Emeralds’ ownership needs a stadium soon.
Back in 2019, when the Lords of the Diamond or Major League Baseball owners decided to lop off 42 minor league baseball teams including two short season leagues they also put cities on notice. Get your ballparks up to Major League Baseball owners’ standards by 2025 or risk losing your team. In 2021, MLB came up with its new guidelines for minor league teams for stadiums. The Eugene Emeralds franchise of the Northwest League could be playing the final games of its existence between now and the end of the 2024 Minor League Baseball season. In May, Eugene, Oregon voters rejected a $15 million bond measure that would have helped fund a new stadium for the Emeralds franchise at the Lane County Fairgrounds. Since then, Emeralds ownership has been trying to pick up the pieces and talking to various communities about the possibility of getting a stadium built for the franchise that has been in Eugene for 70 seasons.
Emeralds’ ownership went to the Lane County Commissioners to explain what it needed to do to satisfy MLB’s guidelines looking for money to cover the cost of a new stadium. The Emeralds’ ownership thought it had about $57 million on hand from various sources for the project but that left a $43 million shortfall. Because time was ticking away with a 2025 deadline to get a new Eugene stadium deal done, the feeling was that the May 21st vote was the best opportunity to keep the team in town. With the loss, the process of moving the team to a town where elected officials are willing to spend money on a stadium for a low-level minor league baseball franchise began. Eugene politicians tried and failed to satisfy Major League Baseball. Eugene is just the latest casualty in the stadium game.
The ballpark needs to be replaced.
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