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Harden promises new league will be different
5/29/2008 12:13 AM   1 comment(s) on this story E-mail this story to a friend



By CAM HUFFMAN

Sports Editor

Atlantic Coast League Chief Executive Officer Michael Harden confirmed this week that his new independent professional baseball league is looking at Aiken as a possible market. But if baseball is going to return to USC Aiken's Roberto Hernandez Stadium next summer, Harden is going to have to make one heck of a sales pitch, first to the administration at USCA, then to the advertisers and sponsors in the community and finally to the fans that he hopes will pack the stands at "The Bert."

That task will not be easy in the wake of the damage left behind by the South Coast League, which bolted town after one season with unpaid bills and broken promises. Harden, who says he was a closet fan of the SCL and was hoping to see the league succeed, knows his challenge will be tough, but he believes he has a strong plan in place and that the failures of the SCL taught him some important lessons.

"I understand there are a lot of hard feelings," said Harden. "If I forked over money and then the league just disappeared, I would be mad, too. But it wouldn't prevent me from advertising with another league. We are not out to do with the SCL did. I know it wasn't intentional. I thought they had a fantastic first season, but they just mismanaged their money.

"The thing that killed the South Coast League was the pricy names," he continued, beginning the process of outlining how the ACL will be different. "For instance, bringing in Cecil Fielder as a manager brings a certain price tag with it. The way independent leagues are supposed to be run is to find

talent from college. The No. 1 priority is getting the guys who were undrafted by major league clubs and just graduated college. It gives them their chance to play professional ball, develop their skills on the professional level and eventually be noticed by a major league club."

While special promotions and between-inning shows brought some fans out to see the Foxhounds last summer, the action on the field was very unpredictable. At times fans were treated to some good baseball, but at other times the Bad New Bears showed up and put on the Aiken uniforms. Harden believes it is the action on the field that puts bodies in the seats, and he promises his focus will be on putting quality athletes around the diamond.

"The No. 1 thing is the fans," explained the NFL and NASCAR enthusiast. "The South Coast League wanted to put on all these between-inning shows and try to entertain them. But people come to the games to watch baseball. They don't come to watch the mascot dance around between innings. They don't come to sit in 100-degree weather for anything other than baseball. The fans are the No. 1 priority. I am solely for the fans. I want to give them what they pay for and promise them great baseball action."

Another way Harden hopes to avoid the trap that snared the SCL is to try to bring as much attention to his league as possible -- not with Wally Backman temper tantrums, but instead with a league-wide radio and television contract. Harden plans to have a radio partner for the entire league to broadcast every game over the airways or on the web. He is also in talks with Fans Network TV, an up-and-coming sports network that already has a contract with Arena Football League 2 and the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, to broadcast an ACL Game of the Week as well as a weekly Inside the Atlantic Coast League show. Those deals would not only help bring exposure to the league, they would also provide additional tools to help sell advertisers on the ACL.

"It won't be limited to a billboard sign in the outfield," said Harden. "They are going to have the opportunity to have a 30-second commercial on TV or radio, a program ad, the starting lineup named after them, the pregame show, postgame show, seventh-inning stretch, player of the game, announcers, replay, stolen bases, etc. The possibilities are endless. We already have a package that we are going to present to everybody.

"It will be a good way to get the Atlantic Coast League name out there. People will see that we are not the typical independent league that can't make it through a year or shuts down after the first season."

If Harden is to make his lifelong dream of owning and operating a professional league come true by 2009, though, there is little time to waste.

"It is getting close to crunch time where we need to get the teams in place," he admitted. "We have to have (the teams) no later than September or October, because the real offseason schedule starts in November.

"We have the chance to be the premier independent league in the southeast," Harden concluded. "We have no competition like they do in the Midwest, where they have five leagues competing. We get to be the golden baseball league in our region. There are still plenty of markets up for grabs, it is just a matter of getting them."

<Caption>File photo

The path to the Major Leagues could run through Roberto Hernandez Stadium in the future.</Caption>





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  1 comment(s) on this story

no way :  6/2/2008

Just stop this crazy talk. We can go to Augusta for real entertaining baseball.

Pete McCormick
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