Business of Baseball, Private College Costs, the Hospitality Industry and Scams!

On today’s program, Tim Zue, chief financial officer for the Boston Red Sox joins us to discuss the business of baseball. Doug Banks executive editor of the Boston Business Journal talks about the escalating cost of private colleges. Patrick Lyons of the Lyons Group shares his thoughts about the hospitality industry, and finally Boston Globe reporter Ian Philbrick examines scams targeted at young people and the elderly.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the New England Business Report with Joe short
Sleeve and Kim Carrigan, a weekly round up in discussion
of the top business news impacting our New England economy.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning, It's a Sunday morning, April the Six. Joe
Shorts with you along with Kim Carrigan here on the
New England Business Report. We are well, we're scorching right
through April at this point, we're staring down some you know,
a lot of different economic news. You know, the good
news is well, the Red Sox are back in town
and you know, Easter is.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
On our doors so far. Joe, well, I guess it is.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, actually got a hit, so yeah, that's a plus.
But you know, Kim, you reached out to Tim Zoo
and he is the CFO, the chief financial officer for
the Boston Red Sox, and he's going to be on
our program today. Talk about a guy who is busy.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Right, Yeah, It's always so fun to talk to Tim.
He's been a real supporter of ours and we appreciate that.
You know, it's been fun to watch some of these
contracts all of a sudden that have been signed, right
and being the CFO, I would imagine he has a
little something to do with how all of that is allocated.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Do you know what I want to ask him about
is about this new up charge for Nessen on my
cable system. Enough, not everybody is seeing it. I saw it.
My channel went dark and I had to pay. I
don't know. So it's over twenty two bucks a month
in addition on my cable bill just to get the
Red Sox back.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, it's I mean, did you it was?

Speaker 3 (01:31):
We did not.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
We have not had to yet, but it'll be interesting
to see if that, if that permeates all the way
across the board. I can't imagine that it won't. You
know what's crazy about this, Joe, is that it costs
you enough to go to the ballpark, so sometimes you
just stay home.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
And now it's just stay home.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, I feel like if I don't watch, I'm losing money.
That's no kidding, all right, So we're going to talk
to Tim Zoo. That'll be a great conversation, I'll guess.
We talked to Doug Bang, executive editor of the Boston
Business Journal, and we knew we knew it was known
to happen, it was coming. How much does college cost
these days, Well, if your daughter wants to go to
Wellesley College, we've hit the hundred K mark.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Okay, it's rare that I think to myself, Gosh, I'm
glad my kids are out of college and they're moving on.
This is one of those moments where I think, Wow,
thank goodness.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, well it's not only I mean, I guess Toss
is also at one hundred K mark, but I mean
it's you know, you go all the way down the
list on the BBJ here, I mean you get to assumption,
they're at seventy three K. I mean, it's like that
feels like a bargain at this point.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Unfortunately, that is exactly right. They come up to the
second half of the hour. We just mentioned this boys
this summer are back, and of course that means life
around Finway Park starts to really bustle. So we're going
to talk to one of the biggest restaurant owner groups,
entertainment groups. The head of it, Patrick Lyons, is going
to join us. You know, they have twenty different types

(02:56):
of venues. They have many beyond that because they have
duplicates all across the country, but they certainly have a
lot of them. Right there on Lansdown Street and around
around the park, and this is an important time for them.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
So we're going to talk with Patrick Lyons about.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
What well, you know, usually we talked to one of
his vice presidents running these individual restaurants, you know, very
nice people. But Patrick Lyones himself wanted to be on
this program, you know. And here he is. This guy.
He's got, as you said, holdings in six states at
this point, and you know, obviously well known for a
Samsey on Newbury Street and scam home. But you know
how he started making his money, Kim in high school

(03:32):
and late and early the early years after high school.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Tell me fake id's yeah, he talks about it, you know,
something that's the bane of his existence. He should be
able to spot a fake I E. That's for sure,
all right.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Also coming up, we're going to talk about you know,
these scams. Oh man.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
We all know about scams. We've all been warned about scams.
But the problem is, no matter how many times were warned,
we seem to for them because they are getting more
and more high tech, they are getting more complex, and
we're going to find out exactly why. I mean, if
you can make the kind of money that these scammers
can make. I guess you go to the kind of
links that they're starting to go to. So Ian Philbrick,

(04:15):
he is a reporter over at the Globe. He's been
looking into this, and we're going to talk to him
a little bit about some of the scams that are
out there and some of the ways that you and
business owners can protect themselves.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
That's all coming up.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, and you assume that this is the elderly that
are really getting hurt here, and guess what it's not.
It's young people in their twenties who are falling for
this stuff. I mean, not tough. Yeah, and we all
have gotten the text or the emails. Now, well you
need to pay your tolls, you know, please sound us
all your financial information right now to this link. No,

(04:47):
and but but people are falling for it.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
And he's got a specific scam that he's going to
share with us that he followed up because it hit
close to home for him. So it's it's really it's
a fascinating story. So make sure that you stay for them.
But first, this morning, Joe, it has certainly been a
weekend full of peanuts and cracker jacks over there at
Fenway Park. Of course, the home opener was Friday. We've
had a weekend stand against his Saint Louis Cardinals. You know,

(05:12):
I am from Saint was originally Oh boy, this is
always a little bit of a.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Thing for my parents. I have to die yet.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
This is the time of the year. Of course, a
Red Sox fans feel rejuvenated and hopeful, and they're wondering
what's in store for a good, long season that they
hope extends right into October. We're joined by Red Sox
CFO Tim Zoo. Always great to have him with us,
and boy, Tim, it's great to have a season underway.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
It makes everybody feel so good.

Speaker 6 (05:38):
Yeah, you know, the start of the baseball season is
kind of the unofficial start of the spring. You know,
the weather starts to turn and we're excited. We're really
excited for the season this year.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
You know, Tim, I'm I think you know, I'm a
diehard fan and I was a season ticket holder for
I think around fifteen years. You know. One of the
things that happened to me recently was this whole chain
change where you can watch nessen my system. It's Exfinity
Comcast is channel eight fifty one and it became a
premium channel. It didn't happen to everybody, but it happened

(06:09):
that people had different cable packages. Will you are you
part of that and can you explain a little bit
about what happened there?

Speaker 6 (06:16):
Yeah, I mean I can explain a little bit. You know,
the cable companies, Exfinity being one of them, have across
the country sort of thought about their regional sports networks
in a different way in the past, and so in
the past, those regional sport networks, including Nesson, including NBC
Sports Boston, including many across the country have been included

(06:38):
on what they called the basic tier. So so sort
of that first you know, cable opportunity, and then this
past year they decided Compcast Diffinity decided so it wasn't
our decision to put it on that next level tier,
So that sort of upgraded tier that has all sorts
of sports networks, including MLB Network and a whole house
including NBC Sports in Boston where the Celtics lived, So

(07:00):
fans that want to watch those games can watch there,
but they can also stream on NESTON three sixty. That's
another option they can subscribe to. Nesson has this great
product where you can watch in your iput iPad, your phone,
you know, outside of the home, inside the home. That's
another option for fans to subscribe to nest In three sixty,
which is a Directors consumer model.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Our guest is Tim Zoo. He's a Red Sox CFO.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Tim.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Let's talk a little bit about what you guys.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
In the front office are especially excited about when it
comes to this new season.

Speaker 6 (07:30):
Yeah, I mean, it's got to be the players on
the field, you know. I think we have had a
great offseason. We traded for Garrett Crochet, who's arguably the
best pitcher in the entire league given his statistics last year,
and he had a pretty good start, you know, I
think on Wednesday where he stayed in a shutout innings
and we just extended him, you know, for another six years.
So he's the type of top of the rotation pitcher

(07:52):
you know, that you want, you dream about. And then
you know, Alic Gregman we added, We've we've added a
lot of other talent, so I think, you know, fans
are really excited. We do a survey of all of
our fans every year. We call it a Fan Interest Survey,
and that average rating of excitement for the season is
as high as it's ever been since twenty nineteen, which
was following the twenty eighteen World Series championship team, and

(08:12):
we won one hundred and eighteen. So we're excited. The
fans are excited, you know. I think the team has
a lot of young, exciting stars, great pitching. Craig Breslow
has really done a phenomenal job putting.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
Together this team.

Speaker 6 (08:23):
So the field, the players in the team on the field,
I'm sorry, are what we're most excited about.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Oh good. I'm talking with Tim Zoo taking a look
at the Red Sox website. Tim's responsible for financial management
of the Boston Red Sox, overseeing the organizations operating budget accounting,
financial planning, forecasting, business analytics, and technology services. So he's
a busy guy. Tim, talk to us about the various
revenue streams that come across your desk. What do you
What's the first thing that Tim looks at when he

(08:48):
sits down and goes, all right, show me the numbers.

Speaker 6 (08:51):
The first thing I look like is the weather forecast.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Ten days out.

Speaker 6 (08:57):
Ticket sales, you know, I mean ticketing is the largest part,
roughly fifty percent of our revenues come from game day revenues, tickets, concessions, merchandise,
hot dogs, beers, et cetera. And that's probably has the
most variability because you know, like I said, we have
a really strong season ticket base, We have a really
strong foundation. But you know, fans look at the weather
when they want to come out, and if it's raining,
they're more less likely to come out, and if it's
beautiful sunshine there, they're more likely. So, you know, ticket

(09:19):
sales is number one. We get revenue from from media,
from television and radio media rights. We get revenue from sponsorship.
We have an incredible list of over one hundred and
twenty sponsors that support the Red Sox. You know, we
host We have a Fenway football game in the fall,
we have events at Benway. The Savannah Bananas are coming.
So those are the core ones. But ticketing is the
one that I certainly focus the most on, you know,

(09:41):
because it's the one, like I said, that can go
up and down for variety of factors.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Well, how is that going, very very early in the
season here.

Speaker 6 (09:48):
Yeah, it's up, it's up. It's doing great. You know,
I think our ticket sales are up across the board.
Season ticket renewal rates are up from prior years think
to the highest again since twenty nineteen. You know, game
tickets are great, you know, overall ticket demands, I mean again,
the fans being excited translates to them wanting to come
out to the ball park, wanted to support this young team.

(10:09):
Pretty much every ticketing metric is up versus last year.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, I'm one of them.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
I'm one of them, right, Yeah, absolutely, so, Tim, let
me go back to the players on the field, because
I think we saw, you know, a time where the
luxury tax sort of did away with some of the lineup.
It looks like the perse strings are loosening a bit
and we're spending some money on some pretty big talent.
You've just named a couple of the players in particular.

(10:35):
What's the mindset change there?

Speaker 6 (10:38):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's a little
bit of a false narrative that that the Red Sox
and John Henry are not willing to invest in players.
If you if you look back on the ownership, since
since John and his team took over in two thousand
and two, we have spent the third most on player salaries,
behind the Dodgers and Yankees who play in a lot
larger markets, and that's been consistent. We've also been the
third team that's been over that luxury tax, the most

(11:00):
of any team other than the Dodgers and Yankees. So
investing in the team on the field has never been
an issue. Now, I will say that, you know, over
the last few years, certainly the team performance has not
you know, met our expectations. And I think this year
we felt like there was the other thing that changes.
We have this young cores, with young core Jaron Duran
and Raphaela and Cassis and you know all these other

(11:23):
players Devers of course that that you can build around,
and so I think this year was sort of the
year was like, hey, we're really ready to really go
for it. You know, we're really ready to supplement this
young core with Alex Bregman and Garrit Crochet and you
know all the other players, and we are over the
luxury tax, you know, this year, and we hadn't been.
The last year I think we were over was twenty
twenty two, but it's not like it's been that long.

(11:43):
But I think, you know, Fander used to the Red
Sox investing in the players, and we've done that and
this year we are with the slugury tax. We're going
to be over the luxury tax. That is sort of
this line that fans look at or you're over or
under are you willing to pay that tax? And we
certainly are.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
You didn't mention Kristin Campbell, I mean, like they had
all the buzz. I mean, and he's got a new
deal too. Tell us about what kind of difference a
player like that next for your organization.

Speaker 6 (12:10):
Yeah, well, certainly, Christian Campbell is a critical foundational player
on this team. He's you know, I think he's hitting
almost five hundred so far in the short season, plays
great defense. You know, I think I didn't mention Christian
because he wasn't a free agent signing right he was.
He was a you know, homegrown player that came up
the ranks. Now, his extension that was that was announced recently,

(12:32):
you know, this sort of eight year, potentially ten year
contract extension. We're thrilled about because we believe that Christian
Campbell is going to be a foundational player for the
Boston Red Sox for now potentially the next ten years.
And that's critical to have those players locked up. You know,
you think about the great Red Sox teams in the past,
they had that home run talent. They had Mookie Best,
had Xander Bogart's, you know, Jackie Bradley Junior. Those are

(12:54):
all players that came up the system. And now we
have Christian Campbell. We also have Marcelo Meyer, we also
have Roman Anthony. Our farm system rankings, even after the
Garrett Crochet trade, I think we're number two or number
three in all of baseball. So, you know, I think
that young talent, Christian being, you know, one of the
critical ones we're really thrilled about. But he wasn't he
didn't you know, it didn't cost as much as Alex Fredman.

(13:15):
So that's maybe why salary's part of the question. But
he's he's no less important to our success.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Absolutely. Tim Zuo is our guest this morning. He's a
CFO for the Red Sox. Let's go back to the
fan experience if we could. What do you guys have
planned special this year? Because, as you said, we got
to get people in those seats, and obviously the most
important thing is winning. But what are some of the
fun things that are planned for the season.

Speaker 6 (13:43):
Tim, Yeah, Well, I mean I think that's a great question.
You know, first of all, we have brand new scoreboards,
which which which which are which were unveiled an opening day,
which are going to just as much chrisper brighter scoreboards
that people will notice that that is. That is one
thing we invested in. You know, I think the things
we're doing, you know, a lot of things with kids.
So we have kids run the bases pretty much every Sunday,

(14:04):
you know, we've done that after the game. We're also
starting this tradition every game the kids are going to
go out on the field with the players. We hadn't
done that every game before and that you know, little
leagues and things like that can get those opportunities to
do that. So it's real big focus on kids and
is one of the things. You know, we have Little
League opening Day coming coming up on April twelfth, you know.

(14:27):
So these are really a lot of things that I
think are focused on the kids. We're always focused on
the fan experience.

Speaker 7 (14:33):
You know.

Speaker 6 (14:33):
One thing we talk about is friction at a Red
Sox game. Friction is lines, line getting in lines, parking
lines at the concession stands, and we're constantly looking a
ways to reduce friction to make that fan experience better.
If somebody has to wait an inning and a half
to get their beer, that's unacceptable, you know, to us.
So we've got some automated ways to check out for concessions.
We've got different line management tools to you know, eat

(14:54):
seat service, a mobile ordering in many areas, I think,
reducing friction for fans and all so making the ballpart
vibrant and fun. You know, we've got these the new
LED lights that help with home run celebrations and some
things just bring energy into the park.

Speaker 5 (15:08):
You know.

Speaker 6 (15:08):
That's another thing.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Tim's is our guest, and Tim you we're talking about
ticket sales, and you've talked about that being your number
one priority. I guess I'm curious as to the platforms
you use to get those fans in the seats. I mean,
is it all social media at this point? I mean,
what are you using to reach that fan?

Speaker 6 (15:24):
Yeah, I mean I would it's a great question. I
would say social media and online digital advertising is number one.
And you know, it's just like any company. It's it's
targeted ads that are targeted to our fans, tailor to
our fans, you know, encouraging them to to sort of
you know, come to the game.

Speaker 7 (15:38):
Now.

Speaker 6 (15:38):
The other thing we're doing is, you know a lot
of Steam nights, you know, so these Steam nights, you know,
we had a Minecraft Movie Night, We've got a Bruins Night,
We've got a Grateful Dead Night, a Hello Kiddy night,
you know. So these are the things where people can
come purchase a ticket, get either a jersey or a
giveaway something that goes with it, and we'll sell four
or five thousand tickets to some of these with some

(15:58):
of these promotions that are that are popular. That's another
thing that we use to sort of target you know,
these these really core fans of some of these things
like Minecraft, for example, if you have a kid that's
really in a Minecraft and come out and get the
Minecraft jersey, you know, and pay twenty five dollars for
bleacher ticket, and you know, that's another thing. But but
from a marketing perspective, it is mostly online search engine

(16:18):
marketing and and you know social, Facebook and Google and
those types of targeted campaigns.

Speaker 7 (16:23):
For sure.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
We listen to Tim, let's talk again in October.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Okay, what do you say.

Speaker 6 (16:30):
Early November hopefully fair enough?

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, we want to see the duck boat, Okay, Kim,
and I want to be on those duck boats.

Speaker 6 (16:39):
Yeah, I will say we've been fortunate. You know, they
allow employees to write on those duck boats that have
been fortunate for them. There is nothing better writing around
Boston with you know, a million, you know, hundreds of thousands,
if not millions of fans screaming, celebrated. That's the goal.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
That's the goal.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
Or let's let's do that absolutely say maybe we'll be
lucky enough to ride in June and then we'll write
again in November. There you go, all right, Timson, thanks
so much for being a part of the show today.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Really appreciate it. And uh ghost socks right.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
Just when you thought college tuition couldn't get any higher, Oh, friends,
it has that story and much more coming up on
the New England Business Report.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
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the Voice of Boston w RKO six 't eighty. Joe
and Kim will be right back.

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Speaker 2 (19:43):
And welcome back to the New England Business Report. On
this Sunday morning, April the sixth, Joe Short said Kim Kerrigan.
Here as usual write about here in the program, we
dial up the executive editor of the Boston Business Journal,
one Doug Banks. He's a regular visitor, Doug. Thanks for
being with us today. Well, Doug, we all know what
was going to happen, right, We were just we were
we didn't know when college costs have hit one hundred k.

(20:08):
Now that you know, that alone is a staggering headline.
But Doug, take us through, where where does it cost
to go to college at this point? One hundred thousand
dollars a year?

Speaker 7 (20:18):
Well, Joe and Kim, thanks for having me. Yes, we
did know this was coming. Every year, tuition costs have
been going up and up and up, and sure enough,
the sticker price for Wellesley College incoming grad undergraduate students
will be one hundred thousand, five hundred and forty one
dollars starting next starting this fall, so the students going

(20:40):
to Wellesley College this fall will have to pay a
sticker price. They're they're looking at a sticker price of
over one hundred thousand dollars. Now that's not just tuition, uh,
that's of course room and board. It includes some costs
that you can take out, like if you don't want
the health insurance, you don't.

Speaker 6 (20:56):
Have to pay that.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
But and then oh, well that's a relief.

Speaker 7 (21:02):
I think they kind of make it mandatory, but then
they also tell you it doesn't really count. And then
that also includes things like you know, estimated transportation costs, books,
you know, things like that, which again you kind of
do have to have them, but you can cut corners
so other schools that are close. So if you're if
you're an international student at Tufts, you're going to pay

(21:23):
over one hundred thousand. And then four different schools broke
the ninety thousand dollars threshold for the first time for
this coming fall, so that the Amherst College brand ice
the only college of engineering in Wellesley and Williams College.
But the thing that to remember is that while yes,
the sticker price is one hundred thousand dollars, most colleges

(21:46):
do offer significant student aid. Wellesley told us they offer
an average annual aid of sixty five thousand dollars per student.
So while that is a sticker price and international students
will often pay full free for example, a lot of
students will not have to pay that exactly that amount.
Most students will be coming in and getting some kind of.

Speaker 12 (22:08):
Aid as well.

Speaker 8 (22:10):
Well.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
I appreciate the idea that some of these schools may,
in fact most of them, you know, do give a
discounted price for whatever reason to students, but that discounted
price is getting higher and higher. I mean, you know,
it's it's going up on the other end. So while
you may, you know, while you may be paying forty
five or fifty thousand bucks this year, next year you're

(22:30):
going to pay fifty five or sixty thousand.

Speaker 7 (22:32):
Right exactly. And that that's you know, no matter how
you slice it, the prices are going up. And it's
coming at a time when a lot of people very
are very vocal. You're seeing a lot of headlines just
questioning the value of a degree shing. You know, a
lot of trade schools that are you know, outfilled the
capacity with students that are you know, a lot less money,

(22:54):
or two year schools. So the value of a bachelor's
degree is absolutely being questioned, and it's coming at a
time when universities are being targeted by the White House.
So a lot of the other revenue options for universities
and IH funding and SF education funding. You know, we
did a story just a week earlier on Massachusetts colleges
that are looking at three point seven billion dollars at

(23:17):
risk from all of the you know, the different research
funding that the White House has said it's going to be,
you know, looking at and potentially cutting well.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Doug Banks and you mentioned it we're talking about saying
tops University. Yeah, there are numbers over one hundred thousand now,
but it was because that's a number for the international students,
and that is another pool that obviously a lot of
these colleges like to get into because they pay full vote.
But that's becoming harder and harder in the current climate.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Correct.

Speaker 7 (23:49):
So absolutely, when yeah, when you look at all of
the the rhetoric from the Trump White House on immigration,
there's a lot and you're seeing, you know, like the
tough student last week that was detained by ice, perfect
example of an international student who you know, was has
now been detained. International students are looking at that and saying, so,

(24:11):
I really want to go to a US school this year,
or you know, maybe I'll go to Canada or another
you know, the European school and and so I think
that is definitely going to be an option for you know,
wealthy international students had been an option, and now I
think that's not going to be as much of an
option for local schools in the next couple of years.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
So, Doug, do you anticipate that, you know, some of
these private schools, maybe some of even the smaller ones,
are going to go by the wayside, and we've already
seen that happening. Are they going to end up collapsing
or what's going to happen here? What's the end result?

Speaker 7 (24:47):
Well, it's a great question. I think the little ivy's,
you know, the dartmouths and the top and the ammers,
they have pretty good size endowments.

Speaker 13 (24:55):
They're going to ultimately be fine.

Speaker 7 (24:58):
The schools that you really want to be looking for
are the ones, like you know, that have merged in
the past, you know, like we saw Mount Ida, you
know close we you know, we're seeing schools that don't
have that are tuition dependent, so they're depending on the tuition.
They're not giving discounts as steep, and they don't have
large endowments. And there's definitely some smaller schools that fit

(25:21):
that category. I know, Clark University in Worcester just cut
three of its degree programs because they have seen enrollment drop.
So when a school you know, like you know, like
Becker College in Worcester, you know, several years back they
closed because enrollment enrollment drops and they're depending on tuition
and they don't have an endowment to backbuild, you're absolutely

(25:42):
going to see more schools that are closing, and you know,
there's a couple of schools that are charging over you know,
seventy thousand dollars that may may not be around in
three or four more years, that's for sure.

Speaker 8 (25:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Well, Wellesley College is the headline on the BBJ, but
right behind it, they have a whole graph here. You
should look it up. Get on the BBJ website, take
a look at it. Harvard is that well, they're just
under one hundred thousand. They're at ninety nine thousand, seven
hundred and thirty four dollars. But you know, okay, so
that's Harvard, right. But you guys over at the BBJ
have another story coming out of Harvard. It has to

(26:13):
do with this whole federal funding under review by the
Trump administration. And there are some big dollars at stake.
There some two hundred and fifty six million dollars in
federal contracts.

Speaker 13 (26:25):
Yeah, and in.

Speaker 7 (26:25):
Fact, they're looking the Trump administration similar to what it
did against Columbia University in New York. The Trump administration
is going after Harvard as part of its Joint Task
Force to Combat Anti Semitism.

Speaker 13 (26:39):
So they're using anti Semitism.

Speaker 7 (26:40):
Club and they're reviewing as much as eight point seven
billion dollars in the federal grants that are going to Harvard,
and they're using it as a giant stick to force
Harvard to come in line with the White House's policies
on anti semitism. So, you know, the funds that they're
looking at are Health and Human Services fund, caation funding,

(27:01):
and it puts Harvard in the same light that Columbia
was in just a few weeks ago, forcing Harvard to
review all of its antisemitism policies, and you know, the
just decide where they want to draw the line and
how much they're willing to risk losing federal funding. Now again,
they've got you know, a massive endowment, over fifty billion dollars,

(27:23):
but it's not something that they want to necessarily, you know,
have to dip into to make up for billions in
lost federal funds. So there's there's a lot going on
on college campuses across Massachusetts. We are certainly home to
more per capita than any other state. A lot of
them are elite private schools, and while a lot of
them do have money, you're seeing a lot that it's

(27:45):
going to be a lot of challenges, a lot of
concerns on campuses or in and arount Boston, and.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
You'll have it all covered on the BBJ. He's Doug Banks,
Executive Editor. Thanks for taking time in joining us on
the New England Business Report on this Sunday morning. Up next,
we're going to be talking with the one, the only
Patrick Lyons of the Lions group, but about all his
various entertainment holdings. That's coming up, Kim and Joe.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
We'll explore more business news that impacts our New England
economy when they return.

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Speaker 4 (30:20):
All right, everybody, welcome back to the New England Business Report.
I'm Kim Karra going along with Joe Schwartzley've great to
have you with us this morning. Quick remind you that
coming up in just a couple of minutes we're going
to chat with the head of the Lions Group, Patrick Lyons.
But first we take a little get some of the
headlines that maybe you've missed. And Joe, I just got
such a charge out of this because this is such
an example of how we think we're so advanced, and

(30:41):
yet sometimes there are things that we can't find. Dana
Gerber in the Boston Globe wrote this, after a year's
long haunt the Internet, finally found a Dean's Furniture commercial
with its famous catchphrase, now do you remember these commercials?
They ran a lot, apparently during your Red Sox games,
and at the very end, Dean Weinstein, who was the

(31:04):
owner of this furniture store, would always say, I doubt it,
and he said this in a very Boston accent. Well,
this came up and there was this group of young
people who were doing some research on these catchphrases and
these commercials that people can remember, like Duncans, you know,

(31:24):
making the donuts or whatever the case may.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Be, got all these Eylawn right exactly.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
They thought they could produce this easily. They started going
back and for the life of them, they could not
find this on tape to prove that this was the catchphrase.
And there was something about the cadence in the way
that he said it that they were trying to duplicate.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
It took a year of searching. Now can you imagine that.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
You go for a year trying to find this and finally,
after a year, they finally found a cop of one
of the commercials in.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Some archives way, you know, deep in the world, and.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
We're able to prove that, yes, I doubt it was
actually their catchphrase and that they had the market on it.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
I don't know if it resonates with you know, where's
the beef? But you know exactly Okay, As promised, Kim
and I have reached out to Patrick Lyons of the
Lions group. Normally we do this around opening day because
you got game on and the bleacher bar there, and
they're owned by the Lions Group and we're always curious
as to the impact of opening day and the finances

(32:37):
and all these restaurants in the Fenway area. So we
reached out to the Lions Group, but we didn't realize
we'd get Patrick Lyons himself. We're delighted to have him
as a guest here on the New England Business Report
this morning. Patrick, Oh, welcome to the program. You know,
as I was thinking about this and I when we
heard that you were coming on, my question sort of became,

(32:58):
you know what take tell us what about the Lions
Group today. I know you're like six stage, You've got
all these various venues. Give us a global picture of
the Lions Group today.

Speaker 13 (33:11):
Well, the Lions Group is really a collection of hospitality
venues that were born of the need to provide opportunity
for great staff and employees because you can't really execute
and do what we do without great people. And when
you have great people as a part of your team,

(33:33):
you either create opportunities for them and their growth or
you die. And that started with you know, single little
nightclub on Lansdowne Street over forty years ago, and you
know today there's a great many people and a great
many mouths to be fed, so to speak, and careers
to be nurtured. And you know, we were blessed with

(33:56):
a lot of great people, so it forces us to
keep trying to do and create new and exciting venues.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Well, Patrick, I would say that to be in business
for forty years in the entertainment business is.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Quite the feat.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
How have things first off changed when it comes to
the entertainment industry from forty years ago, and I know
there's been a lot, but what have been the big changes?

Speaker 13 (34:23):
Well, I think some of the big changes are that,
you know that the advent of cable TV, believe it
or not, because if you go back forty years that
wasn't around. And then you know the advent of the Internet,
and you know today you know, the competitive fights are

(34:44):
with things like streamers, you know streamers, streaming events, TV, Internet, YouTube,
social media. Those are all competitors. But the good thing
about our business is that what we do terms of
providing an opportunity for a boy meets girl or boy
meets boy or whatever and having fun and dancing and

(35:06):
interacting socially and do it online. So we occupy an
interesting little niche where people have a need to socialize.
As long as we do a good job and pivot
and you know, change with the times in terms of
creating offerings that they like and executing it with excellent

(35:28):
staff and personnel, we're able to stay I guess alive
and we're able to stay afloat mm.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Hm, Yes you are. Patrick Lyons is our guest. You know, Patrick,
tell our listeners some of the names that they would know.
Obviously there's you know, Sanza, Newberry Street and Scampo. But
take us through some of the names that people would know.

Speaker 13 (35:53):
We can go back to the we can go into
the way back machine.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Let's go.

Speaker 13 (35:59):
There was a club of Landsdown called fifteen Landsdown Street,
which was the original club that incidentally was built and
operated by Steve Rubellini and Schrager who learned the nightclub
business on Lansdown Street in Boston and then scurried over
to New York City and created the famous nightclub Studio

(36:21):
fifty four. The fact most people don't realize, but those
guys started in Boston on Landsdown Street and then that
club morphed into Boston. Boston and the Metro and Avalon
and along the way there's a punk rock club called Spit.
There was a club we had back then called the

(36:43):
Paradise which today still operates live music room. You know,
Venus de Milo. Today, Loretta's last call, our country singer
songwriter bar on landsdown Street came on at Senway the
Bleacher Bar, which is under the bleachers. Our portfolio kind

(37:05):
of goes from dive bar to five Staring, so whether
you're going to Bill's Bar for a beer, which, by
the way, that little tiny venue is hosted surprise visits
by people like Guns and Roses back in the day
and Elton John, you know, just for small appearances. You know,

(37:29):
you two's second US appearance was at the Metro on Lansdowne.
I'm sorry it was at the Paradise where you two
opened for a band called Baruga. You never heard of them,
but we paid you two three hundred and fifty bucks.
So from a historic perspective, there's been a lot in

(37:51):
our wake. But today you know, between Dog Bar and
five Star you can be bowling at Kings. Yeah, you know,
we have a handful of Kings, Lyndshield, uh Seaport, back Bay,
Burlington and Dedham as well as some other locations around
the country. Or you could be going to have a

(38:13):
fine five star dinner with Lydia Shire at Ascono, or
Lydia has just taken over the Helmet Bar ends at
the Charles Hotel. It's a fabulous Italian restaurant. And you
know things like Sancia, Newberry Street, Lucky's in the Seaport,
Harvard Gardens on Beacon Hill, Alibi, a plant full of

(38:37):
fun places that we have.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
You how do you focus, Patrick? How do you focus?
I mean, you know, what's number one on your desk.

Speaker 13 (38:46):
Number one on my desk is supporting my people, and
they do a lot of the focusing. As a matter
of fact, they will be they will be focused on
El Barco. You know, it's a little thing we do
in Martha's Vineyard at the Ferry last summer, which is
a reson reasonably priced Mexican street food place. It's that's

(39:08):
the Ferry at the Vineyard Haven Ferry, and it was
such an amazing success that we'll be opening one in
the back bay right upstairs from Kings in about ten
days and it'll be a place where you get an
honest margarita, a nice cold beer and a world class

(39:29):
taco for a lot less money than you would expect.
It'll be a value proposition place that we'll be opening
on Dalton Street.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
So Patrick, let me ask you what means the boat
which is awesome. I actually I attended the one over
on the Vineyard and it was fantastic. It was really fantastic.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
It was great. I didn't realize you were opening one
in Boston.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
Let me ask you about your casino business, because that's
something that I think has really changed through the four years.
We now find you know, Lions Group locations in casinos.
Talk to us a little bit about that experience, because
it has to be a little bit different.

Speaker 13 (40:11):
Well, about twenty five years ago, we were approached by
the Mohegan Sun and ended up doing a lot of
their entertainment. As a matter of fact, we opened our
Summer Shack. We have a Summer Shack seafood restaurant there
which is three hundred and fifty seats. It's gigantic, and

(40:33):
I think our opening day was scheduled for nine to eleven,
two thousand and one. We were ready and we opened,
and of course, the you know, whole world got turned
upside down. But I'm happy to report that Summer Shack
at Mohegan Sun has done phenomenally well, you know, the

(40:57):
big seafood offering and that section of Cane and I
think we've got six places. You know, We've did a lotbunge.
We've got an Irish pub, the Lansdowne Pub. We have
a nightclub Avalon at Mohegan and the casino business. You know,
the casino is generating traffic, which Mohegan does a good job.

(41:21):
They have the Connecticut Sun basketball team. They do a
lot of concerts and they're very smart and they're a
very smart group and we're really blessed and pleased to
be working with them, and we've had a terrific twenty
fourth going on twenty five year history with them.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Talking with Patrick Lyons of the Lions Group, I'm curious
about the rise of technology in the food and beverage industry.
How do you see innovation playing a role in the
future of your establishments.

Speaker 13 (41:57):
Well, technology is a huge component, and it's a huge
component in the business. And you know there's you know,
from software programs for booking tables to cost controls to
social media marketing, you know, and integrating all of these

(42:18):
technologies and all these platforms UH purchasing, you know, payroll management.
It's certainly changed the business. Back in the day, there
used to you used to have an electro mechanical cash register,
you know, which was the next step after the cigar box,
if you will. And you know, the cash register has

(42:41):
turned into the bringing of the business. You know, if
you think about it, you would speer for a dollar.
You'd bring the key and you take a dollar and
somebody gave you five, they give you four back. Today,
you know, most people don't cash. It's all credit. And

(43:02):
the the POS system is what it's called point of
sales system has become you know, the heartbeat of a
business that it manages payroll purchasing, you know, inventory control,
the reservations and the list just goes on and on.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
M hm.

Speaker 13 (43:23):
So a big part is the answer to the question,
A big part of the business.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
So, Patrick, what's what is? You know your next step?
Everybody looks to you for, you know, the next big
the next big trend of the next big phase, the
next the next hot spot. It seems like you have
I guess my bike count it's over thirty different venues.
What are you looking at for next And I guess
I'm asking that in the context of perhaps people out

(43:48):
there are listening to this, going you know what I
want to do? What Patrick lyons, does I want to
open a place or do this? What's your advice and
what's your own thoughts?

Speaker 13 (43:58):
Well, I'd say be careful because the cost of entry
is really kind of getting out of control, and you know,
construction prices, everything is going sky high. But if you
really break it down the revenue side, you know, if
you're lucky enough to get six dollars for a bud light,
and that's what your operating model is based on, then

(44:22):
if your costs double, you can't really go can't very
well go ahead and say, okay, now the bud light
is twelve dollars, because the market won't have that. So
I think caution is the watchboard. You know, the political
situation that we have going on as a little nutty,
and until there's some stability, I would urge caution because

(44:46):
a six dollars bottle of bud, which is a shelter
from the storm of what's going out there for many people,
if it becomes a twelve dollars bud it doesn't work anymore.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
All right, wise words advice from Patrick Lyons of the
Lions Group, and we do appreciate you taking time on
this Sunday morning and joining us here on the New
England Business Report, and hope you'll come back and join
us again someday soon. Up next, we're going to be
talking with a Boston Globe reporter about scams that are
out there, and chances are everybody hearing my voice right
now knows exactly what we're talking about. That unpaid toll

(45:21):
send the money.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Now you are listening to the New England Business Report
on the Voice of Boston WRKO six 't eighty. Joe
and Kim will be right back.

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Speaker 4 (47:39):
Hi everybody, I'm Kim Kerrigan and I'm Joe Shortsley.

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Speaker 4 (48:22):
Well, Joe, you know we're all aware of some of
these scams that exist out there, whether it's people calling
on the phone and you know, or sometimes their recordings
and they're trying to get you to say yes or no.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
And they always say, don't do that because you.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Got text that you owe all money and them and
you need to send them their information all your information.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
Absolutely absolutely, Well, this really caught my eye, caught the
eye of a lot of people who were reading the
Boston Globe. I Philbrook, he writes with the starting Point newsletter.
He writes for the starting Point newsletter associated with the Globe,
and he wrote a piece on scams and how high

(49:01):
tech they're becoming and how people are following for them
in quite frankly, you know, they a lot of times
are using businesses as a front, you know, the names
of businesses and whatever. So Ian is with us, and
Ian great to have you with us. I'm so glad
you could join us.

Speaker 12 (49:16):
Oh it's great to be here.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
You bet, these scams really, as you looked into it,
these scams really are becoming high tech, and they are
They're really believable, aren't they.

Speaker 12 (49:28):
Yeah, they are. And I think you know, one consideration
here is that these scams are so brazen and they're
getting so complicated because scams are really a booming business
in the US. American's lost twelve and a half billion
dollars to scams last year that we know of. We
know the real number is undoubtedly larger because a lot
of people are embarrassed to report when they get scammed.

(49:49):
And you know, one of the people I talked to
for this piece in the newsletter said, you know, broud
is the business and criminals call the news just like
everybody else. And so they're able to target people who
who patronize certain businesses. They're able to target people in
certain demographics. So for example, yeah, you mentioned using businesses
as a front. In Maine, where I grew up, there

(50:12):
is a power company that has been seeing people pose
as officials that are coming over to either tell them
that their billing is overdue they need to pay immediately,
or even threatening to shut off their power, even going
door to door pretending to be built from this power company.
So this is a pretty intense level of investment from scammers.

(50:32):
But I think the reason for that is there's actually
a lot of money to be gained here from people
who are looking to steal it.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Well, tell us what happened in that central main power case.

Speaker 5 (50:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (50:42):
Absolutely.

Speaker 12 (50:42):
I mean the thing that brought this to my attention
was that my fiance's mom was received a phone call
out of the blue on a Saturday morning recently and
was told, you know, hey, I'm with the MP Central
my power. I'm coming over to shut off your power
because you haven't paid, and you you need to pay
in the next thirty minutes or I'll be there to
shout out your power. And this person gave her a

(51:06):
number to call that it was the CMP billing service
and she could call, and you know, when she called
this number, there was a whole menu of options that
sounded just like the kind of menu that you get
when you call a real company. She pressed to for billings,
just as we all do for in normal course of
business with other companies, and got on the phone with
somebody who urged her to pay through zell, which is

(51:28):
a digital service that transfers money very quickly and is
affiliated with banks. And so she was on the phone
with this person, ended up going to her CMP account
because she got suspicious and saw that there was no
money that she owed, and so then she this person,
this scammer, hang up hung up very quickly, so you
can already see sort of the level of involvement that

(51:48):
some of these people have gone to. Right, there's multiple
scammers involved, there are transfers between departments, supposed departments. That's
a level of complexity that I think mimics a lot
of Americans experience dealing with real companies, and so CMP
has been very out there trying to inform people that
this is happening, because, Yeah, the companies, I think you

(52:09):
feel some our responsibility to try to educate their customers
that this is happening. And ultimately, these kinds of impersonation
scams don't work as well when people are aware that
they're going on.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Absolutely.

Speaker 12 (52:19):
Do you think that's one of the equities that businesses
have is trying to prevent these things from getting out
of hand.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
So, ian as you researched this, did you learn anything
about how people, if they are presented with these kinds
of scams, how people can determine if in fact, this
is a scam or not, what the steps might be
to take to make sure that you're not being scammed.

Speaker 12 (52:42):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean one thing is just to recognize
that a lot most scams have a lot have basically
three things in common. Right, it's the cold outreach. Is
that phone call in the middle of the night, or
the phone call on the Saturday morning from a number
you don't recognize, or a text message that it comes
from a number you don't recognize. There's often a sense
of urgency like you need to do this now or

(53:03):
your power will be shut off in thirty minutes.

Speaker 8 (53:05):
Right.

Speaker 12 (53:05):
They are trying to get you to act without thinking,
or to be in a heightened emotional s case, so
you that you do not sort of rationally consider what's
going on and instead immediately act. And then the third
thing is they often ask you to pay through a
specific means.

Speaker 8 (53:20):
Right.

Speaker 12 (53:20):
They ask for payment through gift cards, which are very
easy to you know, to give to somebody and then
you know you cannot recover them if if they get stolen.
They ask you to pace a zell as they asked
Tom be sure mother in law. Right, because it is
a quick transfer and you initiate the transfer, it's very
hard often to get that money back. So those are
first of all, recognizing the signs, I think is one

(53:42):
of the first things that you can do to try
to protect yourself. And then the second thing is just
try to disrupt that intensity of emotion that they are
trying to put on you. Basically, one of the people
I talk to you calls it an active pause, where
you sort of take yourself out of the moment, think
why is this some reach out to me? Do I
know who this person really is? If they're telling me

(54:04):
something is going on, like my power is going to
be shut off because my bill is overdue? Why don't
I go look at my bill statement and get that's
even true? So there are things that you can do
to sort of disrupt the mode that a lot of
scammers are trying to put you in, which is to
act quickly out of fear or out of the motion
before you can rationally think so this is I do
recommend sort of taking a pause, and then I say

(54:26):
the other thing is awareness, right, is knowing what scams
are out there. You can go to arpi's Broadwatch network,
you can go to the Better Business Bureau, you can
go to the Federal Trade Commission. They will list scams
that are that are out there that people others have reported,
so you can sort of match up your experience to
what others have gone through to see if something is scam.

(54:46):
I also really recommend local media, right, I mean, at
the top of the show, you mentioned this easy paths
scam text message that many have gotten, including myself, saying
that your toll is you know you owe money on
your toll on your easy path The bossing has written
a lot about that. Local media has written a lot
about that. It really kept a couple of months ago,
and in fact the Portland Press Ferrols in Maine wrote

(55:08):
about the CMP scam. So I think if you follow
local news, you can often get a handle on some
of these scams before you're targeting.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
We're talking with Ian Philbrick, a reporter at the Boston Globe.
His story scams are getting more sophisticated, got a lot
of attention and caught Kim's attention as well. But there's
a line in their story here which I have underlied
in my yellow marker, and it goes like this and says,
despite the stereotype that older people are at greater risk,
consumers in their twenties reported losing money more often than

(55:39):
consumers in their seventies last year. What's going on with
the kids in the twenties.

Speaker 12 (55:45):
Yeah, it's a great question, and I do think it's
really something that surprised me in the reporting of this,
that there is this idea out there that older people
are less technolounch so savvy, they're more likely to pick
up the phone from a random number that they don't
have saved. But you know, that's not the only mode
in which scammers operate, and I think this is what
helps explain why people who are younger are also being

(56:05):
victimized by scams. So people in their twenties, maybe they're
in college, if they're shortly out of college, they're looking
for jobs. There are scams out there that pretend to
be recruiters. They pretend to be people who if you
just ride back to them by text message, they can
hook you up with a job or a job interview.
I have gotten text like this. I'm barely out of

(56:25):
my twenties. But you know, this is like an example
of the way that I think it's important to think
about scams is that scammers are adaptable and they very
much do try to target different demographics or people in
different situations and try to have success in different ways. Right,
there is not sort of a one size fits all
approach with scamming. And yeah, if you look at the
data that the Federaltary Commission collects about people reporting being scammed.

(56:50):
You know, people in their thirties reported about the same
number of scams targeting them as people in their seventies, right,
So there isn't this vast vasparity in terms of people
being target What I will say is it is true
that older people often lose more money, so I haven't
ready to lose in these scams. So that is one
thing to consider in terms of how age does affect

(57:11):
so the outcomes of these scams, but in terms of
being targeted, it's kind of equal opportunity.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
Well, it's a fascinating topic and one that everyone needs
to be aware of. And Philbrick thanks so much for
being a part of the New England Business Report.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
All right, Kim, time to talk about next week's program,
and it's I guess it's something that the entire planet
is talking about, you know, and the impact we're talking
about these tariffs. What has it done to well local
businesses and large companies. Right, So we're going to have
a number of guests to discuss the impact, what it
means going forward and how long will we be feeling

(57:47):
these effects that's something to Wingle business report. That's our
next show on Sunday morning on w RKO, The Voice
of Boston A I'm six' eighty