Goodbye Laredo, hello Salina?

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nksports
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Post by nksports » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:57 pm

[quote=""suge night""]NKSports, here's a question for you where do the Airhogs go from here?

Listed attendance for 8-29-17 (312) Cleburne has asked its few real number of fans to attend the final series vs the Airhogs though its an away game, saying they will broadcast from the stands :confused:

Even though normally the hogs have broadcast team :confused: [/quote]
The AirHogs are an interesting question. They have a stadium. They drew fans at one time (even though they are just down the street from the Rangers). That makes me think its either a local economy or marketing problem.
I don't know if the team has any value if you try to sell it. Surrounding markets have all failed (Fort Worth, Abilene, Laredo, Lubbock).
While I'm a little north of Texas by 300 miles or so, at this time of year, minor league and indy baseball attendance goes down because high school sports start up.
During the NBC, I had an interesting talk with someone with the Wingnuts. He had no comment on either the AirHogs or Cleburne (he wasn't being evasive, he just didn't know what was going on there), but he said the Sioux Falls and Sioux City ownership have deep pockets and are in it for the long term. While both are small markets, both teams get good sponsorship numbers. (I'm sure it's probably a healthy tax deduction as well).
This is the final weekend for the Salina Stockade. It would be nice to see them get 20 wins, but the problem is Wichita is still fighting for home field advantage in the playoffs, so they may not rest too many players (they do have one loss to the Stockade this season).
Barring any other late foldings (Texas or Cleburne), Salina will fold at the end of the season. The Chicago team will be considered an expansion franchise with no history tied to Laredo or Salina.
Last edited by nksports on Fri Sep 01, 2017 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

suge night
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Post by suge night » Mon Sep 04, 2017 3:21 pm

NK, there are reports that the Cleburne management is stating that the real total attendance numbers are closer to 80,000 but can that be trusted it appears that they have simply thrown around some numbers all season and non of them have any merit. They were giving away tickets all season this alone with the 800 free tickets the city were supposedly only giving away for chosen events (every game) probably places the total attendance number closer to 40,000 if they even were able to reach that.

nksports
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Post by nksports » Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:16 am

The games I've watched from Cleburne don't look like there are 40 people there, much less 800.
It seems like most games I've seen from there, they show the same sky box suite. (They only used a couple of cameras at fixed positions, so you don't see a whole lot of the stadium).
We'll see what happens in the silly season. They have replaced Salina already (unless someone else goes belly up). My guess is the AirHogs are in the most jeopardy.
Wichita stays in the same stadium for at least one more year (not sure of the stadium's exact timeline).
Here are the final numbers:

Team Yesterday Total Openings Avg
St Paul Saints - 406,501 49 8,296
Winnipeg Goldeyes 5,716 219,556 50 4,391
Kansas City T-Bones 3,722 211,599 52 4,069
Gary SouthShore RailCats 3,055 181,612 50 3,632
Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks - 176,086 49 3,594
Lincoln Saltdogs - 172,712 51 3,387
Wichita Wingnuts 3,249 157,995 51 3,098
Sioux Falls Canaries - 113,506 49 2,316
Cleburne Railroaders - 103,264 58 1,780
Sioux City Explorers 1,283 58,407 47 1,243
Texas AirHogs 1,244 65,672 56 1,173
Total: 18,269 1,866,910 562 3,322

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Goodbye Salina, Hello Chicago

Post by nksports » Wed Sep 06, 2017 6:40 am


suge night
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Post by suge night » Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:40 pm

The Kansas City T-Bones, Lincoln Saltdogs and Sioux City Explorers of last season\'s Central Division were moved to the South Division with the returning Cleburne Railroaders, Texas Airhogs and Wichita Wingnuts.

This is a funny :D alignment from this perspective, the airhogs are dead but if they manage to come back good for them, but to what fan base do they have to offer any sponsor 650 was about the average, so the league lets them back for the renewal cash. Cleburne didn't fair much better than that even gave away tickets all season and still couldn't get 1000 real people to attend a game, simply look at any replay video and within a stadium that only has 2400 fixed seats could they fill. Currently rumor has the real money behind that team is in the market to sell after a disappointing first season,which won't get better, remember that sweetheart deal they got on the stadium for two years. But wait they can't seem to get any takers on renting the stadium because they have no payments but wish to con renters out of their cash remember this is a federal felony by law of a trade secret. Finally if the team is really in limbo who's going to pay that renewal fee of $100,000 though some have stated its $200,000 the league has two Salina teams on the books even though the original one's out.

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Post by nksports » Mon Oct 16, 2017 10:38 pm

The division alignment, in and of itself, isn't too bad. I'm sure Sioux City and Sioux Falls would love to be in the same division. This also eliminates that wild card spot and allows the schedule to be a bit more balanced.
Wichita will actually have a competitive race next year with the T-Bones and Lincoln in their division. It won't be the walkover they had last year.
Yes, the two Texas teams are the elephants in the room right now. The league doesn't need a repeat of the Laredo debacle this spring. Supposedly, Wichita will know by December who the tenant in the new Lawrence-Dumont Stadium will be and what the construction time table is, so the current team is still assumed to be a short timer (although, they may move or sell rather than fold the franchise, but that becomes a question of where).

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Post by suge night » Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:26 pm

The last part of your statement rings a familiar smell in the air, here's why
recall the league knew the situation of Laredo well before it became very very public they didn't pay the renewal fee which sent the signal out they were finished.

Now with the Wingnuts being short term in their current market, you said they could relocate or attempt to sell. Here is an interesting possibility word around the Cleburne situation has some city folks wanting the team sold to what they claim is more of a baseball operator, being that the money behind that team is from basketball and are being questioned as to what the hell they know about running a baseball team, that person is said to be shopping his majority ownership stake. The question on the second front is how much longer can the hogs ownership pretend they have unlimited cash to continue to lose, they have no fan base which also translate into little interest from sponsors, also neither of the groups (Texas) that control the stadium has any idea how to run it from a rental standpoint not many renters lining up to use those places and when they do its with little fan fair, the cities would be better off running the things themselves.
Finally the Wingnuts in one of those places simply moves the money around, if either one is really a pretender towards next season, which one really has the cash in hand to pay the renewal fee, that's why I hinted to the repeated Salina game plan by the league, except this time they have a stadium to front it with. The league has already shown its shady and is willing to operate like that.

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The aa

Post by ca » Tue Oct 17, 2017 4:38 pm

Don't be to stunned if the aa loses 3 teams prior to the 2018 slate ( the tx teams n Wichita ) . The tx clubs may not return due to finances n Wichita may be looking at a tl return . So the aa will go into another meet the new Boss market (Chicago) Milwaukee n why they continue to ignore Detroit is beyond me

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Post by nksports » Wed Oct 18, 2017 2:47 am

[quote=""ca""]Don't be to stunned if the aa loses 3 teams prior to the 2018 slate ( the tx teams n Wichita ) . The tx clubs may not return due to finances n Wichita may be looking at a tl return . So the aa will go into another meet the new Boss market (Chicago) Milwaukee n why they continue to ignore Detroit is beyond me[/quote]

Right now, Wichita may be more in line for a PCL club than a Texas League club (with a slim chance at the Pioneer League (which is moving into Colorado Springs when the SkySox move). The Missions are already set for Amarillo when that new park opens, but the rest of the league is pretty stable.
The PCL has several teams looking for new ballparks.
Any move into Wichita wouldn't happen before 2019.
The Frontier League would be a better fit for the Detroit area than the AA.

ca
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Det in the aa

Post by ca » Wed Oct 18, 2017 5:14 pm

while the fl may be a better fit for Detroit Gary isn't all that far away themselves

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