Lamigo Monkeys’ officials yesterday said that the club would still play home games at the Taoyuan International Baseball Stadium following its sale to Tokyo-based Rakuten Inc, an electronics and Internet firm.
Rakuten and La New Corp, the former owner, made the official announcement at a news conference in Taipei that was attended by Lamigo general manager Justin Liu (劉玠廷), Rakuten Asia chief operating officer Takashi Watanabe, Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) commissioner John Wu (吳志揚) and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles general manager Kawada Yoshinori.
“La New has reached an agreement with Rakuten in which our shares in Lamigo would be completely sold to the Japanese corporation,” Liu said, adding that it began the procedure on July 3.
Photo: CNA
Even though the team attracted many suitors after it announced in July that it was looking for a buyer, Liu said that Rakuten was the most active one.
They quickly reached a deal, as they shared similar ideas on how the team should be managed, he said.
Rakuten pledged to keep the club’s administrative staff and remain in Taoyuan, he said.
Asked how much Rakuten paid to acquire La New’s stake, Watanabe declined to disclose the exact amount, as both sides signed a nondisclosure agreement.
“We have yet to decide on a new name following the change of ownership,” Watanabe said. “We are discussing several possibilities, but it is certain that ‘Lamigo’ will be no longer be part of it.”
Watanabe said that Rakuten would discuss keeping Liu as general manager, as he and his father, Monkeys founder Liu Pao-yu (劉保佑), are passionate about what they do.
Liu said that La New would continue managing the team through the second half of this season, the Taiwan Series, the World Baseball Softball Confederation Championship and a farewell game for fans.
“Before we hand the team over to Rakuten, we would continue to do our jobs,” Justin Liu said. “I do not think too much about the future. At the moment, I am just focused on taking the team higher and making sure that our experience is passed on to the new management.”
He also spoke about the difficulty of financing the team and his expectations of the new owners.
“La New is a small corporation and we could only cover costs by focusing on selling tickets, boxed lunches and team merchandise,” he said. “However, Rakuten runs e-commerce and financial technology businesses apart from managing sports teams, which helps market teams.”
The CPBL’s regulations stipulate that foreign investors can hold no more than a 49 percent stake in a baseball team if it is a new team entering the league, but the Rakuten transfer involves an existing team selling ownership to a foreign investor, Wu said.
The rules do not limit foreign investment for ownership changes, he said.
The deal would be accepted by the league as long as its executive council — formed by other teams in the league — agree, Wu said.
The deal is likely to be approved by the executive council, he added.
Rakuten has been running its e-commerce business in Taiwan for 10 years and has secured a virtual bank license from the Financial Supervisory Commission, he said, adding that it is buying a well-managed team.
The deal would generate discussion among fans, boost ticket sales and facilitate the exchange of professional baseball teams between Taiwan and Japan, he said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
NUMBERs IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
RSS