Nationals GM Mike Rizzo joined the Sports Junkies on Wednesday morning for his first segment of 2023, and a few hours later, Brian Mitchell and Scott Jackson (in for JP Finlay this week) played a clip from Rizzo’s interview where he discussed the recent decline in attendance at Nationals Park.
The key phrase, on Scott’s mind, was “the fan base has stuck with us, but you get the fan base that you deserve, and fans want to be around teams that win.”
Listen to the discussion starting at about 32:00 in!
The Nationals haven’t done much of that since winning the World Series in 2019, but in Brian Mitchell’s mind, Rizzo is, and always has been, on the right track in dealing with a fan base hungry for another winner.
“I think Mike Rizzo knows how to say the right things; he knows the fans trust him, and the other franchises in this town could take a lesson from that,” BMitch said. “Fans like to be around teams that win, and will trust you if you do. He’s done it recently enough that fans trust what he says, and other teams around here haven’t done that as recently. Nobody cares about what you did in the past.”
“I think people are understanding that there’s a lot of stuff way out of his control with ownership and the MASN debacle that’s holding them back,” Jackson said, “but there’s no help on the horizon, so he has to work with the players and the budget he’s been given. I thought they could’ve slow-played the Soto deal a little longer, but that it what it is.”
The ownership quagmire is what it is as he said, but to Jackson’s point, there’s a trust there that only one other team in the city seems to have, even in a down year like this one was.
“All that said, he is 100 percent right about fans in this town,” Scott said. “We are an event city, and the Commanders have gotten the fans they deserved over the last several years, and the Wizards as well – they get a lot of “out of town” fan base. And the Caps, who do have people in there rocking the red every night…I’ve gone to every sporting event we have, and I went to the Caps game last and it was like I was in a different city!”
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“The Caps aren’t in the payoffs this year, but they usually are, and they have a generational player who might be the best athlete in this town ever,” BMitch replied. “I think when you have all that working for you, your fans support you that way. That’s how they supported the football team when I got here – you have to be doing something consistently enough to where they’re willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. The Nats, when Rizzo speaks, people truly listen, because he’s accountable.”
The Nationals will be hosting the Orioles soon, and that series always draws well based on proximity, but even modest success on the field will go a long way.
“They can win over a lot of people, because everyone came into this season expecting nothing,” Mitchell said, “but if they can win some games and compete and show us something, I think a lot of people will start believing in that.”
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