The summer-collegiate Northwoods League has delivered a termination notice to the group that owns the Thunder Bay Border Cats, leaving questions about the club’s future.
The Northwoods League recently confirmed that it has issued a termination notice to Superior Baseball Club Inc., the entity that backs the Thunder Bay, Ontario-based Border Cats. It has found that the American-based group has breached its affiliation agreement with the league by being financially insolvent, which threatens the status of the club in Thunder Bay going forward.
Superior Baseball Club has less than a month to resolve its financial issues and otherwise risks the league taking the team back, according to Northwoods League chairman Dick Radatz, Jr. A local group is attempting to land investors as part of an effort to take over the Border Cats and keep them in Thunder Bay, but that effort still requires additional investors and is taking place on a tight schedule. More from CBC News:
“They’ve got less than a month to cure the breach,” he said. “If that’s not cured, then the league gets the team back, and then we have to make some decisions as to how we go forward.”
Radatz said in that case, there’s no guarantee the Border Cats would remain in Thunder Bay.
But a local group is stepping in, hoping to attract enough investors to take over the team and keep it in the city.
“We were looking for 25 [local investors],” said Bryan Graham, spokesperson for the local group. “We’d be happy, probably, with a number even just less than that.”…
Graham said the deadline is looming, however, and the group wants to have its paperwork into the Northwoods League by Friday.
Currently the only Canada-based team in the Northwoods League, the Border Cats have played at Thunder Bay’s Port Arthur Stadium since 2003. Superior Baseball Club has owned the team since 2016.