An ownership change could be in the offing for the Thunder Bay Border Cats (summer collegiate; Northwoods League), as a local group is working to obtain the team.
The Northwoods League recently confirmed that it had issued a termination notice to Superior Baseball Club Inc., the entity that backed the Thunder Bay, Ontario-based Border Cats. It found that the American-based group, which had owned the Border Cats since 2016, breached its affiliation agreement with the league by being financially insolvent. That left questions about the future of the club, but new local ownership appears to be taking shape.
A local group intends to take over the Border Cats, and keep them at Thunder Bay’s Port Arthur Stadium. Work to attract investors to the group is still underway, but spokesperson Bryan Graham recently indicated that the effort has some momentum. More from The Chronicle-Journal:
“We certainly want to keep the team here in Thunder Bay. We certainly see a lot of potential with the Border Cats organization moving forward,” Graham said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “We just wanted to put together a local group that can operate it and sink some capital investment into the operation to take over the franchise and run it and hopefully be successful with it from both the business side and baseball side.”
So far, Graham said the group is “about half a dozen” investors shy of their goal of 25 investors. However, there has no been deadline set for the group to bring in the needed money.
“We’re still looking for investors right now,” he said. “We’re continuing to have good dialogue with the league.”
Graham estimates the deal should be, “taken care of in the next couple of weeks.”
Currently the only Canada-based team in the Northwoods League, the Border Cats have played at Thunder Bay’s Port Arthur Stadium since 2003.
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