After a night’s sleep, there are a lot of questions about the new Euro League Baseball
Yesterday, the new European Association of Professional Baseball was founded as initiator of the also new Euro League Baseball. First I was very positive about the initiative but after a night of sleep a lot of questions rear up.
The participating teams will continue to play in their own competiton as well. But eventually that means that those teams will get stronger and stronger and will finish way ahead of the remaining clubs. So that will not be in the interest of the national competitions. When two clubs will always play for the championship, the leagues will lose fans.
How about the rosters? If the teams will play next to their regular national competiton, their rosters need to be expanded. Will the extra players be eligible to play in the natoinal competitions too? Where will they get these players from? Will they raid the other clubs for talents? That would also not be in the interest of their local competitions.
Will other clubs also have a chance to participate? If the league will have a similar structure as MLB, where clubs cannot be demoted to a lower division, only the clubs in the ELB will reap the benefits and the gap between the rest of their home league will get bigger.
The press release of the ELB said that the initiators will have talks with the Baseball Federations of each participating country. And there is a lot that needs to be discussed. The press release also said that things like logistics, fundings, rosters and structure still need to be hammered out.
Baseball in Europe is still small sport. Many clubs have a hard time to stay afloat. I really wonder how the financial part will be arranged. Italy also has a professional league since a couple of years. But a club that used to be one of the flag ships of Italian Baseball, Grosseto BBC, is in severe financial trouble. So are a few others. There needs to be a financial sound foundation to start and to continue this league. The interest of baseball is not served when the league will fold after a season or two and the participating clubs are left with huge debts. I have seen to many Dutch clubs disappear because they lived life larger than they should.
For now I am still positive about the initiative. But it remains to be seen how the questions above will be answered. If it all means that the gap between the participating clubs and the others will get bigger, I am not so sure if I will still like it. I have read similar comments on Facebook, especially made by Dutch and German fans. Taking that into consideration, I think that the initiators would have been wise to put everything on paper properly before announcing the league.
Just my two cents.