Recent discussions over the potential conversion of the existing Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) and the Taiwan Major League (TML) into a single professional baseball organization are intended to preserve professional baseball in Taiwan.
It is just the latest of numerous attempts taken by various parties to overcome the long-standing financial crisis that has troubled both leagues since their inceptions in 1990 and 1997 respectively.
It is widely recognized that the Taiwan market can barely support six professional baseball teams, let alone the current eight.
So why haven't any of the past efforts to consolidate the two leagues materialized, despite the sea of red ink that surrounds them both?
TML Deputy General Manager Huang Ing-po (黃瑛玻) said forming one league is essential to the wellbeing of baseball in Taiwan.
"We, at the TML, are hopeful that a reasonable compromise can be struck to help the long-term cause of this great game of baseball.
"Even if it means one or two seasons of rough going under the new system. We all realize that doing nothing will lead both leagues into further financial burden and make the overall quality of play and level of competition suffer even more."
It is the CPBL that has primarily resisted a merger to this point, most TML staffers believe. They say the CPBL has vetoed TML proposals for inter-league competitions -- ranging from an All-Star game to a full-blown championship series -- because it claimed the TML did not have an acceptable governing structure.
The real reason lies in the CPBL's reluctance to face the fact that actual inter-league play may contradict the notions of superiority that the CPBL has been claiming over the TML since it began.
Over 85 percent of the people polled in two recent surveys conducted by the National College of Physical Education and the National Taiwan College of Physical Education favor the idea of any sort of inter-league play. People are in favor of inter-league matchups because they would be the most direct way of settling the issue of superiority and they would also have potentially massive media and financial implications.
Instead, the CPBL insists on avoiding the issue by placing further unreasonable demands in its list of conditions for a proposed conversion plan, the TML says.
Commenting on the CPBL's attempt to prevent any competing leagues from having control over baseball, TML consultant Dean Yuan said earlier this week, "We must look beyond the next season or two because free market and open competition is the only way to improve the level of play.
"We are looking at making professional sports a legitimate alternative to other forms of entertainment.
"How we can work together to increase the popularity of this great sport should be the question that we ask ourselves, not the immediate interest of certain ball clubs or individuals," Yuan said.
Also, there are certain practices the CPBL is reluctant to take on.
It has no home-city designation system for its teams and this has led to an uneven distribution of player talent and fan base.
The TML's four teams represent four different regions to promote "bonding" between each team and the residents in its region, thus creating an evenly distributed source of support for each team.
The TML believes the regional designation policy, consistent with the mainstream school of thought in managing professional sporting teams, would also convert the existing sense of provincial pride into so-called "team pride" and cultivate support from people who would otherwise turn away from the game.
If the task at hand is to improve the long-term comprehensive viability of professional baseball in Taiwan, then more measures need to be taken to pool the available resources.
CONTRIBUTING REPORTERAs the curtain of another baseball season falls, merger talks dominate the sports pages in Taiwan.
The war between the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), the first pro-league in Taiwan, and the Taiwan Major League (TML) which started its operation in 1997 has been going on for six years.Despite optimism at previous merger talks, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.
The CPBL, founded in 1990 by the Brother Hotel Inc, President Enterprise, Mercuries Inc and Weichuan Co, who quickly established the pro-sports business model in Taiwan.
Bright beginnings
The league was expanded in 1993 to form a six-club entity and baseball fever was at the top of its curve.
A year later TVIS, which carried the games for three seasons, lost the broadcasting rights as VideoLand Inc offered a sky-high NT$1.5-billion-deal that completely stunned the world of sports.
With all the shock and bitterness at not getting TV rights for the league, TVIS (which later became part of ERA) formed the TML at the end of 1996.
The founding of the TML can interpreted as an act of business revenge and when the TML started poaching players from the CPBL the war between the two leagues led ultimately to court-battles.
Jaw war
It seemed to be a fight to the finish.
The abnormal operating structure of the TML, in which four clubs belong to one holding franchise, was made to give the league greater control of all teams.
Not only did not the organization make it difficult for fans to support but it also created a huge financial burden to the parent company ERA.
Peace talks came up from time to time, often enough when the TML was assumed to be running into some kind of financial trouble.
However, broken promises and ever-delayed proposals on the part of the TML, according to the CPBL, ensured that the talks were going nowhere.
The CPBL's only insistence at talks of inter-league play or merging, was that the TML break up the sole ownership that controls all four clubs.
"One owner, one club, is the bottom line we ask for because it is the right way to run professional sports franchise," said Wayne Lee, CPBL secretary general of CPBL.
The CPBL has struggled after getting hit by the TML and the gambling scandal in the mid-1990s.
It has recovered with the help of an exciting championship series and the Baseball World Cup last year, which is generally acknowleged to have brought fans back to the game.
The CPBL has seen a 57 percent attendance increase and a 149 percent revenue increase this season.
The CPBL has strengthened its bargaining position as a result and though it agrees a single league is better than the present structure, it insists the merger should be fair and reasonable.
As an example of this are the conditions set by the National Council of Physical Fitness and Sports, which is asking the CPBL to pay NT$80 million to buy out the TML and merge.
Better offer
"There is no way we should give NT$80 million to the TML, lay off our hard-working staff and dissolve ourselves in the name of forming a new league," said Hong Rwei-ho (洪瑞河), the principle owner of the Brother Elephants -- the most popular franchise in Taiwan.
If this is the best offer the CPBL is going to be given then merger talks may once again stall.
It may be a better and smarter idea just to leave professional baseball to the market.
After all running a pro-sports franchise is just like running a business, adding the passion of fans for the game is a delicate part of its operations.
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