Baseball doesn't have that for the most part. Right, we have the College World Series and that's pretty much it, you know, So the ability to get star players' names as more household is really going to be largely about opportunity. So again, you know, I think that it's great that we see, you know, somebody like Skiings and the Pirates, right, I mean, you're starting to see the ability of some of these smaller markets where the clubs haven't performed well. Him being involved with Team Mobile obviously, Francisco Lindor. You know, you get guys like that. But again, I think that it really is going to boil down to trying to be competitive and being able to be competitive for enough time to become household names for the clubs. It's a lot easier, guys. I mean, it's just it's brands. Baseball leads heavily into brands, where the other sports I think leading into stars. We've had. We've been very fortunate the last couple of years, certainly last year with New York and LA where we had Judge, and we had in certainly Stanton, and we've had shoey Otani and the star power there. You know, you just hope that that continues to happen. It's not going to always happen. That would be bad of course for parody in general. But again, the ability to elevate stars on television is going to drive those sponsorship deals for those players.

00:20:52
Speaker 4: Well, that's always been one of Baseball's week links, is trying to develop stars. Mike Trout for years, people complain, even Aaron Judge, as big as he is, he's out there a little bit, but he's not. We still have Ken Griffey Junior running one of the biggest ad campaigns for a big company like Nike, and he's been retired for almost twenty years now, so that's always been kind of one of baseball's big misses and it's a mystery why they can't figure it out. And I hope they do at some point, because I think baseball has a great personality's great stars, and even show hey, I mean as much as you want show, he is definitely bigger in Japan as far. I mean, yes, he has his things obviously in America, but in Japan. I want to talk about some melse somewhere before we let you go, because I tweeted about this during the eighteenth inning game and it was about the music, and I work for Fox, so obviously I get to I kind of on the inside. You talked about the music they use, and we always when we're we don't know what's coming in our ears when it goes to a break. So when I'm doing a game, it's always like, oh man, we went this song, we went this song, and it's such an awesome thing that in like, especially when I do games with Adam Ameen, because we're kind of he's more of a music you know, junkie, nerdy kind of person knows more songs than I do. But every once in a while he'd be like, Oh, that's such a cool song from someone I never heard of or something. Right, So this article you wrote, how did it come about? And more importantly, like, how do they pick the song? Because honestly, I know they have to have license, but I don't really know.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have always wondered about this. The jump music that we when we go to commercial is always something that I've wondered about, and so I did. I reached out to Fox Sports. I was like, hey, you know, can I talk to the guy that does this? So they put me in touch with Joe Carpenter, who does the World Series this year. And so to your first point, Aja, it is absolutely all that all of it is licensed, right, So he has a menu of a few dozen song clips and he does it largely on the fly. And now the stuff where we're rolling with graphics like pregame, that stuff will be worked out in advance, and maybe on occasion there might be some kind of you know, promotion deal where that maybe a label's doing that they might try and work something, and but for the most part it is completely art. You know, it is personal and it's largely driven by the moment. So Joe, the guy that does the World series, he's a big jam band guy. So this is what struck me. I'm like, am I hearing Shakedown Street by the Grateful Dead? How does how does this play in? And you go, well, shakedown Street? You know something that's going on with the game, uh, you know. And in the eighteen inning one, the one that I think that was the most hilarious was the Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow from and Yes, that's that's exactly the one I twitted about.

00:23:33
Speaker 4: Yes, because they played Tomorrow and I was like, whoever's picking the music for Fox is crushing it because they had all these songs and then when they when it got to midnight, they were like Tomorrow and I was like, this is amazing.

00:23:44
Speaker 5: I love this.

00:23:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, they had I think All Night Long by Lionel Richie. But he's you know, he said Jerry Joseph Widespread Panic, rival Sons, but there was Aerosmith and Ozzie he would he is doing off an awful lot around obviously the markets that are there. So we saw some LA artists, the big one that I remember and you just couldn't avoid. It was when they were playing in Toronto and of course the beginning of Tom Sawyer by Rush, it was just two perfect Rush Canada Getty Lee behind home plate. So as I did it because I'm a musician, you know, that's kind of my side thing. And I've always wondered about that, right, like how does this happen? And so now it's like these easter eggs with every single happening when you're wondering when the team's coming up, what are we going into. The one that was kind of brutal at the time, but Joe explained this to me was in the Alcs and the Mariners are down to their last happening, right and they played a live by Pearl jam and I'm like, how are they alive? Well, He's like, well, it means, you know, this is it. They can be alive if they do it here. So you know, there's all these little tie ins, you know, some of them. I think he knows more personally than others. But yeah, I think it's a lot of fun. I think that it makes it more interesting now for fans to listen to this stuff and try and figure out how it all ties in again. It just is one more thing to engage fans with the game.

00:25:16
Speaker 1: Well morey, I love the kind of stories you put together. Genuinely, it's right up our alley for our fans, for us, So thanks for putting all of that together. Obviously, keep doing your thing. Thanks for joining us on short notice too. We saw you put that out there. We're like, oh, we gotta get more on World Series time, let's talk fits.

00:25:31
Speaker 3: So appreciate you joining us. Thanks Maury, great talking to.

00:25:34
Speaker 2: You, you bet guys. You have a great day. Take care.

00:25:38
Speaker 5: Loves that hat too, jealous? Yeah, what is that the chiawas what is that? Real?

00:25:42
Speaker 2: Quick?

00:25:42
Speaker 3: What is that hat? No?

00:25:45
Speaker 2: So this is the This would be the Hispanic hat for the Hillsboro Hops, so yeah, minor league hat. So yeah, it's it's you know, I love it when they do.

00:25:58
Speaker 4: You know how, I don't know how the hills and Pro Hops have a wolf howling, but I guess.

00:26:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a wolf, So yeah, I think it's great. I mean, this is you know, we don't have time for this, but man, we could go miles on merchandising and how the game has made money that way. That's another big way, of course, on the minor league glevel as well.

00:26:19
Speaker 1: Always have the best to All right, well, then Maury will book in December when when we can definitely use the content.

00:26:24
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you then. Okay, cheers, all right, guys, take care.

00:26:30
Speaker 1: Hey, if you want to take care of yourself, your body and everything that goes into health, fitness and nutrition, Superpower provides crats what I would call the pro experience for the everyday person.

00:26:45
Speaker 5: Super easy.

00:26:46
Speaker 6: You get your lab test results back and you can streamline exactly what you're deficient in. You can say, okay, this is what the results told me. I'm going to go ahead and maybe look for that in a supplement which they provide. I'm gonna go ahead and look at that in my daily workouts which they give so many different ideas of how to make sure your deficiencies become some of your superpowers.

00:27:12
Speaker 1: Superpower used to cost four ingred ninety nine dollars. Head to superpower dot com right now to learn more and lock in the special one hundred and ninety nine.

00:27:20
Speaker 3: Dollars price while it lasts.

00:27:21
Speaker 1: After you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about them, and make sure you mentioned ft your biology decoded, your Blueprint activated with Superpower.

00:27:38
Speaker 3: Whoa World Series upgrade for Hot Corner. I like it.

00:27:44
Speaker 1: You can upgrade your seat too in Toronto if you would like to be in one of those suites.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: Bill Shakin wrote about it. You guys know about it.

00:27:54
Speaker 5: So I wouldn't do this because it seats like how many.

00:27:57
Speaker 3: People in Toronto? By the way, shake it sleeps.

00:28:03
Speaker 5: Five people, right?

00:28:04
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:28:05
Speaker 5: Okay, so if it's.

00:28:07
Speaker 4: Sixty three hundred, that's like fourteen hundred dollars a person, ish, right, A seat at Toronto in game six and seven is probably going to be around that. And in a hotel you can get room service. You ain't got no lines, you got your own restroom. And does have pretty good views of this of the field.

00:28:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I say.

00:28:27
Speaker 1: It's not like far out. I mean, what's the comparison. I was gonna say Wrigly, But that's not that far out either. It's pretty clear.

00:28:35
Speaker 3: These are always like built into the ballpark.

00:28:37
Speaker 5: These are on the field. I trust you. We used to stay there, and we guys used to get these suites. Yeah, and you used to go in there and look down. It's pretty awesome.

00:28:46
Speaker 3: It's cool, and it's so he said during the World Series.

00:28:48
Speaker 1: The nightly rate for these rooms starts at three nine hundred and ninety nine dollars.

00:28:53
Speaker 3: There's a view from someone who doesn't know how to hold their camera, but.

00:28:56
Speaker 5: They were trying to catch the ball.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Oh job, about twenty eight fifty and US dollars.

00:29:06
Speaker 5: That's but that's regular season.

00:29:10
Speaker 2: And here during the World Series.

00:29:12
Speaker 4: Oh, it's only four thousand dollars. Said the one I saw was sixty three hundred. I thought four thousand dollars or five five people can sleep in there, dude, let's see a fight.

00:29:21
Speaker 5: We can fly Toronto. Oh that's us.

00:29:24
Speaker 3: It's close to three thousand.

00:29:26
Speaker 4: Oh wow, sign us up, Mark, Let's go get our flights. Let's do it FT live from the Rogersoner Hotel. I get the room. You guys sleep on the floor screen in the bed. Okay, perfect.

00:29:36
Speaker 5: You know where I would have actually liked to watch the game from. I don't know how well the view would be from the c N Tower if the roof is open.

00:29:44
Speaker 3: With the p.

00:29:46
Speaker 5: I don't know, because I've been catching.

00:29:48
Speaker 4: I've been catching, and they have those people that walk around the outside of that thing, and I've been looking up there and I'm like, man, I mean I can see the people.

00:29:56
Speaker 3: With binoculars, you can see the game.

00:29:58
Speaker 5: I'm sure, yeah, sure. Question was always that.

00:30:01
Speaker 4: We always asked this when we looked up at the sea and tower if it fell, which way do you run if it's falling on the sky like if it ever.

00:30:06
Speaker 5: Got I mean, hopefully never happened, God forbid it, we all, but you know that was always our course. Just during the game. We don't, I don't, we don't.

00:30:13
Speaker 4: When the roof was over, we looked up there and be like, if that thing starts falling, do you run to the outfield or do you run under the tunnel?

00:30:18
Speaker 5: Like? Which way do you go?

00:30:20
Speaker 4: Because it's right there, like the Rogers Center and then the sea in towers like right here and it and there's people up there on the doing the skywalk thing.

00:30:29
Speaker 1: I stand completely still because it's going to fall somewhere else. Not right, I take the pitch right down the middle.

00:30:36
Speaker 2: Wait.

00:30:36
Speaker 1: But for people that want to know, like oh and I see you know kershan o'tani to chatting.

00:30:42
Speaker 5: And the doves, we talk about everything.

00:30:44
Speaker 1: You think they're just talking about the next day b sometimes, but most of the.

00:30:48
Speaker 5: Time we're talking about ever anything and everything.

00:30:52
Speaker 6: You can think about everything anything in I would always every stadium especially maybe think of it as city field. What if a plane came into the field. You see it coming, which way do you go? Do you go back deeper into the stadium so that you're in a bunker. Do you run out onto the field and hope it hits the bleachers? It's the thought process got a lot of time.

00:31:17
Speaker 5: I hate to be some morbid, but yeah, it's just what we talk about. We talk about all kinds of crazy stuff.

00:31:21
Speaker 2: Mm hm.

00:31:22
Speaker 1: A couple other details. There's fifty five of those rooms. We're not getting paid to promote this, we're just telling you about it.

00:31:28
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:31:28
Speaker 4: And the earlier hopefully they've renovated since last time I was there, it was a while they were.

00:31:35
Speaker 3: I think they have.

00:31:35
Speaker 5: I think there are two stories too. I thought there some of them were two stories you could even have. That's not all of them.

00:31:41
Speaker 6: Not all of them were though. I thought those are. There are options. There's suites and then there's just regular rooms. And they when I played there in fourteen, that's the only time I ever stayed there, they were like the basic place. I mean, it was a sliding door closet, a bathroom, a bed and some carpet, and they were they were pretty bad.

00:32:00
Speaker 5: Bruh.

00:32:02
Speaker 1: In March, that was what we showed you the clip of someone getting a baseball from Colton Kazer chuck them at baseball. We also have a little clip of some people enjoying their suite.

00:32:18
Speaker 8: So six the Jays are on the road for three games. The Rogers Center is hosting watch parties on their video board for people to come into the stadium and watch them play, pretty similar to coming here for a regular game. You're just watching it on the video board round and seeing the players actually play.

00:32:33
Speaker 3: Here's the most important things.

00:32:35
Speaker 6: Fifteen dollars. They all go through Day's care and every ticket holder gets a free small pop pornt two, so we're getting a lot of value and a lot of great vibes.

00:32:43
Speaker 8: It truly feels like a real game day here. All the concessions are open, they got them, merch them. You can grab a Glizzie and sit in your seat and all that for fifteen bucks, which is not something you can really ever do in the Rodgers Hunter.

00:32:55
Speaker 4: It's amazing, but tickets are affordable, so all the real fans are here.

00:32:58
Speaker 3: This is the best watch party it's been to way better than a sports bar.

00:33:01
Speaker 8: It's been amazing.

00:33:02
Speaker 5: It's been so fun.

00:33:03
Speaker 3: The energy is absolutely electric.

00:33:06
Speaker 8: We've done like GA tickets, we've done some of the club house tickets, so the atmosphere here it's pretty comparable.

00:33:12
Speaker 5: It's a lot of fun.

00:33:14
Speaker 1: That's really cool. And I butchered hot to see the intro there. We're talking about the watch parties. We moved on from the suites.

00:33:20
Speaker 5: I love that.

00:33:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fun. I mean they're not the only ones that.

00:33:23
Speaker 5: Do it, but no, but does they do it? Really?

00:33:25
Speaker 4: A lot of more people than normally are at those things. And fifteen dollars for ticket and a popcorn that's pretty good. And then you get to hang out with all the people and then celebrate when they win, especially when they win it's got to be all an eighteen any game.

00:33:36
Speaker 5: But think about it.

00:33:37
Speaker 4: What so the Blue Jays by doing this, Yes, they get the money and all that money goes to jay'scare, but they still get the concessions, they still get the the merch that people are buying because everyone's going to buy a T shirt or jersey or whatever it is.

00:33:49
Speaker 3: This is super smart, but for the fan experience, I mean most ballparks have tours, and it's at least that price, if not more.

00:33:56
Speaker 8: So.

00:33:56
Speaker 4: You think they actually you think they have the Jays girls that are singing Let's go Blue Let's.

00:34:02
Speaker 3: They have everybody there in the stadium, right. You saw them dancing on the dugout with.

00:34:09
Speaker 6: What You've got a homer Jay, You got a jingle that one every one wins. Okay, Blue Jays, Let's play ball.

00:34:24
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:34:25
Speaker 3: Sounds like someone that's heard that a few times.

00:34:27
Speaker 5: I heard that song a lot of times.

00:34:28
Speaker 4: What's isn't It isn't the mascot's name Jay, the Blue Jay is his name Jay.

00:34:33
Speaker 6: In rookie in rookie ball, because they have Jay in the big leagues and rookie ball. We had I don't even know the appropriate word to say, but in medicine Hat we had Blue Jay's uniforms. We were the medicine Hat Blue Jays, and so we had old uniforms. I wore David Wells's uniform and they had J. Jay was a much shorter person but the same size head as j the mascot.

00:35:02
Speaker 5: I don't know what the.

00:35:02
Speaker 4: Junior Jay, little j he was literally.

00:35:09
Speaker 5: You buried the lead the point of that whole story was besides that, you were David Wells's uniform? Like how fat were you? Just fit?

00:35:21
Speaker 6: What fits? Extra extra? You just put some extra loops in your belt.

00:35:26
Speaker 5: That's all.

00:35:29
Speaker 3: Uniform has been through it.

00:35:32
Speaker 4: Oh hey, one of how old was that uniform? Because David Wells was not exactly on the Blue Jays recently?

00:35:38
Speaker 5: No, I mean I didn't I put there. Sure wasn't Vernon Wells.

00:35:45
Speaker 6: I'm positive because it was the only pair of pants that fit in my butt.

00:35:50
Speaker 5: When did David Wells play for the Blue Jay? Oh so it's like three years old? Okay, that's fair.

00:35:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, last part here to go back to this sweets for a moment. It's a question that does get asked.

00:36:03
Speaker 5: Ace.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: Ace is his name? Dang it, it's not Jay, it's Ace. Thank you pro Dominico now and.

00:36:11
Speaker 5: A dang it.

00:36:14
Speaker 3: Last part here.

00:36:15
Speaker 1: If you're watching from the Sweets and there's funny business, Apparently they have curtains where they can close it.

00:36:21
Speaker 3: Really, that's what I've heard.

00:36:23
Speaker 1: Because otherwise things can get messy. Really, that's what I heard, right, But do you have you heard that too? Kratz that they.

00:36:32
Speaker 5: Have never heard that part?

00:36:33
Speaker 3: Now that they can block out.

00:36:35
Speaker 1: Now, we'll think about it. It makes sense in today's world. I'll give you a dark scenario.

00:36:41
Speaker 5: So, yes, you don't even have to go there. Yes, but I'm.

00:36:44
Speaker 1: Saying, like behind home plate you can do promos. There are big businesses that can do promos themselves that would be questionable for.

00:36:54
Speaker 3: The audience, so they can just go. Now, you don't get to watch.

00:36:58
Speaker 6: Inappropriate okay, Blue Jays, don't look up at the hotel.

00:37:08
Speaker 2: All right.

00:37:09
Speaker 1: So that was our little fun sag on some perks of what you can do up in Toronto, whether you want to watch the game or a watch party.