The Orioles’ roster isn’t the only aspect of the organization going through major changes. 

Construction is ongoing for a slew of renovations at Camden Yards, the team’s Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) faces the prospect of the neighboring Washington Nationals departing for another TV partner, new season ticket packages are being offered and the ornithologically bird logo keeps making subtle appearances in team marketing.

The Baltimore Sun sat down with Orioles president of business operations Catie Griggs to discuss the team’s offseason progress on all those fronts and more.

(Editor’s note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.)

Q: No better place to start than the Pete Alonso signing. How have you seen that big of a commitment in a player reflected in the excitement of the fan base?

A: I think it’s something that’s interesting, as a relative newcomer to the market, to see the energy and excitement around this. Our fans have embraced Pete, embraced his family, and we’re certainly seeing that excitement on our end as well. So, it’s been a fun week.

Have you seen that reflected in season ticket sales as well?

We’ve definitely seen — we’ve had a lot of conversations over the last couple of weeks. So, it is very clear fans are excited, and we’re looking forward to welcoming them to the ballpark next year.

Fans walking into Camden Yards next season are going to be greeted by several new upgrades across the stadium. With construction still underway, which of these projects do you think is most going to enhance the fan experience?

We’re always looking at it through the lens of, ‘How do we make sure all of our fans can have the experience they’re looking for?’ We had the smallest video board in Major League Baseball and an audio system that struggled at times, and so the ability to have new boards in the ballpark, which will allow us to highlight moments, data and make sure that we have audio that is equally good throughout the ballpark, is something that I think every single fan who comes in is going to immediately get to experience.

You mention data. What are some of the things that you’ll be able to do with the scoreboard that you weren’t able to do before?

We were able to do a lot with our board, but you couldn’t do a lot at the same time. And one of the things that’s nice about having a larger board to work with and ribbon boards around the ballpark is our goal is to ensure that every fan here at the ballpark can get everything that they would be getting if they were watching at home, and so you would have moments in time or it was, you’re actually looking at pitch speed, but it goes away quickly. Or you’re looking at exit velocity, but that goes away quickly. So, we really just have the ability to go more in-depth with our fans and ensure that, at different points in time, different fans are able to see all of those different data points that make our sport so unique.

How have all the projects been progressing? Is everything still expected to be completed in time for opening day?

Yeah, they’ve been going very well. We’ve had a bunch of folks out here every single day working diligently, and we are really, really excited to get to showcase all of the new offerings to our fans on opening day.

Where do things stand on ground lease talks? With the upcoming Dec. 31 deadline to meet with the Maryland Stadium Authority about it, have any steps been taken to finalize a master development plan?

No, not at this point. So, the way that it was structured was, there was no deadline. It was simply if we hadn’t gotten the information we needed from MSA, we had the ability to call a meeting, and they’ve been wonderful partners. So, we have the information we need at this time. We’ve been very focused on making sure that all of the work inside the ballpark is our priority at this point in time, and we look forward to starting up those conversations at a later date.

Last offseason, you oversaw some changes to the Orioles’ business leadership team that you described as an investment in the “people side of our business.” Among other changes, you made two key hires: Mark Fine for chief marketing officer and Rosina Lanson for chief strategy officer. What kind of impact have they made so far?

Everyone who’s joined and everyone here, frankly, is making a massive impact. We’re trying to do a lot of things here, ultimately with the goal of ensuring that we’re a team where everyone feels welcome, everyone feels wanted. And looking at Mark, it was an opportunity to bring someone who has a great depth of experience from a marketing standpoint, but who ultimately is from Baltimore. This is his team, and so it was being able to wedge sort of best of both worlds as someone who truly understands this team, truly understands this market, truly understands our fans, but has a great depth of experience. With Rosina, she’s coming in from Major League Baseball, has a perspective of what’s best in class around the league. She’s worked hand in glove with teams throughout, and so being able to leverage her knowledge and perspective as we continue to push ourselves to do the absolute best we can for our fans has been invaluable. 

I couldn’t help but notice that the ornithologically correct bird logo has been popping up on many of your social media pages. Is that a tease for the logo to appear on the field sometime this season or in more marketing initiatives moving forward? 

The ornithologically correct bird has been something that was an official mark for us for a long time, and so one of the things we’re looking at is, “How do we make sure that we find different opportunities to leverage different parts of our personality and different parts of our brand?” So, yes, I suspect you will see more of it next season. But no, it does not mean that the cartoon bird is going away. 

Raising season ticket prices is never a popular move for any organization. What kind of feedback did you get from fans about the new Birdland Membership plans, especially those who might have had to change their seats?

To your point, change is always hard. We didn’t increase individual tickets dramatically, but we did change packet sizes, and I recognize that the impact is a larger dollar commitment up front. One of the things that is going to come into play over the next couple of months is we have the opportunity for our Birdland Value Members to sell us tickets back. So, if they look and say, ‘You know what, I’m not going to go to 20 games. Maybe I want to go to 14,’ which coincidentally is the number of Sundays we have this year. We have the opportunity for them to sell us back those tickets to the games that they aren’t going to go to, and use that as renewal credit toward future seasons. So, we want to make sure that we are setting our fans up for success, but we also recognize that we want to be following the best-in-class examples of baseball, and 13-game packages and 29-game packages aren’t what are being done in other markets for a reason.

MASN is in a very different place than it was a year ago after you all reached a settlement with the Nationals that gave them the option to part ways this offseason. Where do those talks stand, and are you hoping they remain with MASN next year?

I think we had a great season on both teams’ fronts from a MASN standpoint. We worked together in a different way than we had been able to previously. At this point, we are waiting for them to give us a final decision of where they will be next season.

With MLB’s media rights deals all lining up to expire in 2029, are the Orioles interested in a TV future on MLB’s in-market streaming platform, or you looking to stay on MASN streaming long term?

I think the reality is there’s a lot of time between now and 2029, and the media landscape is evolving quickly. So, it’ll be better to make that assessment closer to that date.

Have any attempts been made to kindle talks with YouTube TV, Hulu, FuboTV or Sling to get MASN on their streaming platforms?

Yes, those are conversations that we are having, that we have had. We are not unique in not having relationships with them. Their investment thesis to date has not generally included RSNs (regional sports networks), but we’re continuing to push for every opportunity to make sure that all of our fans can get access to it. So, we are having those conversations, but that’s one of the reasons it was so important for us to be able to successfully launch a direct-to-consumer offering earlier this year.

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