One of my favorite parts of twitter is how I fight with @metsbillboard but i get along with @saltygary, and it’s the same person.
Gary/Billboard and I go back and forth on twitter and we decided to do a back and forth email so we could have a longer discussion.
SS: Our latest round of discussions started with you mentioning Kickstarter Round 2 and some sort of positive message from Mets fans to ownership. I don’t get it at all. I get the angry billboard, but I don’t see why Mets fans should chip in to do a pro-Mets billboard. Presumably the Wilpons should advertise their own team.
GP: If we wanted to keep the existing billboards we needed to do another Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds this month. I reached out to the original backers along with some people that I knew missed out backing the first time and were really supportive.
The main points they kept making is that we need to keep up the existing boards because they felt that they have had an impact.
Whether it was Fred Wilpon making his daily presence known at Tradition Field or obtaining some bullpen help, they felt that our message was one of the many reasons why that occurred.
The other message they stressed is that we are not fulfilling our mission statement which is “We love the NY Mets and believe the owners are not responsible stewards of the team”. We nailed the Wilpon part but supporters wanted to make sure the team knew we did this because we love the Mets and want the best for them. So they asked if we can add a positive billboard into the portfolio. I personally was not expecting this at all but after I sat on it, it made all the sense in the world. Now it’s about presenting it in a way that makes sense to others as well. So we are creating some concept art now that we will share soon and as long as funding is achieved, backers will get to vote on the design.
As for why should Mets fans should create a positive message opposed to their own team or why not just buy a “The7Line” T-Shirt that you suggested on twitter, I feel the simple answer is that our way is organic. No one is making money off of this campaign, and supporters have control over the message. It’s our message not the message of a marketer trying to make money. So it just has a different feel to it.
SS: Terry Collins said something along the lines of if you want to spend $6000 feed the homeless, which echoes something I said on twitter when we first started discussing the billboards. So rather than bogging down in how people spend their money (I spend too much of mine on coffee and donuts), have you considered such an approach, perhaps a “Sell The Team 5K” or a “Sell The Team, Feed The Hungry” type campaign?
GP: We did look at it. We saw at the end of the Jets billboard campaign that they used some excess cash to do something really positive (they also just raised money for a Jets fan that I advertised on my twitter handle and gave to). Our main issue is KickStarter will not allow us to advertise that we will put aside funds for charitable giving. I can do it on the “GoFundMe” platform but that is really just a straight giving tool and it would take peoples money whether we raised the goal or not (there is a all or nothing option in GoFundMe but not as strong).
So I prioritized accountability for the movement. The last thing I would want is to not raise enough to meet the goal, and still take any money given. Kickstarter doesn’t allow that to happen. People work too damn hard for their money and I don’t take that responsible lightly. So if we were to go beyond our goal there are targets mapped out it’s just not something I want to discuss until that reality is there. It’s important to set the proper expectations.
SS: Right or wrong I had predicted a few articles on Opening Day and then everyone would move on. Now that we’re on the other side of the opener, do you feel like you have momentum?
GP: I think about your prediction daily and what we can do to stop that from being the reality. The most likely answer is, we will have no control over this when it eventually does occur. At some point we all understand the billboards will come down this season barring any new wild Wilpon news. For the immediate future I will know whether this Kickstarter will prevail or not by this weekend.
(Monday’s) article was a very different write-up than the previous ones and it hit nationwide in print and online. I have had some very random people that I have not spoken to in years from around the country reach out to me today. So it’s now clear we have officially broken out of that social media bubble. We had a good Kickstarter funding day, and sold some shirts. There were also a lot of questions from people that wanted to have a better understanding of our motives. So either they will decide that they want to be apart of this and give it a little more time or they will be satisfied in what we did and choose to bring it to a close. I personally would like to see this though into May and re-evaluate but it’s not about me it’s about the fans and they will be the ones to decide.
SS: Who would you have the team sold to? I worry that the next owners would be worse.
GP: Oh, “the devil you don’t know can be worse than the devil you do” argument. I think the Wilpons don’t bring enough to the table to warrant ignoring their transgressions.
Teams cost a lot of money so you most likely need a private business or a group of wealthy people. I personally would rather see a group of owners. That way if one owner takes a financial hit the other owners can help mitigate that issue. Would we all love a Stewart/Seinfeld group, probably but I don’t know if that is something that’s in the cards. I just want owners that are able to do what is right for players and the fans and end the drama of discrimination lawsuits, multiple Ponzi Schemes, and real estate land grabs.
SS: Final question from me, and I’ll leave it open to you to add whatever else you want. Does it bother you when guys like David Wright or Terry Collins don’t seem all that interested in it?
Oh no not at all. What are they going to say, “Yea they are right I am sick of the owners holding this team back”? I personally would rather reporters not ask them about it but understood the reality if this took off.
What many fans just don’t grasp with this whole campaign is we are doing this to support the team. This entire mission is about fighting for them so they have enough to be relevant and competitive. So while I am positive about many things that are happening to the team, the realities of a hand cuffed ownership group will not go away. It looks like David is hurt and he is that cornerstone player the Mets can’t afford to lose for a while. Ownership was not able to add any impact players and Sandy re-iterated the other day on the Jonah Keri podcast that he can’t add a high impact player because he doesn’t have the payroll flexibility. So now with David’s early absence there is so much more pressure on guys like WIlmer Flores and to me it’s just not fair to him or the team. Let’s hope the Captain can bounce back soon, we need him.
