Ted's Take

The Blogging Site of Ted Leonsis

Posts Tagged ‘MLB’

Awesome News

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Way to go Washington Nationals.
 
This signing is such great news. It gives the community hope and dreams for a better day. Pitching is how teams win in MLB and this young man looks to be a future historic player. I am so excited to see him pitch and am so happy for the Nationals and for the Lerner family. Play ball! Kudos all around. Click here to read this front page story in the Washington Post.

Go Nats, Go!

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Go Morgan, go!

Here is a fun piece about the Nationals and a new player’s love of the game of Hockey and Alex Ovechkin.

Consider it done. Click here to enjoy this article.

Red Sox Nation

Thursday, June 25th, 2009
I went to see the Red Sox play our Washington Nationals last night. It was a beautiful night and a perfect setting for baseball. The Red Sox have a great team - and I mean team. They have strength throughout the lineup with great pitching and a great bull pen. They beat the Nats but it was a fun and well played game.
 
Last night’s crowd set all-time attendance records at Nationals Park and I bet more than two-thirds of the crowd were Red Sox fans. In my row, my son and I were the only Nationals fans.
 
When Ortiz hit his home run, I looked around and it seemed like everyone in the park was standing and cheering. Red Sox Nation was out in full force.
 
I know the Nationals can build up a big and loyal following and sell the place out on their own one day but more than 100 years of tradition have served the Red Sox well and winning a few World Series doesn’t hurt either.

Me and Jake

Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Jake Gyllenhaal and me. We are everywhere together it seems, Father’s Day at the Four Seasons and last night at the Nationals game.
 
Maybe I can join his posse? Jake, Lance, Matthew and me. :-) Click here to see our photos. Thanks Simply Sensational. Too funny.

Unseemly

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

Do articles like this one and this one seem unseemly at a time like this? Don’t these agents come off like used car salesmen?I have respect for their management skills but there is a time and place for everything. Squeezing every dime out of a club and a city and the fans in this economy just doesn’t sit well with folks right now. Keep your heads held up high. Now is the time to leave a little on the table. Make it up in good will for everyone in all segments. We are all in it together. There doesn’t have to be an ultimate winner and an ultimate loser in every negotiation. I think those days are long gone.

Philly Last Night

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

My son lives in Philly. He said the evening’s festivities after the game were something to see. The streets were filled with fans, police and SWAT teams. Everyone was beeping their horns. Everyone was wearing red. The party lasted until the wee hours.

Check out the first photos from last night here.

Not Sure What It Means But Doesn’t Feel Good

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

I was just reading the Sports Business Journal and a section on Major League Baseball attendance. There were some mind-blowing stats.

After 70 games, the Washington Nationals had drawn 2,070,439 fans, a huge increase over last season. The Baltimore Orioles had drawn 1,725,238, which was about flat from the year before. In all, fans in our region went through the turnstiles about 3.7 million times for both teams combined. The Nationals are now out drawing the Orioles in terms of attendance.

The NY Yankees on the other hand had drawn 3,761,696 on their own while the NY Mets had drawn 3,301,501. Hence, in NYC, 7,000,000 million fans had gone thru the turnstiles to attend baseball games.

In a league where there is no salary cap, how can smaller market teams compete with bigger market teams when there is such a disparity in attendance and resultant revenues? The Yankees essentially have outdrawn the Orioles by 2 million fans so far or about what the Nationals have drawn to date. Very sobering.

A Billion Bucks

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Wow - big money ball here in DC. The Lerner family has paid $450 million for the Nationals and $50 million in stadium improvements. The city has paid $600 million plus for the stadium and more than $1.1 billion invested to bring baseball to DC. It is a good thing that the stadium was built when it was in today’s economy. This effort would have been looked at with great skepticism. We are fortunate to have the Nationals in town. I look forward to going to some games this Memorial Day weekend.