By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
Correction: An earlier version of this article understated the Baltimore Ravens’ education programs. The Ravens Foundation has operated Honor Rows for 25 years, runs annual teacher and student scholarship programs, and hosts a yearly leadership conference for Baltimore girls. The article has been updated to reflect this. Additionally, the Orioles’ $5 million commitment to CollegeBound Foundation was made by then-chairman John Angelos in January 2023, prior to the Rubenstein ownership group’s purchase of the franchise.
The New York Yankees hosted 11,500 Bronx public school students at Yankee Stadium last week, honoring them for academic achievement, leadership, community service, and teamwork. It was the kind of event that turns a franchise into an institution — the kind of thing that makes kids feel like the city is rooting for them.
It is, worth asking, whether Baltimore’s teams are doing the same.
The question isn’t rhetorical. It’s financial.
The Public Tab
Maryland has not been shy about investing in its professional franchises. The state built and financed both Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium. Total investment in the Orioles’ ballpark alone — construction costs, financing, maintenance, and the pending renovation package — runs to more than $1.1 billion in public money. In December 2023, the state’s Board of Public Works approved a 30-year lease extension, unlocking an additional $600 million in taxpayer-backed bonds for stadium upgrades. The Ravens received an equivalent commitment for M&T Bank Stadium next door.
To be clear about what that means: Maryland’s stadiums are state-owned property. The Orioles lease the facility. The public finances the improvements. The team keeps the revenue.
For that deal, Marylanders are right to ask what they get in return beyond playoff baseball.
A Tradition That Faded
There was a time when the answer was more obvious.
The Orioles’ relationship with Baltimore City Schools students was once a genuine community institution. In the early 2000s, OriolesREACH — the team’s community outreach arm — ran a partnership with Baltimore City Public Schools that touched nearly 14,000 students across 80 elementary and middle schools. The “Learning with the Orioles” summer curriculum, co-written by City Schools teachers and sponsored by T. Rowe Price, integrated baseball into math, reading, science, and social studies. At the end of the summer session, nearly 5,000 students received complimentary tickets to attend a Camden Yards game, where they were recognized in a pre-game ceremony.
It was the kind of program that made the game feel like it belonged to the city — not just to ticket-buyers.
That program quietly disappeared during the late Angelos era. The franchise, consumed by family ownership disputes, deteriorating on-field performance, and a long stretch of organizational dysfunction, pulled back from the community investments that once defined it. No formal announcement. No public accounting. The program simply stopped being what it was.
What Exists Now
New ownership — the David Rubenstein group that completed its purchase in 2023 — has made visible efforts to rebuild the relationship.
The Orioles are currently partnered with Harlem Park Elementary and Middle School in West Baltimore through Major League Baseball’s Adopt-A-School initiative. Unlike most MLB clubs, which rotate to a new school each year, the Orioles have committed to Harlem Park long-term. The team has provided gift cards for classroom supplies, invited students and staff to Friday night games, and had players conduct baseball camps on-site.
In January 2023, then-chairman John Angelos announced a $5 million commitment to the CollegeBound Foundation alongside Mayor Brandon Scott — a pledge made by the Angelos family prior to the Rubenstein group’s purchase of the franchise. The foundation supports Baltimore City public school graduates through college completion, distributing roughly $4 million in scholarships annually. The commitment doubled CollegeBound’s operating budget at the time.
The team also runs “Kids Cheer Free,” allowing children 9 and under to attend games at no cost when an adult purchases an upper deck ticket. The Birdland Student Pass — launched in 2025 — offers $10 tickets to select games, but is open only to students 18 and older with a valid student email address. It is a college program, not a Baltimore City Schools program.
These are not nothing. But they are not what they were, and the scale does not match the public investment.
The Ravens, by contrast, have maintained a consistent education presence. Honor Rows — now in its 25th year — recognizes students and community organizations at games each season, a direct parallel to what the Yankees did in the Bronx last week. The Ravens Foundation has awarded $5,000 renewable scholarships to Baltimore-area high school seniors for at least 13 consecutive years. The annual L.I.F.T. Conference targets Baltimore girls and young women specifically. Touchdown for Teachers, run in partnership with M&T Bank, recognizes educators annually. These are not new programs — they are institutionalized commitments that predate the current stadium funding debate by decades.
The Ravens set the standard. The question is why the Orioles have not matched it.
The Honest Comparison
The Yankees’ Bronx Education All-Star Day was not a charitable donation. It was a franchise decision: that 11,500 students showing up to Yankee Stadium in school colors, recognized in front of a crowd, is the business of being a baseball team in a city.
The Ravens understand this. Twenty-five years of Honor Rows is not a PR exercise — it is an institutional commitment to showing Baltimore that the franchise belongs to it.
What the Orioles currently do for Baltimore City Schools students at scale is: a reduced-price student ticket pass for students 18 and older, a single adopted school, and a curriculum program that no longer appears to be running at the 14,000-student level it once reached. The $5 million CollegeBound pledge was made by the prior ownership in January 2023 — a meaningful gift, but one that predates the current $600 million public investment conversation and does not replace the scaled, city-wide school engagement the franchise once ran.
Maryland is spending $600 million on stadium upgrades for a team whose home city has a public school system where reading proficiency sits at roughly 24 percent — half the statewide average. The state’s own legal history includes a court ruling that Baltimore City schoolchildren were receiving an inadequate education. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund noted pointedly in 2023 that the state managed to approve $1.2 billion for stadiums while continuing to shortchange school funding.
That’s not a dig at the Orioles or the Ravens specifically. It’s a structural argument: when public money flows to private enterprises at this scale, the public has standing to ask what the community obligation looks like in return. Not just in corporate press releases — but in programs, in numbers, in kids in seats.
The Open Question
The Orioles’ lease contains no formal community benefit agreement tied to school outreach. The $600 million in bond funding is earmarked for stadium improvements, not educational programming. There is no public requirement that the team run anything like the old “Learning with the Orioles” program.
That’s a policy gap Maryland’s legislature could address. It’s also a reputational question both franchises should want to answer on their own terms.
Andy Ellis, a candidate for governor of Maryland, put it plainly this week: the Orioles once sent kids from City Schools to games regularly. Families loved it. It built something between the franchise and the community. And then it stopped.
MDBayNews contacted the public relations departments of both the Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday, May 10, asking each organization what community obligations — specifically regarding Baltimore City Schools students — they consider part of their public partnership with the state. The Orioles did not respond. The Ravens did not respond, though their existing programs speak for themselves.
The Orioles have the resources, the public infrastructure, and — with new ownership — the stated community goodwill to rebuild what was lost. The Bronx comparison is instructive not because the Yankees are a model franchise, but because they understand something simple: the kids in the cheap seats today are the season ticket holders in twenty years. The Ravens figured that out 25 years ago.
Baltimore’s schools are struggling. Baltimore’s stadiums are being renovated on the public dime. For one of the two franchises, the question of what they owe the city’s children is already being answered. For the other, it remains an open one.
MDBayNews contacted the Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Ravens for comment on Saturday, May 10, 2026. Neither responded by publication. This story will be updated if responses are received.
Sources: Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Banner, MASN Sports, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Maryland Stadium Authority, MLB.com, AFRO American Newspapers
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