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Baltimore Orioles Negotiating to Renew Lease at Camden Yards

ByKristen Bentley|

BALTIMORE, MD. - APRIL 29: An aerial view from a drone shows the Camden Yards baseball stadium on April 29, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland. Baseball season has been put on hold due to states enacting stay-at-home orders and banning all non-essential travel to slow the spread of the coronavirus. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

The home of the Baltimore Orioles, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, is repeated named one of the best parks in the MLB.

Clearly, the Baltimore Orioles home is also favored by the Angelos family who owns the team and wants to keep it in Charm City.

As the patriarch of the family, Peter Angelos, is getting on in age, the family wants to renegotiate and open the park to different uses.

Ballparks were once iconic places for concerts, as Shea Stadium once hosted The Beatles and Jimmy Buffett has put on memorable shows at Wrigley and Fenway. Originally, Peter Angelos did not want anything other than baseball played there. But, his sons are of a different mind, as they approved the Billy Joel concert in 2019.

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It looks like the new lease will include allowing more concerts and other events at the stadium, which is owned by the Maryland Stadium Authority. And, the MSA is funded by taxpayers. So, if the stadium can earn more income by opening up the gates to concert goers and other events, it benefits the people of Maryland.

Getting fans into the park for other events might encourage them to visit the park for its original purpose: baseball. But, the stadium was not originally designed for more than baseball, and according to Jeff Barker with The Baltimore Sun, the stadium does not have enough places for fans to congregate outside of the green seats. Newer stadiums are being built to accommodate social spaces, and Camden Yards was built to showcase baseball games.

With the pandemic, some stadium authorities in other states have struggled to pay their debts. But, Camden Yards receives money from the Maryland lottery. The bonds that the citizens of Maryland backed were paid off in 2019, and there is still some debt on M&T Bank Stadium.

Lottery money will continue to flow into Camden Yards, which could be used to make the stadium more socially friendly. The money also helps to improve the iconic warehouse, which can also bring more money into the purse if entrepreneurs decide to open businesses there.

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