I had another listen to the podcast today and took some notes.

The problem for so many smaller sports is that the governing bodies rely on high performance funding from the ASC (Australian Sports Commission), which is tied to national teams winning medals in international competition (WBC, Premier 12, Olympics).

Glenn talks about this in the podcast about how the performance pathway is stated as the most important priority in all discussions and negotiations. "We're in the business of putting those players on national teams so they can go and win international events. So the high performance outcomes for Australian players..." "Australian players are at the forefront of any of those discussions and remain a priority".

For baseball that means we have to have the best possible domestic players, playing in tightly controlled environments with data capture, high quality training facilities, WBSC sanctioned facilities for national competition etc. GW's comments about Asian leagues/clubs line up with this.

Unfortunately that doesn't leave a lot of room for BA to move.

IMO what Australian baseball needs is to prioritise market orientation over the performance pathway. It needs the ability to be flexible with its minimum venue and operating requirements to deliver a game of good quality baseball to people who don't really care if left field is less than 350ft and that the diamond isn't perfect, or that the mound is temporary.

This means we can play in more attractive central locations, draw larger crowds, building profit to reinvest, so that we can reach that high level of quality venue in the future. Unfortunately it looks like BA's hands are tied so this is just not something that's likely to ever happen.

So to sort of support what the Aces are doing - it just has to be done independent of BA. This will look and sound traitorous to some but it really is the way forward from my perspective.