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11/29/2006
PressBox Baltimore Sports
Stan 'the Fan' Charles
Life Is a Real Blast for Ed Hale
Stan "the Fan" sits down with Ed Hale to discuss the owner's love affair with the Blast and how he thinks Baltimore needs a new mid-size arena.
Edwin Hale, Sr., 59, was born in Highlandtown and raised in Sparrows Point, Md. Hale attended Sparrows Point High School and Essex Community College. From 1991 to 1994, he was Chairman and CEO of Baltimore Bancorp, which was then acquired by First Fidelity Bancorp in March of 1994. Since May of 1995, he has served as Chairman and CEO of 1st Mariner Bank, one of the fastest growing banks in both Maryland and the United States. The bank has more than 20 branches in Baltimore, Harford and Anne Arundel Counties, as well as Baltimore City, employs more than 700 people and has reached more than $1.3 billion in assets. In 2003, 1st Mariner Bank purchased the naming rights to the Baltimore Arena for $75,000 a year over 10 years. Hale originally purchased the Baltimore Blast in September of 1989 and was with the team until the end of the 1991-92 season. During that time, Hale served as Chairman of the original MISL's Executive and Marketing Committees. The team won two division championships and averaged 8,500 fans per game at Baltimore Arena during Hale's first tenure. In 1998, he took over the NPSL's Baltimore Spirit franchise and subsequently changed their name back to the Blast. Hale also founded Hale Trans, a national shipping company. Hale is one of the largest employers in the state. ***
Stan Charles: What initially aroused your interest in owning the Baltimore Blast? When was that?
Ed Hale: I [first] owned the Blast in 1988. There was talk of expansion, with Baltimore getting a football team, so myself and some friends got together. I [would have been] the lead guy, like Al Davis, and I thought, "I'll try it and see what happens." Well, we got stiffed, and [the football expansion went] to Jacksonville and Carolina, so we didn't have a team. One day, Dennis Rasmussen, who was the Baltimore County executive, calls up and says, "Hey, Eddie…The Baltimore Blast is going to move out of town to go to Cincinnati." I said, "What?" You know, I wasn't a big fan, I didn't go to the games. And I said, "Really, they're going to leave town? "Oh yeah, they're gonna leave." So, [coach] Kenny Cooper comes over to see me. He explained to me that they're going to leave because there's not enough support, there's not this, not that, you know. I think it was Red Scher that was...
SC: Red Scher was the owner?
EH: Yeah, he was a little unhappy and he was going to sell [the organization] to somebody. So, I said, "OK, I'll take a look at it." I did virtually no due diligence. I figured, me being a Baltimore guy, people are going to support me. I did it, and immediately lost a fortune. By any standard it was a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars. But I ended up loving the game -- it was really neat. And I got engrossed in the business aspect of it. I liked the players.
SC: Your players are definitely different than the stereotypical "professional athletes" in this country.
EH: Yeah, they're educated, intelligent, normal-sized human beings that are playing a tough sport. Anyway, I went ahead and [invested in the Blast]. The players were organized by the NFL Players Association and there were huge losses by lots of owners, in addition to myself. I decided that I would take a more active role in negotiations with the NFL Players Association, which was Gene Upshaw, Dick Berthelsen and all those guys, so I became the lead person negotiating. It was, I think, 1992. I told them, "If you guys don't reduce the salary cap, we're outta here." And, in fairness to those guys, they said, "Well, if you reduced the salary cap to nothing, if the players played for nothing, you assholes would still lose money." (Laughter) I said, "You know what, you're right." (Laughter) I was chairman of the Bank of Baltimore at the time, and had a meeting and brought everybody in and got it done. Don Carter used to own the Dallas Mavericks and the Sidekicks. And I said, "What do you guys want to do?" And he said, "I'd like to make a motion to disband the league." So it happened, boom, just like that.
SC: And that's when Bill Stealey came in to create a whole new league, right?
EH: Yeah, a whole new league, which was a non-union league, the same players, playing for less money, called the NPSL. Anyway, I felt like I was so close to the sport that I didn't want to get [to the point] where I was paying my players virtually nothing. I didn't feel good about that. So, I took a pass and I opted not to [involve myself with the new league]. Some of the other owners converted into the other league. So I got back into it, I really did miss it. I got a call, I guess in 1996, there was about a three-year period where I didn't own the Blast, Stealey had it. So I get a call: "Would you do it?" And I said, "Yes." So, I got back into it.
SC: Has the MISL improved since your first time around?
EH: The biggest problem in our league is the ownership. I think we're taking a more professional look at the way things work and the way people get into the league, who they are, where they've been, what kind of character they have, what their credit report looks like. So we're doing more in-depth investigations than we'd ever done before. Actually, we have three good owners coming in.
SC: Like John Hantz of the Detroit Ignition?
EH: Yeah. He's pretty sharp. In addition to this, we have a guy who is the vice-chairman of Lehman Brothers and is building the arena in Newark. His name is Jeff Vanderbeek. I've never met him, but we checked him out and he comes across as stellar. A guy named Sham Maharaj out of Orlando; he owns a bunch of hotels all over the Southeast and Orlando, very sharp guy. He came across strongly as well. And the last guy, his name is Salinas, in Mexico. He owns the arena where the Monterey team used to play, but he also owns Telemundo, which is a big network in Mexico.
SC: With the history of the league, what would lure somebody into MISL right now?
EH: I think having more financial stability; that we can show that we have a track record. It's a fun sport… and it's entertainment, but I think communicating that to people, and that you're not going to get killed financially, i.e. hockey. In hockey, you pay a lot of money to lose a lot of money. The operating losses people have [in hockey] are just unbelievable.
SC: And this is mostly based on the cost certainty of having done away with the Players Association?
EH: I think it's a combination of many things. We know what works for us. You have to play on weekends, you have to have full-time staff, you have to have full-time players who have a certain amount of professionalism, all while keeping your expenses in line. We're a very good place to advertise. You can promote yourself at the arena, on dasher boards in each arena in the country and you're going to be hitting the moms and pops with kids, the big consumers.
SC: Now, you've been bitten, as you said, by the soccer bug a little bit, despite the fact you never played. Is soccer's growth translated well into the professional game?
EH: Well, right now, half of my team [is made up of] Americans from UMBC, Loyola and other places. Kevin Healey's son is one of the best players in the country, he's playing for Towson. All of the coaching they've had from guys like Kevin Healey and his son Patrick, it's a classic example. This translates into better players here in the United States. Although this year was a bad year in the World Cup, we've given a pretty good account of ourselves in previous years. Before, soccer [was] a fifth-tier sport, but because of the coaching and the continuity, things are getting better. We have great athletes here in America playing the sport.
SC: It's pretty amazing. In fact, you've had several kids in your camps over the years whoare now playing for you.
EH: Yep. P.J. Wakefield, Billy Nelson … these guys are great guys, good players. They promote our team, and they play well. Incidentally, everybody wants to trade for Billy Nelson, Giuliano Celenza and P.J. Wakefield. If I traded any one of the three of them, their mothers and fathers would kill me. (Laughter) I would never let these guys go. They're homegrown, positive forces that really blend in well with the guys that we have.
SC: Would you say that the Blast are still standing, despite the fact that you lost millions of dollars from the work that Kenny Cooper did years ago?
EH: Well, Kenny put soccer on the map and the timing was good, because it was a new sport. It was a phenomenon. The Colts were gone so the timing was good. He capitalized on it. Some people will blow an opportunity, but Kenny was the last guy to blow an opportunity.
SC: Was it difficult at all for you to let coach Tim Wittman go after he was involved in an altercation with a game official or did the league force you to relieve him of his coaching duties?
EH: Well, it was not just the league, it was FIFA. There's a prohibition against anybody acting the way Wittman did, so the decision was not mine. I called up and I said, "Can we just wait until the end of the year?" They said, "Absolutely not, this is the way it's going to be." There were no ifs, ands or buts. There was no appeal that I'm aware of.
SC: Have you talked to Tim at all?
EH: I talked to him all through the process and then we moved on and got [Danny] Kelly in [as coach], and we just moved on from that.
SC: I've talked to Kevin Healey many times and he said that he had come to apply for a job with you in banking and happened to mention as an aside that he put a lot of time on the side into soccer.
EH: Well, we're sitting around this table and he said to me, "I'm interviewing for a comptroller job," which is No. 2 to the CFO. So I said, "OK, I'd like to hire you." And he said, "By the way, I'm pretty active in soccer, and I know you had the Baltimore Blast." And I said, "Really?" He replied, "You know, if you ever get back into soccer," and this is in 1995, "If you ever get back into it, I'd like to take a role [with the team]." I said, "Eh, OK." We hired him, and he became the comptroller and he would do the financial reporting to the board. And, you know, he doesn't look like an athlete.
SC: No, he does not.
EH: No, but then I found out that there was more to Kevin than what met the eye. He's pretty sharp. He knows business and like his father had done before him, had really organized soccer around Baltimore County and Harford. So I received a call about returning to the Blast and I called [Healey] up about getting back in the league. I called him up and said, "Let's talk about this." I had one year where I took over the Baltimore Bays. They were playing indoors and I took [the team] over, and Kevin was doing some of that. Then it got to the point where I was working with Kevin and I was fully immersed.
SC: Recently, you named Kevin Healey president of the Blast. What's going to be different about Kevin's role?
EH: It was an oversight on my part to not make him the president of the club before, because he runs the club. He does. I don't run it, he does. He's so much to the team and the organization. He is the president. He's the CEO. I'm basically the chairman. I don't meddle. I don't interfere. He calls and tells me that we've got to do this, this and this, and then I'll react to it. But I don't tell him what to do or where to go. I'm the opposite of Peter Angelos, the absolute opposite. [Healey] runs things for me.
SC: If you had a 30-second commercial where you could tell people why the Blast is good entertainment, what would you say in it?
EH: You can come out for a reasonable price, when there are not a lot of things going on in Baltimore, and see high-paced, high-scoring, great athletes, good people, normal-sized human beings that are giving it their all because they love the sport. ***
SC: In the early-'90s, you flirted with the idea of opening a new arena.
EH: I'm still doing it.
SC: Why didn't it fly?
EH: Two words: Governor [Donald] Schaefer. (Laughs) He put the whammy on that. I had talked to the people out at the [Maryland State] Fairgrounds about taking the horse track, which was never used... I had them convinced, because the light rail was being built to go out [to the Fairgrounds]. It's right at the intersection of I-83 and I-695, why not put it there? It just made perfect sense. I was talking to them, and I received a call from Governor Schaefer, who I'm friends with. He said, "Eddie, my boy..."
SC: It ain't flying.
EH: No. (Laughter) And I said, "You don't have to hit me with a two-by-four before I figure out which way this is going, it's going nowhere, if you're not for it." So I just walked.
SC: But you must have done your homework on what the economics were. Is it feasible to still think about a new arena in Baltimore without the NHL and NBA?
EH: Well, you just hit on the main point. Back then, I was looking at a 20,000-seat arena, because that was in vogue at the time, you could build them for 100 million bucks at the time. Today, if you build a 20,000-seat arena, it's $250 million. You could get an NBA or an NHL team to come here, because everybody thinks there is a better mousetrap in another city. We have a great fan base in Baltimore. There is a huge audience here, but we don't have the corporate headquarters so one large segment of the revenue that you don't have in Baltimore is the sponsors and the skyboxes. You just don't have it.
SC: Does that mean we're doomed to never have a new arena?
EH: No, it means that you have to take the next look and that is to probably make it 10 to 12,000 seats, and make it better configured, easily accessible and fan friendly. Sacramento just did it in our league for $85 million. It becomes more plausible or more financially viable.
SC: Is it viable and how necessary is it?
EH: I'm the chairman of BACVA, the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. I'm out here promoting Baltimore. When I grew up, I lived in Edgemere and then Pikesville and then in Canton. I've seen everything evolve to where you got rid of all the rust-belt stuff into tourism, into where you have a medical tourism here. Things have changed dramatically. I think that the time has changed, and the time is right to do something that makes financial sense. If I thought the NHL and the NBA could come in here. . .
SC: You'd do it in a minute.
EH: Oh, I would. I think it would be more plausible, you know, you could have a good performer put together for anyone, you can go to the investors and say, "Let's do it."
SC: Would arena football be something you might be interested in taking a look at?
EH: I've been approached by the American Hockey League and Arena Football. I'll think about it. For some reason, I just don't have a feeling like that is going to really catch on.
SC: What is the next step in the process of Baltimore acquiring a new arena?
EH: Well, the first step has to be that the election has to be settled. There [is a need for] people who recognize that the arena downtown has some infrastructure problems. Whoever comes in as the mayor and the governor has to recognize that it's in bad shape. Baltimore's a world-class city without a good arena...the heating and air conditioning and things like this, 1963. I was a junior in high school. These things have to be changed. Otherwise, one day, there's not going to be air conditioning on July 18. That's a huge problem. Also, there's no parking around there and it's not in the greatest neighborhood, either. I loathe to say something like that, because it hurts my business, but it is what it is. So, I think it's going to take somebody on the political side to say, "You know what, it is time for a new arena, and we should have it to become even more of a world-class city." … It's going to take the political will and the will of the private sector. I don't know who else would do it but me. ***
SC: You didn't play soccer, I know that, but I talked to your brother Barry. He tells me tennis was your main sport.
EH: You talked to my brother Barry?
SC: Yeah, I just wanted to find out a few things about your relationship with sports. How did sports shape Ed Hale, the business magnate?
EH: Well, I can tell you that there probably wasn't a waking hour that we weren't playing some sort of sport, myself, my brother, and my friends. We played baseball and football from the time the sun came up until the sun went down. You know, the taped-up balls, everything you had in Pikesville, we had in Edgemere. We had the 9-12 league, I was an All-Star. I played with Ron Swoboda one year.
SC: In baseball?
EH: In baseball. I was a shortstop, good fielder, no hitting skills. I was a little guy. I was pretty nimble, I had pretty good reactions, but I couldn't hit the ball. I was short. When I graduated from high school, I was 5-foot-5, 135 pounds. I have a picture of myself on my football team over here when I played. I was terrible because I was so small. I used to get the shit beat out of me. (Laughs)
SC: How did that help shape you?
EH: Well, I never gave up. I went to practice every night, and these big guys would line up and tackle in practice, so they could just cream my ass. I never let on that it bothered me. I just kept on going and going, never missed practice.
SC: And that has helped you because that's what business is like; it just toughens you up.
EH: That's right. You have to be tenacious, you have to hang in there, you have to follow up, you have to do the best you can every single down. Every time you're playing a point in tennis, that's the way it was.
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