Madison developer in new BayBears owner group

The chance the BayBears will stay in Mobile has diminished as it became clear that the new ownership group of the club contains a real estate developer from Madison, the city that is in the mix to become the new home of the BayBears.

The Madison real estate developer is Louis Breland, who is developing a live-work-play center in Madison. CEO and managing partner of BallCorps, LLC, Ralph Nelson. stated the following in an interview last Friday: “We love the market,” Nelson said of north Alabama. “It’s very obvious what the market is, what the benefits of that market are….”

Benefits? You can wonder what those benefits are. Madison is a suburb of Huntsville, former home of the Huntsville Stars. The Stars lasted 29 years before leaving the city. In the final five years of their existence, the Stars were ranked dead last in attendance figures as they even did not make the 100,000 mark in a season a couple of times.

ou Breland is developing Town Madison, a $300 million project in Madison on Interstate 565 mentioned as the team’s possible home if it moves north. Madison has expressed interest in building a multi-use stadium that could house it.

Madison Mayor Paul Finley stated: “As Madison continues to enjoy tremendous growth, we are committed to enhancing our thriving economy by providing destinations and entertainment options for our citizens. We have an exciting opportunity to build a multi-use venue in our city that would provide much-needed conference, meeting, and event facilities as well as position us to offer the fun, regional entertainment option of minor league baseball.”

But we all know how the inception of ballpark plans work. They have to be approved by a city council and since Alabama is a rather conservative state, it the new ownership group of the BayBears may encounter a lot of resistance against a publicly funded ballpark.