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Sprindale Minor League Sports Complex and Minor League Baseball Stadium


mcheiss

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We may be able to support a Class AA Texas League team but we won't be getting one will we? Everything I heard made it sound like it would have to be an independent league. Maybe sometime I should go up to Springdale and see if I can find the area they are wanting to develop. I was thinking it's supposed to be southwest of the I-540 Hwy 412 intersection, which would be a great location for some sports venues.

They said that three league commisioners had contacted Springdale. I wouldn't mind having either as long as it brings in tourism money.

It is supposed to be at the Southwest Corner of I-540 and 412.

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They said that three league commisioners had contacted Springdale. I wouldn't mind having either as long as it brings in tourism money.

It is supposed to be at the Southwest Corner of I-540 and 412.

Cool, at this point I'm not too worried what league or who it is. Just would be nice to have something to get things started.

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An update on the 6:00 KNWA news that I caught. Apparently they did a study on bringing in a AA baseball team and compared this metro to other metros. They projects that it could bring in $1.1 Mil a year for Springdale.

And that's just baseball.

Think if other venues come to Springdale. Even Concerts of big stars and such.

Also, I checked out the Texas AA League

There are teams in:

Midland

Tulsa

Corpus Christi

Frisco

Wichita

Little Rock

San Antonio

Springfield

Just incase anyone was curious about the Texas AA League.

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And that's just baseball.

Think if other venues come to Springdale. Even Concerts of big stars and such.

Also, I checked out the Texas AA League

There are teams in:

Midland

Tulsa

Corpus Christi

Frisco

Wichita

Little Rock

San Antonio

Springfield

Just incase anyone was curious about the Texas AA League.

There used to be teams in Jackson and Shreveport which moved to bigger markets. You can't start a team, you have to convince an existing franchise to move or buy it out. This can be quite difficult for many reasons. For instance, the Travelers are owned by community stock similar to the Packers and could never be bought out.

I also don't think the area has the population yet and going head to head with UA baseball, which was 2nd in the nation with attendance of over 7000 per game, would discourage any ownership group. If someone like Tyson or one of the Waltons really wanted to do it they probably could, just as Hammons did in Springfield. However, they didn't have a major national university up there to contend with.

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There used to be teams in Jackson and Shreveport which moved to bigger markets. You can't start a team, you have to convince an existing franchise to move or buy it out. This can be quite difficult for many reasons. For instance, the Travelers are owned by community stock similar to the Packers and could never be bought out.

I also don't think the area has the population yet and going head to head with UA baseball, which was 2nd in the nation with attendance of over 7000 per game, would discourage any ownership group. If someone like Tyson or one of the Waltons really wanted to do it they probably could, just as Hammons did in Springfield. However, they didn't have a major national university up there to contend with.

Well, The Walton's or Tyson's still could support it. It's still really early for this whole thing.

I didn't know the UofA Baseball's attendance was second in the nation, that's AMAZING!!!!

Texas is probably first.

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Well, The Walton's or Tyson's still could support it. It's still really early for this whole thing.

I didn't know the UofA Baseball's attendance was second in the nation, that's AMAZING!!!!

Texas is probably first.

LSU, actually.

We also had 10,500 fans for the Super-Regional vs FSU in Fayetteville in 2004, the most every to attend a home college baseball game.

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Wow, 10,500!!!

I had forgotten about LSU, they would have the biggest fan base due to their amazing team.

LSU has led the nation in baseball attendance every season in the last 20. We averaged 7100 to their 7430 last season and we're gaining every year. Van Horn is a great coach with a hell of a product. We were in the College World Series two years ago and lost a heartbreaking regional to Texas after having on the ropes last season and they were ultimately CWS champs. Van Horn built the Nebraska program from scratch and took them to two CWS before he came here. We signed the best baseball recruiting class in school history just a few days ago.

Our stadium is always ranked in the top 3 nationally by Baseball America. Even if Springdale gets a minor league team, it will always have the 2nd best stadium in NWA.

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Yeah the SEC does pretty well for attendance in baseball. They were trying to get 1 Mil people for the entire SEC season but I think it fell short. The SEC West does particularly good but the SEC East doesn't. What's also interesting is that the Razorbacks didn't end up having as good of a season as many thought but attendance was still pretty good. I'm not sure if having a baseball team and having the Razorbacks would hurt each other too much. I think many people would realize that even though it's the same sport that it's not going to be the same. The one problem I could perhaps seeing is that with this being a smaller market compared to some of the other cities if they aren't very good for a few years that people could more easily lose interest. But I do still wonder about if it is possible to get a Texas League team. I'm not so sure it would be very easy to get a team moved here. It would still seem to me that an independant league is more feasible.

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Yeah the SEC does pretty well for attendance in baseball. They were trying to get 1 Mil people for the entire SEC season but I think it fell short. The SEC West does particularly good but the SEC East doesn't. What's also interesting is that the Razorbacks didn't end up having as good of a season as many thought but attendance was still pretty good. I'm not sure if having a baseball team and having the Razorbacks would hurt each other too much. I think many people would realize that even though it's the same sport that it's not going to be the same. The one problem I could perhaps seeing is that with this being a smaller market compared to some of the other cities if they aren't very good for a few years that people could more easily lose interest. But I do still wonder about if it is possible to get a Texas League team. I'm not so sure it would be very easy to get a team moved here. It would still seem to me that an independant league is more feasible.

Which do you think would be more popular? Texas League or Independant?

If you ask me, Texas League would be a lot harder to get, but would have larger attendance because it's one step from the majors. An Independant League would be easier to get, but attendance may not be as high. So far 3 Texas League Commisioners have contacted Springdale as well.

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Which do you think would be more popular? Texas League or Independant?

If you ask me, Texas League would be a lot harder to get, but would have larger attendance because it's one step from the majors. An Independant League would be easier to get, but attendance may not be as high. So far 3 Texas League Commisioners have contacted Springdale as well.

Texas League would be a much bigger draw by far as these are future pros. I saw guys like JD Drew, Lankford, Zeile, McGee, Gilkey, Pujols, etc come through Little Rock at one time. Indy ball won't give you that and frankly you'd probably see more talent watching the Hogs play, there are several former Hog players in the majors.

That said, Texas League would be a much bigger financial risk. It will require a much larger monetary investment in the hopes of luring a team with no guarantees of actually doing so. There's not really money to be made on the deal so doing so is assuming a money-losing situation which will mean either a city or a wealthy donor would have to foot it.

NWA is a perfect community for A ball and would do well in it, I think, but there is no A league close enough. It's Texas League or Indy ball.

As an aside, Lincoln (NE) has A ball at the same site as the U of Nebraska's games. It is technically off-campus which allows alcoholic beverage sales which are mandatory to make any money on minor league games. Advance planning a few years ago could conceivably allowed a similar situation at UA so stadia wouldn't be duplicated.

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Which do you think would be more popular? Texas League or Independant?

If you ask me, Texas League would be a lot harder to get, but would have larger attendance because it's one step from the majors. An Independant League would be easier to get, but attendance may not be as high. So far 3 Texas League Commisioners have contacted Springdale as well.

I agree with you, I think a Texas League team would be more popular but harder to get. I remember when there used to be teams in Jackson and Shreveport. I'm not sure if there's any particular team that might be more likely to get moved. I was also really disappointed when the Travelers stopped being a Cardinals minor league team. Didn't they switch over to Springfield? Are Corpus Cristi and Frisco the two teams that moved? I dodn't seem to recall those two teams too well. For that matter I've never even heard of Frisco. I'm not sure whether a smaller city's team would be easier to bring in here or not. If that's the case then I would imagine Midland or Frisco would be the most likely.

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I agree with you, I think a Texas League team would be more popular but harder to get. I remember when there used to be teams in Jackson and Shreveport. I'm not sure if there's any particular team that might be more likely to get moved. I was also really disappointed when the Travelers stopped being a Cardinals minor league team. Didn't they switch over to Springfield? Are Corpus Cristi and Frisco the two teams that moved? I dodn't seem to recall those two teams too well. For that matter I've never even heard of Frisco. I'm not sure whether a smaller city's team would be easier to bring in here or not. If that's the case then I would imagine Midland or Frisco would be the most likely.

Yeah the Cardinals went to Springfield because of J.Q. Hammons.

That's another good question about which team would be moved to NWA?

The stadium was going to be in Bentonville, but because of Alchol sales, it went to Springdale.

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Yeah the Cardinals went to Springfield because of J.Q. Hammons.

That's another good question about which team would be moved to NWA?

The stadium was going to be in Bentonville, but because of Alchol sales, it went to Springdale.

I hadn't heard that about Bentonville but I wondered about that. I guess I'm a little surprised they didn't wait another year to see if Benton County goes wet next year when it comes to vote.

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I agree with you, I think a Texas League team would be more popular but harder to get. I remember when there used to be teams in Jackson and Shreveport. I'm not sure if there's any particular team that might be more likely to get moved. I was also really disappointed when the Travelers stopped being a Cardinals minor league team. Didn't they switch over to Springfield? Are Corpus Cristi and Frisco the two teams that moved? I dodn't seem to recall those two teams too well. For that matter I've never even heard of Frisco. I'm not sure whether a smaller city's team would be easier to bring in here or not. If that's the case then I would imagine Midland or Frisco would be the most likely.

Frisco is a wealthy suburb of Dallas in Collin County, next to Plano. It is in the 12th fastest growing country in the country (compared to Benton Co #78 and no other Ark counties in the top 100) and went from 491,774 to 627,938 in just 4 years between 2000 and 2004. Frisco also has the new Pizza Hut Park, the stadium for FC Dallas, the Dallas Major League Soccer franchise. It has a very nice upscale mall, Stonebrier, a Cheesecake Factory, Ikea, etc.

The Frisco Roughriders were the former Shreveport Captains.

Here.s their first-class stadium, Dr Pepper/7UP Park which opened in 2003. This is what I've been arguing should be the template for the new Travelers park in Little Rock.

frisco1.jpg

frisco2.jpg

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Frisco is a wealthy suburb of Dallas in Collin County, next to Plano. It is in the 12th fastest growing country in the country (compared to Benton Co #78 and no other Ark counties in the top 100) and went from 491,774 to 627,938 in just 4 years between 2000 and 2004. Frisco also has the new Pizza Hut Park, the stadium for FC Dallas, the Dallas Major League Soccer franchise. It has a very nice upscale mall, Stonebrier, a Cheesecake Factory, Ikea, etc.

The Frisco Roughriders were the former Shreveport Captains.

Here.s their first-class stadium, Dr Pepper/7UP Park which opened in 2003. This is what I've been arguing should be the template for the new Travelers park in Little Rock.

frisco1.jpg

frisco2.jpg

:w00t:

That stadium is amazing!!!!

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Yeah the Cardinals went to Springfield because of J.Q. Hammons.

That's another good question about which team would be moved to NWA?

The stadium was going to be in Bentonville, but because of Alchol sales, it went to Springdale.

The Cardinals actually went to Connecticut with their AA franchise after a spat with Travs GM Bill Valentine over not playing exhibition games in Little Rock, not because of Hammons who didn't even have a team lined up from Springfield at that time. Another big issue is that the Cards have traditionally traded away all their minor league talent and left a depleted minor league system in recent years, irritating the Travs. This was even worse when all the talent was moved up from AA to AAA after Memphis joined the organization. Another big spat was over the Cards organization wanting LR to build a new stadium, which is now in the works. The Cards weren't happy in CT long and it made sense to move to Missouri once Hammons had a franchise willing to move to Springfield.

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It is a nice stadium. I guess I should have known since I hadn't heard of the city before that it must be some suburb of a larger city. Well I guess if we're looking for a smaller city's team to possibly be persuaded to move here that it's probably not going to be them. What about Midland?

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The Cardinals actually went to Connecticut with their AA franchise after a spat with Travs GM Bill Valentine over not playing exhibition games in Little Rock, not because of Hammons who didn't even have a team lined up from Springfield at that time. Another big issue is that the Cards have traditionally traded away all their minor league talent and left a depleted minor league system in recent years, irritating the Travs. This was even worse when all the talent was moved up from AA to AAA after Memphis joined the organization. Another big spat was over the Cards organization wanting LR to build a new stadium, which is now in the works. The Cards weren't happy in CT long and it made sense to move to Missouri once Hammons had a franchise willing to move to Springfield.

That's what I meant.

I just left out the part about them going to conneticut.

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So which is going to happen a Texas AA Team, or an Independant League Team?

It seems like Gary George (Developer) is prefering a Texas AA Team, and so far three AA comissioners have contacted Springdale and George about releocating a team to Springdale.

I'm sure everyone involved on this end would prefer a Texas League team. But I don't know how easy it will be to get anyone to relocate. I also doubt they'll wait for a very long time for the chance of a team to relocate. If no one seems to interested at first then you have to go for an independant so that at least you have some team.

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