XM pays off again

So I was listening to XM 175, which is MLB Home Plate, this afternoon. As I turned on my car this afternoon, the "The Show" with Kevin Kennedy and Rob Dibble was on. And the guest of the day was our very own Jim Bowden.

Now I tuned in a little late, so I didn't hear everything. The topic they were on was that of ownership. Jim was explaining that his take on the situation was that he anticipated an ownership announcement after the World Series, and that ownership team taking control quickly after that. Kevin and Rob then asked about the current situation. Jim explained that while one of the scouts had a long term contract, he didn't think it wise to do any other long term staff or management contracts since he anticipated that the new owner would want to do it their way. He then explained that it made the most sense for the Nationals organization to make it easy on the new owners to take control and put their own people into place.

Kevin and Rob, after the interview closed, noted that the Nationals had a great year, and did much better than anyone anticipated. They pointed out that Washington had "an amazing fan base", totalling the 2.7 million fans for the games, and that they anticipated it would only get better with the new stadium.

Nate and I talked on the phone after this, and I relayed this to him. My observations on the topic were the following:

1. From a business perspective, Jim is right. He's positioning the Nats new owner to be able to put people into place quickly, rather than displace/disturb/deal with existing deals for the internal staff.

2. I was pleased with the "national level" coverage. We focus so much on the Washington press, bloggers, etc, that sometimes it's nice to step back and look at the perspective of those who are looking at the bigger picture.