The Lamigo Monkeys’ management yesterday said that the baseball club are being sold after years of running deficits.
The announcement came as a shock to fans, as the team have been the nation’s most successful professional baseball team over the past decade.
“We have begun the process of finding a new owner for the club,” Lamigo general manager Justin Liu (劉玠廷) said, adding that the team would remain intact and the rights of their players protected.
Photo: Hsieh Wu-hsiung, Taipei Times
The team would continue taking part in the playoffs with the goal of retaining their Chinese Professional Baseball League’s (CPBL) championship title.
“The era of small to medium-sized enterprises running the business operations of professional baseball teams is over,” Liu said. “Therefore we had to make this difficult and regretful decision.”
“Over the past few years, the business environment for professional baseball has undergone many changes, with the CPBL making good progress and setting up a farm team system... Our club have strived to expand their fan base, improve sales and marketing, and achieve winning records, but we have found that we are unable to keep up with the changes in this new era,” Liu said.
The current ownership began in 2003, when Liu Pao-yu (劉保佑), Justin Liu’s father and founder of Merry Yard International Enterprise (達達集團) and Taiwanese shoe manufacturer La New Corp, bought the former Taiwan Major League’s First Agan club, and changed the team’s name to La New Bears, based in Kaohsiung.
In 2011, the club were moved to Taoyuan and renamed Taoyuan Lamigo Monkeys, with Liu Pao-yu serving as their chairman.
The Lamigo Monkeys surged into the year-end Taiwan Series finals in 2011, before losing the title to the Uni-President Lions, but then went on to win the championship title five times starting in 2012, and the CPBL title in four of the past five years.
However, the Monkeys’ successes on the field strained their finances, as the club’s management had to expand the payroll, and boost salaries to retain star players and attract new talent. It also had to increase the team’s operating budget year after year to meet rising costs and keep up with other teams.
When President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) met with Lamigo players in March, Liu Pao-yu told her: “Operating a professional baseball team is very difficult... Through the past 16 years, we have lost NT$1.6 billion [US$51.40 million at the current exchange rate].”
Liu Pao-yu had publicly talked about the team running deficits, despite being the most successful club in the past few years, saying that he had contemplated on many occasions putting the club up for sale.
“We are facing more difficult times. The current payroll is three times the amount when I took over in 2003, but we do not have the same increase in revenue,” he said last month.
He pointed out the limited market and fan base in Taiwan when discussing the Weichuan Dragons rejoining the CPBL at the time.
It had been rumored that financial conglomerate Shinkong Group (新光集團) would buy out the Lamigo Monkeys, but Justin Liu did not confirm the rumor, saying only that Shin Kong would be one of the club’s new sponsors.
The CPBL has been running with four teams since 2008: the Lamigo Monkeys, the Uni-President Lions, the Brothers Baseball Club and the Fubon Guardians.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying