Alex and Bobby discuss the ways MLB’s Virtual Ballpark could actually supplement fans’ experience, but instead serves as an uncanny reflection of the league’s diverging interests. Then, they break down what it means for the Atlanta Braves to be officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Finally, they share their thoughts on what the 2023 season has brought us at the halfway point.
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Links:
MLB’s Virtual All-Star Game Stadium
Braves to split from Liberty Media later this month
Inside the Alabama Baseball Betting Scandal
Rob Manfred’s Sportico Guest Essay
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Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Dog Ears — “Midnight Sunburn” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and—and—and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. so Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People at home understand what Tipping Pitches is all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, much like, uh, our mutual favorite band Fall Out Boy, our lawyers have asked us to read a statement so that we won’t get sued. I’d like to start this podcast by reading this statement, written and drafted by the esquires that we have on staff here—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —at Tipping Pitches Media. Tipping Pitches Media has become aware of a name mispronunciation on the Tipping Pitches podcast. We would like to extend our sincerest condolences to Brayan Bello of the Boston Red Sox whose name was very unfortunately mispronounced on last week’s episode of the Tipping Pitches podcast. Tipping Pitches Media and its subsidiaries would also like to extend their sincerest apologies to the listeners of the Tipping Pitches podcast, dozens of whom wrote in to correct said pronunciation. Though, we make our greatest efforts to never make any mistakes on this show, sometimes things do fall through the cracks, and we regret them, but we own up to them. Sincerely, Alex, Bobby, and the Tipping Pitches Media lawyer family.
ALEX: I—we talked about him on last week’s episode?
BOBBY: He was one of the subjects that people, like, replied underneath a tweet and said they—
ALEX: Oh, right. Yes. Yes.
BOBBY: —wanted us to talk about, and I was, like, speed reading through them so fast that I just said his name Brayan Bello. I did. I’m not afraid of owning up to it. It’s Brayan Bello. I just pronounced his name wrong. And you know what?
ALEX: Uh, hey—
BOBBY: These things happen. Someone, um, in the Slack said, “You better learn how to pronounce his name before he wins this year’s Cy Young.” And I said, “We just need to slow our roll a little bit, guys. We have to slow our roll just a smidge.” It’s okay that he’s good and I pronounced his name wrong. He’s not gonna win the Cy Young because of that.
ALEX: Not because of it. In fact, in spite of it, Bobby.
BOBBY: I guess so.
ALEX: Um, he’s really—he’s—uh, I—I know that we don’t—I know that we don’t do real analysis here, but, man, is he a good, uh, pitcher. It’s just kind of, like, rocky couple first weeks to the season and he’s just been one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball ever since.
BOBBY: And that was this week’s 30 seconds of actual baseball analysis brought to you by Alex Bazeley. Uh, he’s also playing for a team that I just—I haven’t had a lot of time to watch this year. Are you watching—uh, so— because you’re not watching the A’s. I know we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. You’re watching other teams more or less, or have you just chosen a couple of teams to basically fundamentally replace the A’s?
ALEX: Well, I suppose I can’t reveal too much given—given the—
BOBBY: Oh, true.
ALEX: —subject of future—of future podcast episodes. Um, I will say I’m—I’m feeling a little more free to bounce around from—from game to game—I mean, I’ve—I think I’ve always was sort of drawn to matchups over, like, particular loyalties right now. Um, a—a few years back, uh, the—the fine folks over at FanGraphs used to—um, I believe this was Carson Cistulli when he—when he still was there. He used to release the Nerd Scores for each baseball game. Like, the—like the watchability score of like a—a given pitching matchup, a given, uh, team matchup. And I’m really missing those right about now, because that’s primarily how I’m consuming the game. Like, I know that I’m not gonna watch a meaningful baseball game with my personal allegiance, so, like, what is the platonic ideal of a matchup? That’s how I approached, like—like every day. Who’s the—who’s the starter? Who are the young rookies that—that I might wanna be able to say I watched 10 years from now? It’s a lot of work, frankly. It’s a lot of work.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, uh, being—being a generalist fan is a lot of work. Actually, the easy way out is just choosing one team, then you’ll only have to pay attention to that team all year. Yeah. Um—
ALEX: Seriously.
BOBBY: that’s true. Uh, listeners don’t know this about you, but you’re a big bullpen game guy.
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: If there’s gonna be a bullpen game, you’re, like, fired up. You tune in and you’re like, “Here we go. Seven plus pitchers used by one team in this game, this is what I came here for.”
ALEX: I—what I will say is I’m really bad about actually, like, thinking proactively about the matchups, so I usually end up watching bullpen games. You know, I’ll be like, “Oh, great matchup. You know, uh, Brayan Bello versus—I don’t know, like Sonny Gray or whatever.” And I come in and it’s, like, the fifth inning where at least one of them is out of the game at this point. So, my—my primary—the primary hook is, like, not even there anymore. Now, I’m just watching—uh, ask me to name a Red Sox reliever.
BOBBY: Most of the Red Sox relievers that I could name have been DFA’d, so I’m not gonna—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —try either. Um, I know what you mean. You know, but by the time you actually tune into the pitching matchup, like one of them is not pitching well, and the other one is, like, 80 pitches through four innings. And it’s like, “Oh, he’s doing okay, but he’s gonna come out soon.”
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Once again, we lament the death of the starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. Um, that is not what the topic of this episode is going to be. Today, we’re gonna do a little bit of a grab bag style episode. We’re about halfway through the Major League Baseball season. Of course, we are coming to you recording this on Monday evening, uh, a mere one hour and seven minutes before the—the MLB Home Run Derby begins. So we will not be talking about the results of that event on this podcast, uh, nor we’ll be talking about the results or the really the lineups of, you know, the all-star game. I—I don’t know if that’s quite in our wheelhouse necessarily, but we are gonna take stock of kind of what the league feels like and—and what this season feels like halfway through, uh, from a Tipping Pitches perspective. And then there were a couple of other smaller stories that I know that, uh, you were intrigued to—to hit upon, that are more in our wheelhouse, which I’m excited to talk to you about, because, uh, nothing is real anymore and nothing matters. But before we talk about those things, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I am Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to Tipping Pitches. Alex, something that is real and something that does matter, is this week’s new patrons. Those new patrons are Clark and Jen. Thank you for signing up for the Tipping Pitches Patreon. It means a lot. Uh, something that—something else that is real is a real-life Minor League Baseball game that you and I will be attending on Saturday, July 29th. Let me ask you this. Have you bought your tickets yet?
ALEX: I didn’t. I guess—I guess we probably have to do that, don’t we?
BOBBY: We do have to buy tickets, yes.
ALEX: I kinda just thought we could maybe show up, you know?
BOBBY: What if we showed up and forgot to buy the tickets and then they were sold out, and we couldn’t get into our own meetup event?
ALEX: There would be nothing more delightfully on brand than I think that specific, uh, scenario.
BOBBY: I kind of agree, but maybe we should buy those tickets together so that we are actually sitting together at this event.
ALEX: Yes, I—I think that’s a good idea. Uh, if you, listener, are interested and also buying tickets for this, you can at the link in the description, July 29th, Brooklyn Cyclones—uh, I already forgot how—how the—what’s the ballpark? You had—
BOBBY: Maimonides.
ALEX: —named it last week.
BOBBY: Maimonides. Maimonides.
ALEX: Maimonides. There we go.
BOBBY: Just like the hospital chain. They are playing the Wilmington Blue Rocks of Wilmington, Delaware. Uh, I’m pretty excited for this. This would be my first time out to Coney Island this year, which is a—a testament to how busy we’ve been and how much we’ve been traveling, because, typically, I would love to go more frequently. That’s a great place to see a ballgame. Um, anyway, many of you already know this. Many of you have already bought tickets to this event. If you’re going to be in New York on Saturday, July 29th at 6:00 p.m. and you’re interested in seeing a Minor League Baseball game with us and our ragtag bunch of weirdos, please follow the link in the description. Tickets are $17 and they come with a Brooklyn Cyclones hat. Now, that we are done—now that we are done talking about a real ballpark where you can see a real baseball game, I would like to introduce you to MLB’s newest marketing tactic for this year’s all-star game. Alex, that is MLB’s virtual ballpark. Welcome to MLB’s new virtual ballpark that offers immersive and engaging digital experiences to baseball fans wherever they may be. Did you enter the digital ballpark—sorry, the virtual ballpark? Which—which offers engaging digital experiences. You can see how I would mix that up.
ALEX: That is—it’s, uh, easy to confuse. Uh, I didn’t get the chance. It debuted during the all-star celebrity softball game, uh, and it offers fans the opportunity to create an avatar, enter the virtual ballpark, explore the ballpark, interact. It’s like Club Penguin, I think, but like it’s a baseball—part of the skin of it is like a baseball park. They might be on to something.
BOBBY: I thought—yeah, I thought we were here to make fun of this, and now you’re talking about Club Penguin.
ALEX: Yeah, I don’t know.
BOBBY: You got them.
ALEX: They got me, too.
BOBBY: So why didn’t you join?
ALEX: So—
BOBBY: And this is, like, kind of right up your alley. You’d be one of the people in the virtual ballpark just talking shit. You know, trying to recruit people to become communists.
ALEX: I learned about it after the fact. I didn’t do my due diligence ahead of time, which that one’s on me. But I think you are right that I 100% would sign up for this with a burner email account, and just hang in the—you know they talked about, like, being able to hear authentic crowd noises like—
BOBBY: Try—try to, like, sell Discords.
ALEX: Right, yeah. See if you can, like, turn them against the mods, turn the fans against the mods or something like that. Uh, MLB expanding into the metaverse, baby, right on time as the metaverse is obviously blowing up. They always got their finger on the pulse, like a couple years later, like, after the pulse. They’re always, like, ready to jump in it. Now, I actually think there’s, like, some interesting parts of this that maybe fans will be able to take advantage of down the road, right? Like, the idea of being able to say explore a ballpark without actually having to go, sounds amazing. Are you telling me that I can, like, browse all the concessions and, like, know where they are without having to scroll through a list or—or look at, like a—like one of those poorly designed apps that they have on the website? Like, from an accessibility standpoint, from the standpoint of, like, actually being able to streamlining your experience? Hey, maybe there’s something there. Do I want to interact with fans at the all-star celebrity softball game? Ah, not for me, but there might be something there for me.
BOBBY: I—that’s—what’s interesting to me is that this is not like a worthwhile topic to make fun of. Like, this is not at the level of some of the other things that we criticize MLB for being, like, tone-deaf.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: For example, let’s compare this to, like, the NF Ts. The NFT—so rare NF T market that they have been kind of pushing for the last year and a half, and how they’ve been trying to make this into, like, a whole new collector’s item for baseball fans. This digital experience that is both easier to execute on the league side and less, uh, permanent for the fan side, but it’s like a cash cow. You know, it’s like a cash grab in the short term, because there are these, like, tech firms or the—there are these crypto banks who—who wanna grow fast, who—it’s like a get-rich-quick scheme for these finance people, and MLB can be on the other half of the get-rich-quick scheme, and not lose any of their credibility when it flames out because they’re still, you know, Major League Baseball. They still exhibit Major League Baseball games whether or not this crypto bank goes belly up. So, I don’t think it’s like that, necessarily. I think that this is sort of, like, an interesting concept in terms of merging the physical and the digital. But the problem and the reason that I sort of made fun of it, and just, like, tweeted it out as this random bizarro, like Black Mirror-esque push notification that they sent right before the celebrity softball game is because I actually don’t think they’re really interested in merging the physical and the digital world. I actually think what they’re more interested in is monetizing the digital world, because they’ve already over monetized the physical world. And so they have these things like this, where, “Oh, they’ll can—they—there are theoretically no physical transportation limits on how many people can join the virtual ballpark.” And so there’s a much bigger consumer base, and now you can start to show them ads when they join a virtual ballpark. Now, you can start to mine their data when they join the virtual ballpark. You can amass a digital profile about your consumers that is then, uh, use in market research for the teams and who they can sell more merchandise to. And I don’t think that it’s really designed the way that it’s, like, talked about on their website. I don’t think it’s really designed to be like a, “Check this out before you come to the physical ballpark, so you can have a better time at the game.” I think it’s more so like a, “This is something that you can do instead, and you can be paying money here.” Not that they were actually asking people to pay money for this time around. They were actually offering World Series tickets to one of the people who joined the virtual ballpark. But it just feels a little bit, like, a further, [13:48] a further stratification of the Major League Baseball experience, so that they are asking more people for money in the long run.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, like everything else, like every other part of the MLB experience, it’s about creating a sort of closed-loop ecosystem that people can come in and experience all the experiences at your one-stop shop, right? Like, you can go in here and you—sure, you can watch a live stream of the baseball game, and you can also play trivia, and you can also, you know, play games and win prizes, and you can also connect with other fans. Like, it feels a little bit, like—it’s like—do you remember like Toontown, Disney’s, like, Toontown online, where like you could go and log in and—and, like, experience this virtual world, right? Even if you can’t experience that the theme park, say, you can come in and you can drink the Kool-Aid, basically. Now, I have trouble seeing that taking off in the same way. I don’t know how much of a market there is for, like, baseball themed, like, massively multi—multiplayer online games, like that just—I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like there’s a market for that.
BOBBY: I just—
ALEX: But may—but, like, uh, maybe.
BOBBY: I think it’s an interesting question. I just think that, like, M—uh, what’s—MMORPG, correct? Massively multiplayer role player games, MMORPGs. I—I actually think that executed well. Those are interesting community builders. Those are places where people can gather and pass their time in a productive and, you know, rewarding way. And I think that that was a big thing during the pandemic. It’s like people, you know, people fired up their gaming consoles, and it was a way for them to feel like they were passing the time with other people in the digital world in a more meaningful way than just, like, scrolling Twitter. And I don’t think that that is, um, a, poor aim, but I—like, as I sit here and read this, I also see that the first 250 fans who participate in this Sorare virtual scavenger hunt during the MLB All-Star celebrity game, which took place within this, uh, virtual ballpark, will receive, uh, one digital Sorare card giveaway. So, again, this is just like—it’s all being packed—
ALEX: You can also win, uh, like a Candy Digital collectible, Bobby. Did you see that?
BOBBY: Oh, I already have some, so I don’t need one.
ALEX: You already have candy, so that’s why you [16:17]
BOBBY: Right. I already have Candy Digit—no, no, not candy—uh, I have Candy Digital.
ALEX: Candy Digital, sorry.
BOBBY: You have Candy Digitals, right? You don’t need those either. Oh, it’s also—by the way, it’s—it’s the—it’s the virtual experience brought to you by Sorare of the MLB All-Star Celebrity Softball Game presented by Corona. Don’t forget anything in there. Make sure we have all of Major League Baseball’s business partners represented. Which, um, they’re also running banner ads on this webpage for the, um, Ted Williams All-Star MVP award presented by Chevrolet.
ALEX: That’s—okay. So, there’s got to be a space for us in there, somewhere.
BOBBY: I completely—
ALEX: Right? Why can we not mark it in this virtual ballpark? Can we mark it in the virtual ballpark?
BOBBY: Well, even—even if we don’t mark it in the virtual—actually, that’s great. Can—you can podcast with us in the virtual ballpark. You come—
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: —and you sit in the guest. It’s like radio row at the virtual ballpark, but we host in—in [17:18] I will delete everything we just said if—if Rob would—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —like to approach us with that concept. Everybody knows the best, um, podcasts are done in the metaverse.
ALEX: Here’s the thing, everyone’s laughed at when they’re the first person to do something, right? Everyone.
BOBBY: Exactly. But they won’t be laughing at us when we are hobnobbing with the—the business elites at Major League Baseball.
ALEX: I mean, to—just to put a bow on this. I—I do think, again, as we talked about, this is the sort of technology that’s just getting off the ground and businesses like Major League Baseball are trying to get a foothold in there, see how it might work for them. Um, I do want to take issue with one quote from Major League Baseball executive vice president of media and business development, Kenny Gersh, who said, “What’s cool about this technology is—is bringing people together, it feels like you’re really there.” No, it doesn’t, Kenny. I like—
BOBBY: How is this—
ALEX: I haven’t used it and I know it doesn’t.
BOBBY: How is this not a guy that we know? Like, how is this not a guy that we talked about regularly?
ALEX: Kenny Gersh, he should be.
BOBBY: We use Rob as shorthand too much. I want to challenge us to name names more often on this podcast, like all of the suits. I think we should be the podcast that is, like, cataloging these people and their quotes, and their positions, and their influences, and what they think the baseball world should be doing with its time. Because, Kenny, it’s just not—it’s just not true. Like, the—it’s just the physical experience of going to a baseball game is sacred. Dare I say one of the—one of the most sacred things left on this Earth—
ALEX: Yeah. Uh-huh.
BOBBY: —you know? It’s like going to see Oppenheimer, going to see—going to see—going to the ballpark, paying for a $20 beer, and seeing Elly De La Cruz hit a 490-foot home run and steal home.
ALEX: Yeah, exactly.
BOBBY: You know? Like, these things are—uh, it’s like one of 10 things that is actually experiential left in the world.
ALEX: Yeah. Uh, unless you’re bringing that to my living room.
BOBBY: Exactly. They can’t smell Cracker Jack at MLB’s Digital ballpark. And if I could, you know, maybe I would retract these statements. Okay. Speaking of made-up things, uh, the Braves are on the stock market now, officially.
ALEX: Hell yeah.
BOBBY: You like that transition?
ALEX: Are they—is it—uh, are they officially on there or is—are they just officially going to be on there?
BOBBY: Yeah. Uh, bad news. Thank you. That’s a good correction. They will be on there on July 18th, which—which means we have one more—
ALEX: Damn.
BOBBY: —episode before they come on there, your new team podcast. So just make sure that when we record that new team podcast, you consider that you could actually trade stocks of one of these teams. Make sure we talk about that. Uh, this—I’m reading from the FanSided blog, housethathank—housethathankbuilt.com, which is the Braves FanSided blog. Uh, “The Atlanta Braves will become an independent, publicly traded team later this month as Liberty Media will split with the Braves on July 18th.” We knew this was coming, um, but they finally announced the date. Uh, the Braves are going to become quote Atlanta Braves Holding Incorporated.
That’s pretty good.
ALEX: Yeah. Did we ever talk about how the Phillies are the only team to, like, not have a bullshit, like, LLC as their official name? They’re just the Phillies. The rest of them are, like, Nationals Baseball holding partners and co.
BOBBY: Is that right? I thought the Mets don’t have one either.
ALEX: I think they’re, like, New York Mets Baseball Club, LLC. I apologize, I—I interrupted you. You were—you were speaking about the Braves and their—their—the new name bestowed upon them.
BOBBY: Oh, no, that’s okay. You—you can feel free to interrupt me whenever you need to. Um, why would we do business as, on the—on the ticker? Tip, T-I-P?
ALEX: I kind of like just—just TP.
BOBBY: I just—is there—is there like a letter minimum on the stock market?
ALEX: No, because some of them have, like, single letters, you know?
BOBBY: That’s—that’s a scam. That’s like—one of these—like the—like the noble gases? Like come on.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Okay, okay. Stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange can have four or fewer letters. NASDAQ-listed securities can have up to five character—characters. Oh.
ALEX: Hmm.
BOBBY: You can mix in some—some weird shit in there. Symbols are just a shorthand way of describing a company’s stock, so there is no significant difference between those that have three letters and those that have four or five. No significant difference except that it’s more prestigious to have more letters, in my opinion,
ALEX: Really? See, I think it’s far—
BOBBY: Uh, I would—
ALEX: —uh, far cooler to have—have, like, one letter. Like, if you’re just T—
BOBBY: You think that, but what if we were on the ticker as A-Rod? Uh, presumably, A-Rod Corp is on there, right?
ALEX: Nope.
BOBBY: It’s not publicly traded yet.
ALEX: I don’t think—not publicly traded. His—his—his SPAC is. His SPAC is.
BOBBY: His SPAC, right. SPAC Slam Corp. Price is $500 million. We are so far afield of what we were even talking about. Back to the Braves. Atlanta Braves Holding Incorporated, they will be joining the New York Stock Exchange. Liberty Media originally purchased the Braves from Time Warner back in 2007 for one and a half billion dollars. Liberty Media, a publicly traded company. This is—this is actually outlawed now. You can’t be on the stock market if you are a professional baseball team. It’s part of, like, I don’t know, MLB’s constitution now. But the Braves, because they were already owned by Liberty—Liberty Media at the time that they put this rule into place, they were grandfathered into being a publicly traded company. But no other teams are allowed to do this anymore. It doesn’t—this doesn’t really change anything when it comes to how the Braves are going to operate financially. Like, they were already owned by a publicly traded company. The real thing that this changes, and the real thing that makes this worth talking about for you and I is that, well, number one, you could buy stock in a team. I don’t—it doesn’t really mean anything. Like, you—I—I think people were talking about this as if it was like the Packers, you know, where you can be, like, a part owner of a team more or less, if you, like, buy a share of them and there’s only, like, a controlled amount of shares. They’re like—this is not—this is not like that. Like, you can’t buy Facebook via the stock market, you know? Like, you can’t buy the Braves via just amassing shares of it publicly. Like, you’d have to—uh, a purchase offer would have to be made to the board of the Atlanta Braves which is appointed by Liberty Media, its parent company. So, it’s not quite as, uh, shall we say, democratic because some people in the—in the media finance world would like you to believe. Uh, but what it is, it’s a—it’s a opportunity for transparency when it comes specifically to the Braves finances. Because, you know, previously, all Liberty Media had to do was say, “This is how much money the Braves made this year. This is how much money we spent on the Braves this year as one of our subsidiaries.” And they didn’t have to really file anything more specifically, um, or do, like, shareholder calls as it relates to the Braves. They had to do shareholder calls as it relates to all of their holdings. Liberty Media is a gigantic company. They also own SiriusXM. They also own Formula One. They own—they have a large stake in Live Nation, which is the company that merged with Ticketmaster complete—to completely basically destroy the music industry as we knew it. So, Liberty Media is like a real—um, a real Death Star of a company of which the Atlanta Braves were just one, you know, ray on the Death Star. Although, I think the Death Star only has actually has run way—one ray, so maybe they were like a— like a machine gun or something, a turret on the Death Star. I’m losing the metaphor, but we’re gonna keep going. What this means now is that the Braves will be their own publicly traded company on the stock market, which means all of their financial filings will have to be much more complete, and only related to the Atlanta Braves. And so, we will be able to look into them a little bit more closely. Now, that doesn’t prevent them—like, all other companies doing, you know, basically funny money accounting, with how much they spend, and how much they take in, and what that actually means, and what they’re spending it on. Like, it doesn’t materially teach you what Facebook is doing with its money to go look at their stock market filings year over year, because we have a failed country and whatnot. But we will at least have more numbers with which we can make assumptions based on our prior held opinions, which I am excited about. I don’t know about you.
ALEX: Yeah, I am, too. I mean, I’m—I’m interested to see what this means. My gut feeling is that, you know, they don’t remain publicly traded for an extended period of time. And in fact, I think what—part of the speculation around this is that this makes them a lot easier to sell now. Before they were kind of—they were, you know, uh—uh, sort of independent entity that was, you know, owned and controlled by Liberty Media. And now, effectively, they are their own business, right? So if Liberty Media is looking to get out of the baseball game, because I hear baseball’s finances are—have been in dire straits for years, years at this point. This would make that a lot easier to do so. At which point, I would have to assume whoever takes over control says, “We’re not publicly traded anymore.” That’s not how—how things work. Um, but even for the few months, I think that—that they are in this position, the few years—how—whatever it means, my hope is that it provides some perspective that maybe we haven’t gained before. Now, I’m under no illusions that the Braves, like, accidentally went public, and now, all of a sudden realize they have to share all their finances. Like, I think they know very well what they—they want to include and what they don’t want to include in the sort of report backs that they have to make. But I think it provides a different dimension, a little more color to what it looks like to actually run a baseball team. And that’s something we don’t get very often.
BOBBY: Does it make you wonder like—not make you wonder. Does it say anything to you about these teams—that a team can just casually pass into the stock market and no one has anything to say really materially about it? That is not a big deal? Because this is not really a story, like this is—they’ve been—functionally, they’ve been a publicly traded company since they were acquired by Liberty—Liberty Media. And within the last couple of years, they have been even more so, uh, like a stock market listing because they were listed as a tracking stock, which is a sort of outdated way of putting your wholly owned subsidiaries as their own stock on the stock market, one that can’t be—you can’t purchase stocks. You can’t, you know, buy and sell stocks for that tracking stock. It is just a way of sort of umbrellaing—umbrellaing out one of your subsidiaries to be financially track on its own in the stock market, um, in terms of its—its, you know, revenue and expenditures, and how much the company is actually worth. But you would still only be able to buy Liberty Media stock as a whole, not Braves stock. So, they basically been doing this for the last couple of years, and so that’s why this doesn’t feel like that big of a, you know, media business story. Necessarily, a sports business media story, whatever. But to me, there’s something, like, oddly formal and—and sort of naked and transparent about just being like, “Now, our—our—our company is on the stock market. You know, we’re not America’s qualitative pastime anymore. We’re right in there next to Procter and Gamble, and Goldman Sachs, and—you know, like, Walmart.” Like, “We’re—we’re listed in the New York Times finance section right next to all of these companies. But also, you know, we play some baseball games from time to time.” That, to me, is weirder than it’s getting credit for, but also, like, not really even worth talking in depth about, because we know how these companies operate anyway. We know how these teams operate as sort of ruthless financial players.
ALEX: Yeah. It feels just, like, the sort of latest piece of evidence in the long line of pieces of news like this that illustrate how intertwined sports are with, like, the broader economy and the notion of politics, right? The idea that—that the game of baseball is, you know, somehow pure and insulated from the broader whims of the market. Now, I mean, I—I do think it is. I do think that baseball is a particularly insulated industry when compared to the average stock market, right? Something—something antitrust exemption that allows them to have quite a bit of regulation over their—their finances. But—but this is, like, the way of the—the world now, the way of sports, right? You can buy stocks in Manchester United if—the last time I checked, right? Like, I do think that this sort of decade will be marked by that shift of these behemoth sports teams and leagues moving towards becoming legitimate just financial instruments, right? We’re seeing this sort of calcification of that as we speak, and we know how valuable these teams are. We know how desirable they are, because you see a dozen billionaires lined up to buy one anytime they go on the market, right? And so this just—
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: —feels like the kind of latest domino to fall, that certainly is very representative of everything that came before it.
BOBBY: Maybe I’m just in my own head about this, but there—there feels something weird to me about how, like, if there was a financial crisis similar to 2008, similar to the dot-com bubble, similar to the Great Depression or whatever, that, you know, there might be a run on the Braves. Like, that just doesn’t seem right to me. It feels like we should have some—
ALEX: Right. Does anyone want to—want to short the Atlanta Braves?
BOBBY: Right. Exactly. I would love to short the Atlanta Braves, you know? I—I—actually, that’s not solid advice, because they’re gonna be good for, like, 23 years.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: But I would love to—maybe that means I should be investing in the Braves. See, these are my—these are the—this is the modern conundrum, what is going to suit you as an investor versus what do you believe in as being good? And I don’t believe in the Braves as being good for the world. I don’t like it. But, hey, if it’s gonna help you acquire—
ALEX: It’ll help you as an investor.
BOBBY: Exactly. So, do I need to go into my 401K account and say, “Please leave the Braves out of this, otherwise, it’ll make a conflict of interest for my podcast.”?
ALEX: It’s really bold of you to—to suggest there—there are any conflicts of interest that haven’t already been, like, broached here on this podcast.
BOBBY: No, we didn’t—
ALEX: See, I’m—I’m saying it with my chest to make up my 401K, “Put my off—my Roth IRA, just all Braves stocks.” That’s my—
BOBBY: I know you’re a Roth guy. That’s good. That’s what they tell you to be. I’m Roth as well. ALEX: Okay. Cool.
BOBBY: Okay. So you’re a Roth guy, you want to be heavy on the Braves. I think that that’s the—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —terminology in the stock market. “I’m—I’m heavy on the Braves.”
ALEX: Uh-huh. Right. I’m bullish on them.
BOBBY: I like the idea that, like, having a 401K means that you’re basically the same as a day trader. Like, you get to decide what you want to be leveraged in and what you want to stay away from. Like, no, it’s just the money just goes into an account. It’s like a mutual fund. Like, there’s a thousand stocks in this account, like, none of it is real.
ALEX: Right. Uh, so do you think you’re getting to—to make that say? Like, I mean, you might think you are, but there’s just some guide moving numbers around—
BOBBY: Oh, I thought that you were gonna ask me—
ALEX: —for your account and tens of thousands of other people. Ask me what?
BOBBY: Sure. Sure. Yeah. I thought that you were going to ask me, do I think I’m ever going to get that 401K? Because the answer to that is also no. No. Like, I don’t think we’re ever going to make it to the age at which we can take our 401K out and enjoy the rest of our sweet lives.
ALEX: Right. Is it, like, meaningful in any way? No.
BOBBY: Yeah. Not that I think that I’m gonna, like, perish before then. I just think that, like, society might crumble before then. And the structures, you know, solid as they are, holding up the 401K and retirement industry are going to crumble. Duct tape only lasts for so long.
ALEX: You know, that’s because—you know, have a sip of my drink.
BOBBY: That’s right.
ALEX: We’re doing great here.
BOBBY: Please do that. Um, I mean, this is just—this is what it is, to talk about baseball now, right? To talk about IRAs and to talk about—
ALEX: Um, 401K, yeah.
BOBBY: —the stock issues, and the ticker, and how you can be listed, and whether or not a run on the banks is going to put Liberty Media out of business. I don’t know.
ALEX: I mean, to—to round out this wide-ranging discussion, I do think that when you look at it from the point of view of, say, an MLB owner or an MLB Commissioner—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —the Braves are, like, doing exactly—exactly what you want on, like, all fronts, right? Booming real estate business, star players locked in at below-market values. You happen to be really good at developing baseball players.
BOBBY: Yup. And you’re making bank as a result of—of all of that. I don’t know—I don’t know how if—if you are an MLB owner or a prospective MLB owner, how you don’t look at that and say, “Yeah, give me a slice of that.”
BOBBY: The Braves are currently—their—their tracking stock is currently trading for $41.09. We need a couple more people to sign up for the Patreon, get a couple stocks, part of our portfolio.
ALEX: Should we—so, does that mean if we start hiring people and, say, for example, down the road, we start offering 401Ks. Would those 401Ks or IRAs be composed of these exact stocks?
BOBBY: Only for like—
ALEX: [35:24] stocks like Rod—like Rogers Communications stocks in there, too.
BOBBY: Is that traded in America?
ALEX: I’m kind of assuming we might be global by then, anyway.
BOBBY: It, um, it is. RCI, Roger—Rogers Communications Incorporated, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, $44.24 a share. The, uh, the 52-week high, $50.16 a share. How do people do, like, finance podcasts? Did they just come on and they’re like, “All right.”
ALEX: [35:55] numbers.
BOBBY: “Next stop. Uh, okay. The—the—the div yield is 3.39%.” And that’s also, Alex—
ALEX: That’s crazy. 3.39?
BOBBY: No. Also, Alex, the market cap—
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: Brace yourself for this one. The market cap is $23.37 billion. What do you think about that market cap?
ALEX: That’s a wild market cap. Like, especially—
BOBBY: [36:16]
ALEX: —when you—when you get—when you get up that high, you—I mean, it’s like, “Wow. We’re dealing with something—”
BOBBY: But also when you’re that—that low and at the same time, you know? Or when you’re right—right there in the middle. Like, that’s nuts.
ALEX: Right. As—but definitely with billions at the end, I’m like, ‘Wow. This is”—you’re making some waves.
BOBBY: I know. I’m—yeah, I’m wondering like—yeah, how much mark is there to have? Um, do you think—how many—over, under, over, under, how many risk analysts do the Atlanta Braves employ, over, under 50? This is risk analyst or risk—risk analyst adjacent positions within the Atlanta Braves organization. My favorite job title, risk analyst.
ALEX: Your favorite job title? Uh, I’ll say under 50, but certainly more than—certainly more than a dozen.
BOBBY: Do you think that there are more coaches or risk analysts in the Braves organization? If you had to bet your life on it, are there more people assessing financial risk or coaching baseball in the Atlanta Braves organization?
ALEX: If I had to bet my life on it, I would wonder why on Earth I’m betting my life on the makeup of Braves financial analysts? I’d go to a new sports book.
BOBBY: [37:35]
ALEX: I do think it’s probably pretty similar. I mean, the—the word coach gets a little squishy, because, like, are we talking strength and conditioning? Are we talking like trainers? Are we talking like pure on-the-field baseball coaches, like [37:52] coach, pitching coach?
BOBBY: No, no, no. I’m talking about like—I’m talking about like people—people who wear the uniform and are in the dugout during games.
ALEX: Yeah, there are more, like, risk analysts, financial management, you know,
scrubs.
BOBBY: Yeah. Great.
ALEX: Absolutely.
BOBBY: That’s all I was looking for. I’m glad that you agreed with me.
ALEX: Because here’s the thing, bar for entry, way lower on the risk management. I’m glad he’s here to get that job.
BOBBY: Right. I was—I mean, we could do that now—right now. It’d be like that seems risky. But on the other hand—
ALEX: That’s risk management every day.
BOBBY: No, on the other hand, it could be worth it. So, there’s the risk, um, calculation for you there. Top five riskiest things we’ve done this month. Go.
ALEX: Uh, spend so much time talking about risk management on a baseball podcast? I don’t know.
BOBBY: I’m determined to offend every risk management person I can possibly offend. That is my only goal for the rest of this podcast. No longer about baseball. Um, okay. Shall we move on?
ALEX: Sure. Yeah. I don’t even know where we were. Where are we headed?
BOBBY: Um, I guess the final thing on that is that it doesn’t strike me as all that surprising that MLB is fine with the stock market because it seems—because of how much they seem to love gambling these days. It’s just kind of the whole—
ALEX: Yeah. Did you, uh—
BOBBY: —the financial model at this point.
ALEX: Yeah. Did you see the—the Sports Illustrated story that came out today about the whole fiasco, uh, the—the gambling scan—scandal at Alabama baseball? Where a guy walked in and was like, “I want to place a hundred thousand dollars on this college baseball game.” And they were like, “No one—no one bets that much money on college baseball games. What’s up here?” Anyway, I think they’re good. I think I saw a few more NFL players who also got nabbed for sports betting recently.
BOBBY: It’s just collateral.
ALEX: I mean, we knew this was going to happen, right? It’s like this—you know?
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: it comes with the territory.
BOBBY: The risk managers told us—the risk—the risk managers told us that it would—this would happen. This would happen.
ALEX: Yeah. Grin and bear it a little bit. A few gambling scandals. What’s a couple more to baseball, right?
BOBBY: And then it’s all upside, baby.
ALEX: Exactly.
BOBBY: It’s all upside after that. Just a couple federal investigations and then we’re on our merry way. Uh, I did not see that story, though. I will—uh, I’ll check it out. Um, All right. Let’s—let’s— let’s close this podcast out by talking about, uh, where we’re at in the Major League Baseball calendar. It’s July 10th, like I said, Home Run Derby tonight, All-Star game tomorrow. It’s, uh, being hosted in Seattle this year, the festivities, the All-Star week festivities. Um, you know, I mean, on the show, we don’t talk all that much about—we don’t—we’re not gonna preview the Home Run Derby field. We’re not gonna talk about snobs from the All-Star Game necessarily, both because they’re not qualified, but also because there are so many other places that do that better than us. Um, so, in lieu of that, I’d like to just check in with you several months into the baseball season. Do you have, like, a resounding takeaway from this baseball season? I mean, I have my own answer for this, that is skewed towards both my personality type and my team affiliation. But I’m curious for you, as someone who has ditched his team affiliation, and as someone who hosts a weekly baseball podcast that is more about risk management and the stock market. You know, what’s your—what’s your top line of thought when people are like, “Hey, what’s going on in the baseball world this year?”
ALEX: Here’s the thing is—I actually think baseball is in a—in a pretty good spot. I think that—I think the—the game has been pretty darn good this year. My personal relationship to the game notwithstanding. I know we can’t discuss potential changes to the game that may have led us to some of these moments. But things like stolen bases are up, I think that’s a—I think that’s a good thing. Players like Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds sometimes steal three bases on one play, you know? You never—you never know.
BOBBY: See, to me that was just defensive incompetence. I mean, he’s great, and the balls to try that it’s just phenomenal. But really—just really bad defense from the Tigers.
ALEX: Yes. 100%.
BOBBY: Little League coaches everywhere just tearing their hair out that the pitchers didn’t even look at third, doesn’t even—you know—you know how when, um, when you’re in Little League, you just often—you just pump fake to a base, just pump fake all the time. Even if—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —there’s no one there covering it. Because if the runner sees that you’re gonna do that, where’s the pump fake, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: That’s my—
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: —that’s my analysis.
ALEX: Yeah, get out of your own head a little bit. Stop moving the dirt around underneath your cleats. Look up the ground, be alert.
BOBBY: Head on a swivel, kid.
ALEX: I will say we—we are, um, at the point of the baseball season where, as we’ve discussed, Rob Manfred is kind of doing his PR tour to talk about how good of a spot baseball is in right now. I was—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: As I was prepping for this podcast, I came across another—he wrote a guest column in Sportico today about—
BOBBY: What’s—
ALEX: —how MLB’s first—about how the first half of 2023 provides a glimpse into MLB’s bright future and it’s just—it kind of comes off as, like, the—the—the cool guy who’s, like, maybe trying to sell you on religion a little bit, you know? He’s like, “No, no, no. This ain’t your—this ain’t your parents’ baseball.” You know? “We got—like, this is a better—this is a better baseball than ever. You know, it’s a baseball that, like, meets you where you are and sees you—”
BOBBY: Right. Right.
ALEX: “—as a person.”
BOBBY: You know, rap music isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Jesus. Find Jesus. It’s like that, but for baseball. You know what this comes off as it’s like a victory lap. He’s like, “We did it.”
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “I was right. You guys were wrong. Time to change everything about baseball exactly in my image.”
ALEX: Right. He’s in here, like, citing the attendance on Father’s Day and—and how it stacks up to previous father’s days. Like, I—I think these are all fine, and maybe even good things for the sport, but to see the commissioner laying it all out, like just reflexively makes it feel really uncool. Like, once you explain the joke, it’s not funny anymore. And seeing him sit here and be like, “Yeah, but, you know, we’re continually showing the sport and our players and—in new ways, which is helping drive viewership growth for our national broadcast partners, record streaming numbers increases across our”—no. Sorry, you’re not describing baseball anymore. You’re describing a business, your business is doing really well. That’s awesome. I’m really happy for you that social media engagement is up.
BOBBY: See, that’s the thing, though, is that when you go to Sportico, they’re gonna let you do stuff like this, because it’s a small—
ALEX: Well, I mean—
BOBBY: —business website. But if Rob would stop fucking around doing guest columns, or having his assistants do guest columns and him signing them at the end, and he would come on this here podcast, we can talk about the real stuff. We can talk about whatever he wants to talk about. It doesn’t have—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —to be sports business. It doesn’t have to be labor. It could be hunks of metal. It could be forehead tattoos. It could be [44:51] liquors. It could be the A’s. It doesn’t have to be the A’s. He’s already talked a lot about that. It could be anything.
ALEX: Or cowardice from the—from the man who refuses to go on the one show that would hold his feet to the fire.
BOBBY: Exactly. Uh, my top-line thoughts from this season are that—whereas last year felt a little bit more predictable in teams of—in terms of which teams were good. This year feels a little bit more chaos. And I’m not even just referring to the Mets. You know, having the—the Mets and Padres really having the highest payrolls and, um, not performing up to those expectations that they put on themselves and that the media put on them, and, you know, that people like you and I put on them, because of how all in they are and how we are expecting that to translate to actually winning. Because when you sign good players, that usually means you’re a good team. Um, it’s not just that, really. It’s like for a long time, the Diamondbacks were in first in the NL West. You know, like the—the Reds are actually good since they called up Elly De La Cruz. The Astros got off to a terrible start. Like, Julio Rodriguez is bad. Like, uh, it just feels a little bit like—
ALEX: That’s—well—all right. Bad. That’s one way to put it.
BOBBY: Well, Julio Rodriguez is under [46:05]
ALEX: Two and a half more player through, but, yes, yeah,
BOBBY: He’s not bad. I just mean, all of these things that we consider to be, um, relatively predictable within an unpredictive—unpredictable world, that is baseball, are seemingly not being taken away from us, but are seemingly becoming less and less reliable. Like, I do feel like we’re in a little bit of a transitional state in terms of like the game’s biggest stars. Like, we—the last couple of years has been a real—and we’ve been touting this as much as anyone else. A lot of young stars, a lot of vibrant personalities dictating the game. But also at the same time, like, a crop of older players who are predictably the best players in the league, almost like without reservation. Like, we can say Mike Trout was the best player in the league, no holds barred, basically from 2012 until, like, his injury-laden season of 2021. And that was, like, reliably predictable. Bryce Harper, best—you know, one of the best players in the league. Uh, we knew who was going to pitch the best. We knew who—you know, like—and it feels like those guys are no longer as predictably great, where—and the younger players that are coming up are, uh, more exciting, fresher, newer, and injecting an energy into the game, but also, like, not quite as predictable as those guys felt. And so, it feels like we’re at a tough—we’re in, like, a tough spot for predicting what teams are going to be good. It feels like we’re at a bit of a crapshoot from that perspective. And it always kind of feels like that to some extent, but more so than usual this season. And I—you know, I was asked by Phoebe’s uncle a couple of days ago, “Who’s gonna be in the World Series?” And I was like, “You’re asking the right questions.” And I just defaulted to saying the Braves, because my—my go-to move is always to try—to try jinx my team’s enemies. So, you know, when the Nationals were—were good, I was always like, “The Nationals are—they got the World Series in the bag this year.” And now that the Braves are good, it’s like who could beat them? No one can—no one can ever beat them. Because I would love to jinx that. And then when I—when I had to say who was going to make it for the AL, I was like, “I don’t think I can name, like, three teams that I feel confident, even like are worthy of being in their World Series from the AL, and that’s not because there are no good teams. Like, the Rays got out to this great start. They were historically good to start the season. Uh, Yankees, slower start, but also have the kind of roster that once it gets healthy—healthy, you can see that being a World Series contender. Um, the Rangers are new to the scene, so it’s kind of hard to trust them, but, like, the results speak for themselves. They’re crushing teams, they’re pitching really well. They’re hitting really well. It’s like there are plenty of good—the Astros, you know, are historically great the last five or so years, and there’s no reason to believe that they’re actually not that good anymore. So, there are plenty of teams that are, like, worthy of talking about making to the World Series. But just whereas the league was more stratified, and it was like, “All right. It’s gonna be one of these four teams who’s probably gonna win the World Series.” Basically, since we started doing this podcast, it feels like there’s a little bit more parity. To be clear, I think that that is a good thing. I think that’s a good thing for the game, because I think that it—it just gives more optionality to the fan.
ALEX: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of what we may be expected about the season is somewhat upside down, right? I mean—I mean—and it’s interesting to think about what the—sort of broader takeaways on the part of teams might be in the coming years, right? A lot of big market teams. Teams have spent a lot of money. Teams like the Mets and the Padres are sort of flailing a little bit, right? And you’re seeing these plucky, upstart teams with rookies and guys on single-year contracts. Guys like—teams like the Pirates and the Marlins who are, like, kicking you know, who are hanging—hanging in there.
BOBBY: Yeah. Well, not the Pirates.
ALEX: Well—okay. No, but—no, uh, yeah. They’re—okay. Games under—under .500 is not very good. Um, my perspective on what’s good these days is very skewed. So if you’re playing above, like, .200 baseball, I’m like, “Okay, you got something there.”
BOBBY: What’s crazy to me is that the AL East is still—all—everyone is over .500 and everyone happens to have solidly positive run differential.
ALEX: Everyone is just really good.
BOBBY: It’s like—uh, that is like a statistical anomaly.
ALEX: Meanwhile, no one in the AL Central is in—remotely interested in winning baseball games these days.
BOBBY: That’s tale as old as time stuff, though.
ALEX: Yeah, it is. But I—but I agree with—it—it feels a little more topsy-turvy this year. And we’re seeing things happen that—whether it’s due to the rule changes or just sort of the—the level of player these days, that have not happened in a while. We’re seeing someone challenged for the batting title. He’s not going to. Luis Urias is not gonna hit .400, but it’s insane that we’re sitting here having that discussion. Ronald Acuña probably won’t go 40/80 this year. Although, I wouldn’t be able to say definitively that he won’t. I don’t know. It does feel like a little uncharted territory.
BOBBY: 40/80.
[laughter]
BOBBY: That’s just absurd. Sorry, I just—it took me—
ALEX: That’s like—
BOBBY: —a second to process. I was like, “40—40/40 I know, but what is the—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: “—80 that you’re referring to?”
ALEX: It’s hard to, like, wrap your head around.
BOBBY: Yes. I’m looking forward to the second half, because I’m looking forward to clarifying some of these sort of uncertainties. You know, like by this point, in many years past that we’ve been doing the show, we had a clearer picture at the top. We had the—we had the Dodgers and Astros on pace to historically good records. Last year, we had the Yankees who were actually on pace to break the Mariners’ single-season record, and they fell off for, like, a whole month last year, but they were still a really great team. And so, you know, there are—there are just more potential outcomes this year. I said that about the Rays to being off to their incredibly hot star and, you know, building up such a lead, and then it took me until just now, checking the standings to see that the Orioles are only two games behind them. So, um, I think we’re just at a fascinating— right at a fascinating period and I look forward to talking about each one of these individual teams with you next week, when we do our Alex chooses a new team podcast. If you’re listening to this right now and you were intending on making a case to Alex for why he should root for either your team or just a team that you’ve identified as who would be a good fit for him. Um, you are running out of time to make that pitch. We are recording this on Monday evening, July 10th. We are recording that podcast on Tuesday evening, July 11th to be banked for next week. And so if you’re hearing this and you wanna make one last effort to pitch to Alex, the number is 785-422-5881. You can also write into our email, tippingpitchespod@gmail.com and make your compelling case. We have a ton of submissions already. I’m actually—I’m really excited for this gonna have to collate—collate those for us before we record tomorrow. But people have really made their cases, impassioned cases, and I think that even if you don’t become a die-hard living and breathing fan of any of these teams after going down this rubric, I think it will be clarifying in our modern times how these organizations are operating, and which teams are just gonna get straight thrown out versus which teams are gonna actually be, like, worthwhile contenders. So, is there anything you want to tell people, you know, sort of as a preview—not necessarily for people who are calling in or whatever, but sort of as a preview for how you are organizing your rubric before next week? Is there anything you want to tell me? Because I actually haven’t looked at that. I actually don’t [53:52]
ALEX: I know. We haven’t really talked about this.
BOBBY: We haven’t talked at all.
ALEX: We haven’t talked at all. You know, I think it’s really gonna run the gamut. I have a few sort of overarching categories with, um, more specific details under each one—you know, looking at things like team aesthetics, looking at things like team performance and player likability. What is the culture around the team look like? Both from the fans’ perspective, you know, um, what is the broadcast booth like? What are the traditions? And, um, and who’s your owner? What’s the—what’s the ownership like? Um, I’ve been burned once doing my due diligence this time.
BOBBY: So, are you committing to the fact that whatever team you choose, you personally cosign that owner? That you would like to be friends with that owner, that you think that owner is a good person, morally upstanding citizen of the United States of America?
ALEX: Right. Exactly. Like with anything in life, there’s only ethical consumption under capitalism. So, whatever you can—
BOBBY: Right. That—
ALEX: —assume you are ethically and morally cosigning.
BOBBY: Exactly. And they’re—you know, there are bunch of good—
ALEX: So, yeah, there’s a lot riding this. There are a lot of good owners out there. You know, a couple bad apples, but there’s a ton of good owners.
ALEX: As I said, last week, many of them—many of them had the right idea.
BOBBY: I forgot we had that. I should have been referencing that more, so I could drop it in this week.
ALEX: Maybe billionaires got the right idea.
BOBBY: God, that’s so good. Okay. Thank you to everybody for listening to this week’s episode of the Tipping Pitches podcast. A reminder, if you are in New York later this month, just a couple of weeks from now, basically, you know, a little under three weeks from now, Tipping Pitches Community Meetup, uh, Saturday, July 29th at the Brooklyn Cyclones. Tickets are available for that, link in the description. Oh, and one final piece of housekeeping, uh, another future episode that we are planning is going to be a milestone episode. Haven’t yet delineated exactly what we’re doing for that on the podcast, but we have a great idea for all of you. But that great idea requires short answer questions, yes or no questions, or questions that can be answered in just a couple of sentences. That’s all I will say about it. There is a—an ongoing form that you can submit questions for, that is also linked in the description. And we will be tweeting that out occasionally over the next couple of months as we plan this milestone episode. It’s gonna be a long time in the making, but, um, I’m really excited for it. So that’s all I will say on that. Thank you to everybody for listening. Thanks to those who signed up for the Patreon. Thank you to those who continue to sign—to—to continue to be a part of the Patreon. We really appreciate you all. And, uh, now that I’ve done all of my emceeing for the week, we will be back next week.
SPEAKER 3: Could it be the same? I set the [56:24] are you listening? Read between the [56:33]
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody, uh, I’m Alex Rodriguez. Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most. Tipping Pitches. So, we’ll see you next week. See ya!
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