00:00I've been wanting to talk about this for a few days and we've just gotten busy thanks to the
00:03Stefan Diggs signing, which was awesome. Have you tracked at all, are you up on this story with the
00:09Ravens and Maryland? So you drew my attention to this. This is a thing. Yeah, there have been
00:16inroads made, there have been actions over several years where Baltimore, or the Ravens,
00:22kind of making no bones about it, are trying to win the hearts and minds of folks down this part
00:27of 95. So little by little, they've done what they can. You know, Channel 7 is like a DC partner,
00:32I think, and airs some of their preseason games or whatever. There was a radio station at one point
00:37that had Ravens football on. And frankly, I think it was a media play that made a lot more sense
00:42for
00:42some of the outlets when everyone hated Dan Snyder's guts and when nobody wanted to be
00:47correlated to him, right? I think about like the DC defenders are battling this a little bit. It
00:53used to be that they'd sell out and people would go chant bleep Dan Snyder. Well, now that people like
00:58the commanders in Washington NFL football again, you know, that you're not going to do that. So
01:03how do you draw people? But I bring this up to say, there was apparently this rule, I don't know
01:08if
01:08it was written or unwritten, but think about like the Orioles and the Nationals. When the Orioles who
01:13had been here forever were talking to Major League Baseball about the Nats being born, they basically got
01:20the super sweet deal on cable as part of the league extending an olive branch because they knew the
01:26Nationals implicitly were going to take some business away from the Orioles. People like me who are
01:31Virginia born, who are way closer to DC, consider themselves the DC market. We are not Baltimore in
01:38any way in King George and Fredericksburg and in that area. But I was a Byrds fan. I'm going to
01:42become
01:43a Nats fan. There are people around DC that were Orioles fans. Now you become Nationals fans. So there were
01:49like rules on how you can market, how you, you know, how you go about attracting a fan base. Well,
01:54similarly, I guess, and I didn't know this, but when the Ravens became a team, the rule was they're
02:00not allowed to go after the market, hold events, do certain things in Montgomery County and in PG
02:06County, among some of the other DMV Maryland areas. And when I'm talking about Maryland, I might as well
02:11be talking about like Texas because I'm a Virginia guy and I just don't know what's what. But so far
02:15you're tracking what I'm saying, right? Yes, totally. The Ravens become an NFL team.
02:19Washington owns the DMV, DC, Maryland, Virginia. The Redskins basically say this is nonsense. This
02:26is BS. This hurts us. The league goes, okay, well, look, you're the Baltimore market, but you can't
02:31come down to MoCo. You can't come down to PG and do things in these areas. Well, I guess the
02:38way it's
02:38been explained to me by people covering this, the moment that the commanders struck the deal
02:42to move out of FedEx Field, Northwest Stadium, over in PG County and to go back to DC,
02:49Bashadi and the Ravens made a play, Danny, where they went, wait a second, they're choosing
02:53to leave Maryland to go back to DC. I don't know why this is all that different or should
02:57be different, but it is, I guess. And the league has granted the Ravens permission to start
03:02doing some of the marketing and stuff that they were not allowed to do all this time.
03:06So the way it was described to me is they just had this practice for the first time ever at
03:10the University of Maryland. They had 20,000 people out there in PG County out at College
03:14Park. Washington, I think, is moving most of its employee offices out of PG. I know a lot
03:19of people are here in Ashburn. There are going to be others that are going to DC. Remember the
03:22sticking point with some of the city council members that we had on that they want some
03:25of those offices out by the stadium. So now that the Ravens, I've heard, have all these
03:30plans where they're going to do like Purple Fridays at all the schools or a bunch of the
03:33schools that'll participate. The public schools in these areas of Maryland that are strongholds
03:38for the commanders, for the Redskins over the years. And I just think this is really
03:44interesting. And I wonder if your president, Mark Klaus, if your ownership, you know, we've
03:48had Mitch Rails audio in the past where he talked about bringing in buses of kids to training
03:54camp or setting up a museum of Redskins history and having kids come on a field trip and giving
03:59them a hat and a t-shirt. Like in Maryland, if they're doing Purple Fridays at schools and
04:04Lamar Jackson's winning a third MVP and the Ravens are making a Super Bowl run, could that be damaging
04:08to this team?
04:09So a couple of fronts. I do not blame the Ravens at all. You're competing. Go compete. This is what
04:14you're supposed to do. I am stunned that the NFL said okay. Stunned that they said okay. I cannot
04:23believe it. The idea that because you're moving, you know, what is it as the crow flies? Five miles,
04:29six miles, seven miles from one location to the other. It just happens to be near state
04:33lines or district lines in this case that you're now somehow forsaking territory that is well
04:39within the suburban driving distance. I mean, it's nuts to me. Like the weird FCC rules that
04:46we're governed by, if you go towards, you know, north and east a little bit like towards Laurel
04:50or whatever, it cuts off. You can't hear us anymore and you get Baltimore. And I know that bothers a
04:55lot of people that they're listening to Vinny in 105.7. Not that far away from us, but that's
04:59kind of the way the old rules are. This is absolutely 100% Washington territory. And the
05:06idea that the NFL would just go, yep, all right, I guess you gave it up. College Park, dude,
05:11is inside the Beltway.
05:12I was going to say that's inside the Beltway. I don't know my geography that well. That's
05:17single digit miles from the monument, right?
05:19Oh, 100%. Yes. I mean, again, inside the DC area Beltway. To me, it's very
05:25simple. If the radio signal can reach you, you're kind of part of that area's suburb.
05:31You know what I mean? That's one sort of way to look at it. That's a stone's throw. That
05:37is an insane thing. And if I'm watching, if I'm part of the Harris ownership group, I'm
05:42livid about this. I'm throwing a temper tantrum behind the scenes. I'm sure, you know, or publicly,
05:47I'm sure Mark Klaus and company aren't really doing anything and aren't going to run anybody
05:51under the bus and try to start some kind of feud. But I would be Mitch railing against
05:56the NFL in this if I'm Washington. I can't believe it's allowed.
06:01So I'm looking this up. It says Washington Monument in DC to middle somewhere in the campus
06:06of University of Maryland, depending on where the location is. 11 to 14 miles is what we're
06:12talking about.
06:13That's from the center of DC to there, not even the border of DC, not to where RFK is.
06:19But this is just one example where they had 20,000 people at this venue. Now, to the team's
06:25credit, they're going to have 11 camp practices open this year. You know my feelings. I think
06:31every practice should be open to all of the fans. They're doing six for season ticket holders,
06:37five for everybody, including today. And there were a ton of people out here. I don't know what
06:41the numbers are, but it's several thousand people. This was the most people I've seen.
06:45Kerwin, do you have any idea? Did they say what the attendance was today by chance?
06:48I mean, several thousand roughly, but there's not a place here to have 20,000, right?
06:53But I just wonder what else they have planned. Like the person that covers this that I was
06:57talking to said, yeah, they've got a bunch of activations that they're putting together
07:01in these locations. And the one that I'm really interested in is the appealing to the kids,
07:06the trying to get the young people to get, hey, you don't need that Terry McLaurin jersey.
07:11Put on this Zay Flowers jersey. You know, hey, Jaden Daniels, you don't need to wear that five.
07:17Here's an eight. He's a two-time MVP. You're going to the second grader to try to basically
07:22brainwash them into being a Ravens fan with quote-unquote purple Fridays? Like, think about
07:27that. I mean, this is, I don't know if I'm the only one that cares, but I do find it
07:30really,
07:30really interesting. I want to open up the phones on this. 800-636-1067. Do you think,
07:36that adds a little pressure for the commanders to get cooking here? You know, if you don't have
07:40a great year on the Ravens, do. I mean, is Maryland in some ways more up for grabs? Or might
07:45it be that
07:45they go, you know what? I'm not saying you punt on Maryland at all, but we've got Virginia.
07:51We've got D.C. We'll have the pockets of Maryland. We're still going to be just fine. Like, I wonder
07:57what the Klaus playbook is on this.
Comments