Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) yesterday vowed to offer incentives to keep the La New Bears baseball team from relocating to Taoyuan County.
Chen told reporters during a baseball-related event in the city that she had talked to the team and sought to persuade its management to stay in Kaohsiung, by promising to increase the number of free shuttle buses between MRT stations and the team’s home field at Chengcing Lake (澄清湖) for fans during the baseball season.
Chen said she also promised to discuss renovation of the baseball field with the team after the city and Kaohsiung County complete a planned merger on Dec. 25, adding that the team could also take advantage of the city’s Lide Baseball Field for practice.
Chen made the pledges after the La New Bears managers allegedly said recently they would like to move their home field from Chengcing Lake to Taoyuan County’s Cingpu (青埔) because of financial difficulties.
Chen met La New chairman Liu Pao-yu (劉保佑) on Friday to express the city government’s concerns about the relocation.
The city’s Department of Sports told reporters after the meeting that Liu complained about Chengcing Lake Baseball Field’s transportation and parking space while hoping that the field’s facilities would be renewed.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator and the KMT nominee for November’s special municipality mayoral election Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) told reporters that Liu had told her that La New had spent NT$700 million (US$21.6 million) running the team and the field since the team joined the Chinese Professional Baseball League six years ago and suffered losses of NT$10 million per year.
Huang said the annual rent at Chengcing Lake Baseball Field was NT$3 million, while the field in Cingpu only costs NT$300,000, adding that this was among the reasons why the team was considering relocating to Taoyuan.
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