The Five Best Quotes from Spencer Hall on a FedEx Field Suite

Spencer Hall from SBNation drew the lucky straw when it came to responding to the local football club’s sales department when they came knocking for DC-based Vox Media to purchase a suite at FedEx Field. While the entire letter is worth your time, here are the five best sections. And if you want to send Dan Snyder something for the burn, you can always send him a bottle of Solarcaine.

1. On the wisdom of making good pickups, Curbed and Eater might be strong purchases, but comparing them to a suite at FedEx? Yeah, about that… “This is why we bought fine websites with our money, and not a lease on a giant expensive concrete box overlooking 120 yards of pure sorrow in the barrens of suburban Maryland.”

2. When it comes time to slip into business-speak, the sales guy jumps right into the words “leverage,” “face time,” and “cultivate relationships.” On this, Hall is absolutely brutal: “What you want to say is this: “By showing you can afford a R******* suite, you display wealth and the confidence that others would think being at FedEx Field was a good decision, and that you were a person to make good decisions with in business.” And what part of watching the R******* over the past decade was a good idea, and displayed good judgment? This is a serious question asked in the face of a proposition that is flat barking insanity.”

3. When faced with the proposition of buying a suite for the last few weeks of this rolling dumpster fire of a season, or waiting until the Nationals take the field again, Hall is completely unequivocal: “Would you rather burn hundreds in an oil drum waiting for the Nats season to start? We would, and baseball doesn’t start for another four months.” The cost of burning hundreds to keep warm would be fairly substantial. The cost of buying a suite at FedEx would be mind-boggling, but mostly for the emotional costs, and what it would indicate about the sanity of your leadership.

4. But that leads us right to my favorite passage, “(At least burning money in an oil drum makes you warm, unlike the cold terror of watching Mike Shanahan dare his owner to fire him publicly.)” How bad has it gotten that we have a three-way hate-spiral here, and we’re rooting for a meteor to just wipe out the entire group? Between the Shanahans, Snyder, and the obligatory awfulness of the on-field product, I hardly know who I want to see just obliterated by a large heavenly body, and who I want to see barely crawling out of the wreckage.

5. And there to the final Thank-You-But-No: “Our problem would be watching the R****** play football. This is our optimal solution to the problem: not buying a suite, and thus avoiding the problem altogether.” While I’m sure it was a rough day for the sales team to hear that not only did the sports-focused DC-based successful dot com didn’t want a piece of their action, I do hope there’s a good bar cart in the corner so they could drink this one off.

Remember, run that burn under some cold water, and make sure to wrap the bandages loosely.

I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.

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