Baseball can learn much from Breakers
IMPORTANT lessons can be learnt from the Breakers when it comes to setting up a professional baseball team in New Zealand.
Baseball Australia has invited its counterpart on this side of the Tasman to apply to be one of the two expansion teams in the Australian league from next season.
It’s a game changer for the sport in this country. It will increase the sport’s profile as well as show youngsters that there’s a clear path to making it as a professional.
While it would be good for the sport in New Zealand, Baseball Australia can also see lots of positives from it.
It would add value to their league, which consists of just six teams at the moment, and it’s likely the New Zealand team’s games would be shown live on Sky.
The Australian League is struggling for exposure, with game streamed live on the internet, rather than shown by any broadcasters.
Baseball Australia aspires for its league to be where basketball’s Australian NBL is, so a Kiwi team helps them take another step there.
However, setting up a New Zealand team in an Australian league is fraught with problems.
The Phoenix and Warriors still haven’t won titles, but the Breakers have become one of the most dominant teams in the NBL, winning the championship in four REUTERS of the last seven years.
But it wasn’t like that at the beginning; they were poor for their first four years.
But then it changed. Dillon Boucher, who was a foundation player for the club and is now CEO, says it took them time to come to terms with playing in an Australian competition.
‘‘When we first started out, we probably didn’t know what we were getting ourselves Boucher said.
‘‘We didn’t realise how tough the competition was, we’d played the Australians internationally in one-off events and competed well, but we didn’t realise how tough the league was.
‘‘So we were rudely awaken in our first few years. We felt like we were training hard, but weren’t getting results.
‘‘I guess we didn’t have a great culture back then, it wasn’t a professional culture like there is now.’’
Baseball NZ is looking to have a stadium with around a 3000 capacity in Auckland, with there being the potential to expand the venue over time.
It is working closely with Auckland Stadiums on this, a division of Regional Facilities Auckland.
Paul Nisbet, director for Auckland Stadiums, says they’re looking at where the best location would be for the stadium.
‘‘There have been various studies done on finding a suitable location,’’ Nisbet said.
‘‘If you’re looking at it from a demographic perspective and into,’’ where the biggest baseball club in New Zealand is, it’s on the North Shore.
‘‘So we’re cognisant of New Zealand Baseball’s ambitions and certainly we’re keen to keep working with them in regards to finding a suitable footprint for that baseball facility.
‘‘Not withstanding the North Shore, we’ve got other venues across the city where there may be space for investment into a baseball stadium.’’
Baseball Australia would its their expansion teams to be in the league for the start of the 2018-19 season, which is 12 months away.
However, Nisbet said any new venue would take 18 to 24 months to build. But for their first season the team could play at a temporary facility.
‘‘There would be a way to do that and portable infrastructure is readily available across the city,’’ Nisbet said.
‘‘Auckland Stadiums has an inventory which could be utilised for the purpose.
‘‘So we would be keen to work with Baseball NZ on that basis and supporting them into the competition with that.’’