It’s hard to argue with Wichita Wranglers owner Bob Rich’s assessment of why the city is losing the team, as finally explained via a sister publication of the Wichita Business Journal:
Compared with Wichita State University’s baseball program and Rich’s own National Baseball Congress World Series, Rich said, “The Wichita Wranglers are probably a bad third out of the three” in public support. He added: “Even when they announced the possibility that the team was going to leave, the attendance needle didn’t move at all. I really don’t think (the Wranglers) are truly part of that community.”
Makes you wonder what kind of attendance the team will manage for 2007, before it moves to Springdale, Ark.
Another cause for concern: The article’s headline said Rich is “almost certain” the NBC tournament will stay in Wichita. “I think what will happen is we’ll sign up a long-term agreement to (keep) the NBC, which they love, and they go there in record numbers,” Rich said.
It’s up to city officials to seal that deal.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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13 Comments
The National Baseball Congress tournament better known as the NBC tournament is a Wichita tradition since about 1936 as I recall. Its the STAR of Wichita summer baseball. This tradition needs to remain in Wichita.
The NBC abounds in enthusiasm. Some NBC players are young Wichita baseball players supported by their friends. And teams from all over the U.S. and sometimes world. The Alaska teams bring enthusiasm.
The great Baseball Round the Clock tradition, baseball continuously from Friday evening to Sunday evening. Rain — gather under the stadium canopy. Baseball scouts watching for future stars.
On the final night, awards for winning teams and the final clapping and cheering and milling around until the overhead lights finally dim, harboring another fall and chilly Wichita winter until the next summer rolls around again.
Lets keep the National Baseball Congress at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in Wichita.
How about a vote to see if we want the NBC still here. I bet if we had a vote the people here would vote the NBC out. If they didn’t, then we can just ask for a re-vote again and again until we come up with the result to kick the NBC tournament out and lets tear down LD Stadium. We don’t needed it.
(Being sarcastic! Directed to the person above.)
*Just busting your chops man.* ;)
Just because someone has a business which is a baseball team that doesn’t really provide much for economic development for a city, doesn’t mean everyone has to divy up to pay to keep it afloat.
It is a minor league team and the players are looking to advance to a major league team or aren’t good enough to go to the majors?
I don’t watch major league baseball either. Doubt I would even go to a baseball game even if a team like the Yankees played in Wichita.
The tastes in preferred sports has changed. I don’t particular want to sit through a game where people occasionally move and occasionally show any signs of life that there is actually something going on.
And the owners want me to pay for a ticket for all this nothingness and non-occurence of events and like it.
When I played baseball, I would even go into the daydream doldrums on those hot summer days when our team was a bat and no one was hitting. If it can put a player into sleep mode into a dugout, think what it does to fans.
But hey, I was an outfielder, it was boring out there. I could put my hands on my knees, pop my glove, spit and scratch myself.
To keep myself awake, I could put my hands on my knees, pop my glove, spit and scratch myself.
Yawn…I need a nap…
This year my family and I went to at least a half-dozen Wrangler games, usually on Friday nights. Most of the time the weather was beautiful, just a terrific night to be outdoors watching a game.
Yet many times we would look around and there would only be a few hundred people at the game, regardless of what the ‘official’ attendance total might be posted as. Maybe the team was not marketed well, maybe the stadium was inconvenient, or maybe the Wrangers really are the third choice in Wichita for baseball. But who knows? Most people I know simply don’t care that they are moving.
Owners of baseball teams are not running them as charities. I’m sad to see the Wranglers move away, but I honestly cannot blame the Rich family. They got a great deal to move to the Springdale area, to a place where minor-league baseball will be new and exciting and probably draw well for at least a few years. I wish them the best, but hope that someday Wichita will get another team.
Keep in mind, Wichita Wranglers baseball will play here in Wichita during the coming 2007 baseball season. About a week ago, I called Robert Slaughter, Wranglers’ top field salesman, to order my usual book of 40 tickets when they are printed.
I absolutely, positively, without a moment of reservation or a single fought back tear, do not give a damn that they are leaving or if they are ever replaced. And, if they are, not a single penny of tax payer money should ever be spent on it. Now, get rid of the NBC, sell the Lawrence-Dumont property, apply the proceeds toward the “joke” arena and terminate the sales tax debacle.
Rich is a creep who sold out to Wal Mart.
I’m glad my Dad did not live to see how badly this community failed baseball. He loved going to those games. This would have broken his heart.
That said? Wichita did not deserve the Wranglers. Wichita does not deserve anything but an unmarked grave.
Remember those empty stands at LD. That is what your arena is gonna look like.
Wichita used to have the Aeros back in the day and then Baseball changed and we went from the AAA to AA minor league farm team. But the NBC tournament has always been here. It has been somewhat inconvenient for for home team to take two weeks out of the summer to give up home field to an outside tournament. Plus that is the reason they have never been able to have the infield anything other than artificial turf.
To be honest I have never heard about the NBC tournament outside Wichita and don’t think that the city would loose anything important if it became a traveling series instead of a static one. Wichita is being duped into thinking this amature baseball contest does anything special for the city. The reason it is held here is because Wichita has one of the few if not only parks that is willing to put up with the interruption of normal baseball operation during the high points of fan interest in the summer.
Go around the country and ask baseball fans about the NBC tournament and you have to explain what it is. Ask them about the Cubs or Ranges of Royals AA farm teams they at least get it right away.
I have always wanted the NBC tournament away from professional baseball. Well it finally is going to happen but just different that what I wanted.
The NBC tournament is something stupid to support at the loss of professional baseball and it is even more stupid not to support professional baseball in Wichita.
Ahhh……Kansas
We voted with our wallets, get over it. Nobody cared.
To Joe Williams -___ You said going to a 40,000 population area, but Springdale itself is 60,000, and the area is over 250,000 and projected to be over 500,000 within 10 years.___ Seems like Mr. Rich isn’t so dumb after all, especially given that the city of Wichita (I actually used to live there) isn’t supporting the team.___ (Also, isn’t the Wichita metro area nearing 1,000,000 ?)
Wichita is about 500,000 right now depending on how far out you go but metro is about 400,000. Oklahoma City is about 800,000 with Kansas City coming in at about 2.3 million.
Tulsa is about the same size a bit larger and has a good minor league team, the Tulsa Drillers.
We may have “voted” with our wallets but the team owners also dropped the ball in the way they were not able to put together better teams. You want fans in the seats, win games. Pretty simple formula.
Thomas, the quality of a minor league team is dependent upon the needs of its major league “sponsor”, unless the minor league team is an independent. Thus, the owners have little control over the roster, etc.
My problem with going to the Wranglers’ games (in fact, almost all ‘live’ sporting events) is the perception that those in attendance cannot be entertained merely by what is happening on the court. Thus, we have the canned music between innings; the attempts to encourage fake enthusiasm by the half-hearted “Charge” thing; the “clapping hands” on the scoreboard, etc. I enjoy baseball for what it is; I don’t need the other stuff.
Yeah, I’m old; my fondest hope is to attend a Cubs game at Wrigley, as I understand from others that the atmosphere there, while probably being more social than fan directed, is less interrupted by the mindless miscellany so prevalent at other stadia.
“court”=”field, court, rink, pitch, etc.”