Photo (L-R): Myles Foreman (BV President), Justin Huber (Aces General Manager), Ashley Blair (BV General Manager).
Following the announcement that Baseball Australia (BA) has secured 100% ownership of the Australian Baseball League (ABL), Baseball Victoria (BV) can confirm that the Melbourne Aces will fall under the auspice of BV from the 2016-17 season.
Since it’s re-inception in 2010 the ABL has operated as a joint venture between BA and Major League Baseball (MLB) with today’s announcement presenting a number new opportunities to move baseball forward in Victoria.
Despite having withdrawn their funding from the ABL, Major League Baseball will continue to support baseball in Australia by supporting a number of high performance and development programs.
Following the announcement BV President Myles Foreman said:
“This is a significant step for Victoria given the lack of integration between BV and the Aces historically.
“While we have worked hard to improve this over the last 18 months, we will now take the integration one step further”.
Justin Huber will remain as the General Manager of the Melbourne Aces and has mirrored the comments of BV’s president.
“It’s going to give us access to some extra resources we haven’t previously had available but from a baseball perspective: it’ll give us better integration between the Aces and BV’s high performance programs which means more opportunities for Victorian players to develop and be exposed to professional baseball”.
The ABL will fund all League and Team related operating costs for the coming season with BV General Manager Ashley Blair saying the impact on member Clubs and Associations was BV’s first consideration when it came to a decision on taking on the Aces.
“The most important thing for our member Associations and Clubs to note is that it will be business as usual.
“We’re excited to support the Aces with key operational functions and responsibilities for the coming season but it won’t detract from the current services being provided at the grassroots level of baseball in Victoria”.
“The new structure aligns to our key strategy of a one sport approach of governing all aspects of the sport in Victoria 12 months of the year as well as help achieve our core objective of: gain, train and retain”.
Former President and Board Member of BA and current BV Board Member Geoff Pearce will sit on an ABL Strategic Advisory Committee as Victoria’s representative, charged with overseeing and monitoring the ABL competition with the goal of developing a long-term operational framework for the ABL.
On confirmation of the new structure, the ABL has also released a preliminary schedule for the 2016-17 season which will commence on 17 November 2016.