Order of operations
CEO and Chairman Angelos meets with media to talk shop
SARASOTA, Fla. — For the first time in more than four years, Orioles CEO and Chairman John Angelos met in person with a group of Baltimore media and openly discussed the operations of the team he oversees.
Between the November 2018 introduction of executive vice president and general manager Mike Elias and Sunday, Angelos had taken questions from a collection of local reporters just three times. At a January news conference to discuss a charitable donation from the organization, he declined to answer a question about his family’s future owning the team, using Martin Luther King Jr. Day as his reason.
Standing beside the bullpen on the Ed Smith Stadium backfields on Sunday, Angelos fielded and answered questions for more than 37 minutes, covering the Orioles’ expiring lease, a major league payroll that’s the second lowest in the majors and more.
Here are five takeaways from Angelos’ session with reporters:
New lease could be ‘All-Star break gift’
Earlier this month, the Orioles declined to exercise an option in their lease with the Maryland Stadium Authority that would extend the agreement by five years, leaving it to expire Dec. 31. As he has been in recent
years, Angelos was adamant the team will remain in Baltimore, expressing hopes a new long-term lease will be in place by July.
“I’d love to have that as an All-Star break gift for everybody, really, in the community,” Angelos said.
Potentially affecting negotiations is Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s replacement of Tom Kelso as the chairman of the MSA with Craig Thompson, his campaign chair and a former
employee of the law office founded by Angelos’ father, Orioles principal owner Peter Angelos. Angelos said he and Thompson have spoken once thus far and that they are “looking forward to working together.” Kelso, who was appointed by former Gov. Larry Hogan, had served in the role for the past eight years.
“I didn’t think it would be right to rush something through in the final days of the Hogan administration,” Angelos said.
With a long-term lease, the Orioles would gain access to $600 million in public funds to upgrade their 31-year-old ballpark. Angelos said much of that will be devoted to needed repairs and replacements of the stadium’s infrastructure, with amenities such as “improved seating areas” and upgrades to Oriole Park’s scoreboard and audiovisual system. It could also factor into Angelos’ hopes to upgrade the Camden Yards facility for what he repeatedly referred to Sunday as “live, work, play, 365,” the idea of giving people a reason to go to the downtown area throughout the year and not only for Orioles or Ravens games.
“The actual facility use agreement, renewing a 30-year-old document, that’s really a minor sidebar,” Angelos said. “… We can really make a statement for why Baltimore is back and why it’s going to be a big part of the future of the country and thought of in a ‘can do’ way instead of in some of the ways it’s been thought of in the past.”