Baseball NZ positive about pro team
Kiwi team set to join Australian league,
Baseball NZ is well down the track towards getting a team in the Australian Baseball League this year.
Last November the ABL offered New Zealand the opportunity to join its league, which takes place over the summer months.
Since then Baseball NZ has been busy getting everything organised, with CEO Ryan Flynn taking a sabbatical from that job to focus on the bid, along with former Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development CEO Brett O’Riley, while former Warrior and Kiwi Motu Tony is filling in as CEO for three months.
‘‘We believe that by the end of April to early May we’ll know if we’re in the league or not,’’ Flynn said. ‘‘Brett and I will be making a trip to the US to talk to potential investors and we’ve got local investors already interested.
‘‘We’re just finalising the assessment and sponsorship documents right now and the teaser packs should be finished next week.’’
Flynn says they’re looking at basing the team at QBE Stadium to start with and are working on how to fit a baseball diamond inside the ground that’s also home to the North Harbour rugby team.
‘‘With the RFA [Regional Facilities Auckland], we walked QBE Stadium again on Thursday,’’ Flynn said.
‘‘We still have to work through the agreement with RFA, Paul Nisbet and his crew, but it looks really good as a temporary home. We will assist with the upgrading, we brought in a civil engineer on Thursday to look at how we move some of the seating around and turn it into temporary seating.’’
Home plate would be towards the left corner of where the players walk out from the tunnel, but that does mean there wouldn’t be much distance to the left field fence.
A Boston Red Sox-style Green Monster could be built, but even that might not be enough.
‘‘That’s what we’re talking to the civil engineer about,’’ Flynn said.
‘‘We’re looking at moving some of the stands into moveable stands.
‘‘The only issue is left field is too short, 260 feet or thereabouts is too short and you can only go so high.’’
Flynn says they are in negotiations with Sky TV over broadcasting the games.
If Flynn can’t get everything sorted in time for next season, he’ll look at bringing the team in the following year. However, he believes they can make the tight deadline.
‘‘My gut feeling right now is that we’re going to get into the league,’’ he said. ‘‘There were three big determining factors for me; there was financing, the short left field for the stadium now and domestic players.
‘‘We needed to know if we had enough domestic players who could play at this level to meet the minimum roster numbers.’’