Mid-October Recap For The Independent Pro Baseball Industry

A lot of industry insiders knew that this off-season promised to be one of the more intriguing ones in terms of business development, player numbers, front office changes, expansion, and more.  The last off-season which had this much potential for change was the 2010 off-season.  Going back in history, the end of the 2010 season saw changes affecting every league including the folding of the Continental Baseball League, and the start of the Pecos League + the “combination” of the United League/Golden League/remnants of the Northern League to start the North American League.

The 2014 off-season, leading to the 2015 regular season, also has shown signs that the landscape will be a bit different next season; but this time it will be more subtle even though all leagues have the chance to be impacted.

Here are the recaps of what has happened so far, with the understanding that a good degree more can change in the coming weeks:

INDUSTRY-WIDE

Across all levels of independent baseball, there seems to be a slightly growing understanding by baseball fans that independent players are not just “has-beens that never were.”  Every league this year had players, who appeared in at least one of their games in the past 2-3 seasons, appear in the Major Leagues.  Besides the obvious MLB roster spots gained by Atlantic League and American Association alumni, the Can-Am League and Frontier League had former players appear during the 2014 season.  The United League and Pecos League also had former players appear this season on Major League rosters.  The only question is the Pacific Association as one of their alumni (as part of the North American League) made it to a MLB roster late in the season.

EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION OF TEAMS

Next year MAY have a new landscape of teams, but in a different manner than the 2010-2011 off-season.  Here is the current news as of this week:

• Atlantic League expansion will have to held off until 2016 at the earliest.  Loudoun County has significant complications, and the proposed Virginia Beach Neptunes won’t be ready until 2016 as well.
• The Can-Am League announced Ottawa as its 5th member team.  Just this week, there was a mention in a Canadian newspaper article that a late sixth team could be announced.  No formal word by the Can-Am League exists, but this would change their current schedule and that of the American Association teams.
• American Association announced the Joplin Blasters officially in the schedule.  The AA also announced that the Laredo Lemurs stay in the AA even though there is new ownership for the team.  This brings the AA to 13 teams (El Paso went “dark” for the 2014 season and gets replaced by Joplin).  They currently have inter-league play scheduled with the Can-Am League as they have done in recent years.  Should the Can-Am League get a sixth team, then it is possible that the AA could add a travel team and give its main teams extra home dates.  This also would reduce some of the travel costs as the AA teams would only have to travel between the upper Midwest (and Winnipeg) and Texas – not that travel plus the travel going to New Jersey & Quebec/Ottawa.  If this happens then we will let you know.
• Frontier League has been talking expansion for several years, with teams in West Virginia and Michigan being the likely expansion areas.  Other cities, in suburban areas, have been discussed as well.  An attempt has been made to give the Frontier Greys a permanent home.  Should any of this affect the 2015 season then it will be announced here.
• United League Baseball is looking for a permanent home for the Brownsville Charros.  The ability to have four established markets will help the league have a stronger presence in Texas and grow the markets into stronger entities.  There have been some talks about expansion, and if anything happens then we will let you know.
• Pecos League likely will change up its schedule again, with the Southern division teams likely to be most affected.  Since the league’s teams are primarily centrally-owned, the Northern Division’s alignment makes sense to reduce travel costs.  Andrew will decide soon on whether or not to replace the Douglas Diablos and Raton with new teams, bring them back, or contract.  The Pecos League likely will not expand next season, as it was the only league to do so last year (going from 8 teams in 2013 to 10 teams in 2014)
• The Pacific Association, for now, looks to keep its 4-team circuit intact.  Obviously, based on the history of the North American League & Pacific Association, change always is a possibility; but for now the odds of the same four teams returning seems to be the current course of action

NEW LEAGUES

Every season there appear to be newcomers who want to create new independent leagues, instead of investing and joining an established circuit.  Some of these leagues garnered a fair amount of attention on the internet, yet they never even had a spring training – let alone an actual game.

The only new circuits which played an actual game in the past 10 years include:

• United League Baseball (First pitch 2006).  This league was created, however, by longtime operators of the Texas-Louisiana League going back to the first years of the independent baseball boom in the mid-1990’s
• Continental Baseball League (2007-2010).  This reached many markets which never had independent pro baseball previously (Lewisville, McKinney, Texarkana, Texas City, Alpine, Las Cruces)
• Pecos League (2011-current) rises from the ashes of the CBL, but primarily goes after New Mexico markets that were supposed to have a league in 2004 (Southwestern League).  That league never started.
• North American League (2011-2012).  A “survival” league which kept the remaining teams after 2010 from the Golden League, United League and Northern League going and bought them time to decide going forward
• Pacific Association (2013-current).  Takes Maui (old Golden League team) and introduces San Rafael + other teams to make the circuit survive into 2014.
• South Coast League.  Plays just one season (2007).
• Freedom League.  Plays 2012-2013. League goes dark just before 2014 season
• Independent Baseball League (Ohio).  Struggles through first season (2014).  TBA if it comes back next year

This is a VERY difficult business in which to turn a profit.  Many of the business owners who are making money OR at least have a decent team valuation, are not comfortable with new independent teams coming into the “professional” circuit.  This is because of the “scarcity” element of their team’s (or league’s) valuation.  Should half of the currently-operating teams fold, and only financially successful teams survive, then future owners who want to buy an existing team likely would have to pay more to own a “legitimate” independent professional team.  Current owners could sell for a higher price because there would be fewer legitimate enterprises operating.

The way for the new leagues proposing to play (to be listed below) to gain a respectable team business valuation is to somehow, quickly, blend the following elements into their business models:

• Strong operations with solid accounting, payroll, and other elements of successful businesses
• Operate in regions of the country where they can find dedicated AND quality staff.  Many of the problems the new teams/leagues experience is that their own staff members (game day, interns, some front office executives) do more damage to these fledgling operations than can be imagined.  They often anger local political forces, alienate fans, and seem to make it not fun for parents to bring their kids to enjoy a game
• Keep their initial start up costs low.  After being in this business for a long time, you would be amazed at the overpayment of unnecessary items that takes place; and those expenses put the owner “behind the 8 ball” before the first pitch is thrown
• Must find ways to give local sponsors more “value”.  Most teams stop adding value once the season ends; but with technology advances the teams now have the potential to keep local businesses happy by increasing the odds of making the local businesses’ phones ring with new customers…even during the off-season
• Have quality coaching staff members who actually understand that it is the coaching staff’s job to help increase attendance.  Virtually no one goes to a game to see the front office staff (!), so since the players and coaching staff are the “faces” of the team teams they need to understand that it is their job to get fans in the stands.  Many coaching staff members and players, especially at the lower levels of independent baseball, don’t understand this and are very inward-focused

See the above leagues that folded (even those with markets that have 100,000+ populations); and you likely will see that a combination of the above flaws (plus under-capitalization) led to their respective demises.

With all of that said, there are four new proposed independent professional baseball league circuits for next year.  Each has varying degrees of progress, but the odds of all four happening are slim based on history:

1. Kansas Baseball League
2. East Coast Baseball League
3. Mount Rainier League
4. some form of the Hawaii baseball teams (which played in 2013, but not in 2014) returning either with more Hawaii teams or ties to the BCL Japanese independent league

Of course, there is the possibility of the following proposed leagues announcing formal schedules for 2016:

• Northern League (new ownership versus those who owned it through 2010)
• Federation of American Professional Baseball

We have spoken with some of the proposed new leagues and indicated that, in order to survive, they cannot run a “1995” business model in 2015.  With many families still reeling from economic challenges AND more people able to be entertained at home or on their phones during summertime evenings, just “trotting out” some decent ball players and third-rate between-inning entertainment won’t be enough to draw 1000+ fans in the stands every night.

They need to add value where no one else has.  This includes any/all of the following:

• Lead generation for local businesses, 12 months a year
• Producing quality “how to” information for parents and kids who play baseball around the country
• Building up the “authority” of their websites and web properties in order to sell/lease ad space at premium rates
• “Crossing over” and helping local people with their high-emotion needs (e.g. weight loss, ways to make more money, finding college scholarship opportunities, dating/relationship advice, etc.) in order to truly make the new team (or league) become an integral part of their lives
• Advertising for cheap on platforms trusted by parents with kids aged 3-13.  This includes low-cost ads on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn (great for season ticket prospects), church websites, local online forums, etc.  Paid ads in the newspaper and TV are going to be too much for these new teams, so keeping ad costs low will help get awareness and curiosity-seekers to come to at least one game
• Making merchandise unique and fun.  See the Pecos League’s colored seam baseballs and the Roswell Invaders merchandise.  They sell these items nationally.
• Partnering with sports equipment retailers/distributors and using the team websites to send traffic to these pages where people can order around the country
• Ranking in the search engine for “things to do in CITY” phrases and similar ones indicative of people looking for local entertainment

These are just some of the ideas on how these new leagues can give themselves a fighting chance.  If they decide to “major in minor things”, wasting time on non-revenue-producing actions, then they likely will follow many of the recent leagues which either failed or never even got off the ground.

More will come on independent baseball developments in future posts.  Please share this post with those whom you believe will find it to be of interest.  Thank you.

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