Coronavirus In North Alabama: In Depth With Ralph Nelson

Dan Shaffer and Najahe Sherman speak with Ralph Nelson, the CEO of the Rocket City Trash Pandas.

Hopefully resolved on site.

Breken terry, waay-31 news.

>> dan shaffer: thanks.

Every night at 6:00 p.m.

We are taking you deeper into the impact of coronavirus.

>> najahe sherman: and tonight we are joined by ralph nelson, the ceo for the rocket city trash pandas.

Thank you for being with us this evening.

>> mr. nelson: a pleasure, najahe.

>> najahe sherman: ralph, what has been the impact of the coronavirus on the team and for our city?

>> mr. nelson: it's been -- it's been really rough.

You know, we would be playing games right now and this ballpark would be packed right now with about 7,000 people with a game starting in half an hour.

The revenues in the minor leagues are all about the game itself.

So it's people that come to the games, buy food, merchandise in the stadium and obviously we have none of that.

But this community has really accepted our team.

You know, we sold $2.5 million in merchandise and we're engage ed with the fans every single day and we know they're excited for it to happen.

It's really just a matter of us waiting it out.

>> dan shaffer: very excited for this to happen.

Season ticket sales were brisk.

You had to add seats to fill the demand.

What have you heard from the fans who have invested so much in this team so far?

>> mr. nelson: they've actually been great.

We've had -- i can count on one hand the number of people who have called about refunds.

Most people understand this is just something that none of us have been through before and so we're all in this together.

And i promised the fans they're going to get the value of every single ticket dollar they've spent f.

They bought a ticket this year and we don't play until late in the season or next year, they're going to get that value back.

The same with our groups and our sponsors -- we have wonderful sponsors that have -- excuse me -- paid a lot of money to have their name in this ballpark and i've made them all very aware of the fact that, you know , their investment may not kick in until next year.

And none of them have complained they've been wonderful partners.

I mean, this community has accepted baseball like none other, that i've ever been aware of.

And i've been in this game a long time.

>> najahe sherman: in the instance that someone would like a ticket refund because of the coronavirus, what is your policy >> mr. nelson: we -- we're waiting on the rest of the sport for -- to create the policy.

Baseball has never been through anything like this before, so normally when a game gets postponed, then people take the the value of that ticket and they apply it to another game.

But if the season -- we're waiting.

If the season is to be called off, for example, the worst case scenario, and people want to refund we're certainly going to do that.

It's just we're right now it is everything has been postponed.

Nothing's been canceled.

I think realistically we know that there's no way we'll get the full schedule in this year, no matter what happens.

So we will be prepared to refund or credit or offer incentives if people want to apply their tickets to next year.

We'll give them gifts or value added to their ticket.

We're going to make everybody whole because thee been terrific , and we don't want anybody to be disappointed.

>> dan shaffer: ralph, you mentioned merchandise sales have been a bright spot for this franchise, breaking records.

Is this still going strong?

>> mr. nelson: it's unbelievable, dan.

I mean, it is unbelievable.

We've sold over $3,000 online since sen 10:00 this morning.

We -- both stores are open.

The bridge street store opens in the afternoons and through 7:00 at night it's open on weekends.

The junkyard store is open.

I was just in the junkyard about 3:00 this afternoon and we had, i don't know, 10 or 12 customers in there.

It is -- it is -- to me it is -- it's beyond my belief or my -- my own logic as to why our mascot is so popular, but i'm awful glad that it is.

E.

>> najahe sherman: there is still so much that is unknown.

In your opinion do you think there is going to be a minor league baseball season?

>> mr. nelson: i don't know, najahe.

Right now where it is is major league players are ne grow negotiating with the major league openers.

Once that gets worked out then it's almost a trickle down.

One of the provisions of that discussion is how many players the major leagues will carry.

They may carry a taxi squad of larger than normal.

That would affect aaa and then aaa affects aa.

And so it's -- it's really not -- we don't know right now.

I had heard that we were going to play august 1 and play through the end of october.

And then i heard again that that's not legal so we'd only play through the end of september.

There will come a point where it makes no sense to have the season, but we're not there yet.

And everybody's waiting to see what happens.

If at the major league level and then obviously the most difficult part of this is that our -- our business is in i guess 48 states and if we're in sphrait states, that's 48 governors that have to make decisions about crowd size and social distancing and all that.

So it's a very complicated question and hard for me to really speculate.

>> najahe sherman: you mentioned that social distancing concern.

What will be done to encourage social distancing in our games?

>> mr. nelson: well, it's going to -- it's really going to depend on what the regulations are.

I will tell you this, we've worked very hard at coming up with protocols to keep this stadium as clean as possible to be able to sanitize this stadium throughout the game and after every game.

We have ordered thermal thermometers so that everybody that comes in the game will have their temperature taken so we can be sure not to let anybody in that could infect somebody else.

We have -- we've talked about there are some plans out there for spacing people in the stadium.

You know, the sad thing about it is, i just did a long walk- through of the ballpark with lynden blake and i was explaining to her that this entire stadium was built based on socialization.

So we have 7500 people and we can have here for a game and we only have 5400 traditional stadium seats.

Everything else is like a table i'm sitting at where four people together, 20 people in the booths, the suites.

We have all kinds of concourse suites.

We have our berm area.

We've got picnic tables.

All that was developed so that the people in north alabama could get to know one another at the games and of course now we're talking about social distancing.

So it's been a -- it's been a really gut punch.

But we're going to get through it because the people here deserve this team.

>> dan shaffer: hypothetically this could be difficult.

The play involves a single ball, it could find its way to any number of players, you can't wipe the ball off, you can't turn a double play without -- so even the dugout you're going to have a hard time staying six feet apart.

What might be overcome to over come those hurdles?

>> mr. nelson: the major leagues are going to figure that out first, and then we'll see.

I mean, it's -- it's tough.

I mean, there's no question about it.

You know, you see the games that are being played in korea now and the umpires are wearing mask s and the coaches, the first base and third base coaches are wearing masks.

And it's really new territory for everybody.

But we're going to worry about the fans in the stands and make sure that everybody feels very comfortable being here.

And i'm sure the angels are going to have some protocols for their players and their coaches.

And it is definitely a very complex situation.

>> najahe sherman: have you spoken with the players and coaches and what happens if you have a situation where a player doesn't want to play?

>> mr. nelson: well, so the players are under the control of the -- in our case the los angeles angels.

And so they -- that would be a relationship between the angels and their players.

Our manager, jay bell, i talked to him at least once a week and, you know, he hears things and he talks to me about, you know, we've got a trainers room where the players are all treated by trainers.

You know, we have a weight room where all the players will lift waicts and they're obviously going to share equipment.

And dan's right.

I mean, a double play ball is touched by three players as well as the pitcher is four.

So it's a very complex situation and i guess we all need to wait and see and work together on it.

And hopefully 30 been some advances in medical science that will make a lot of this moot.

>> dan shaffer: complicated.

Very complicated.

That's a shame.

Brand new stadium, outstanding roster, food looks amazing, fun mascot.

We certainly hope the boys of summer in madison and rocket