New Haven Independent

All they need are a few thousand fans who want to be team owners like the Steinbrenner family in New York or managers like Terry Francona in Boston, all for less than the cost of two grandstand seats in Fenway Park.

The group is launching a campaign later this week to get baseball fans to pony up $100 apiece to become part-owners of Our Baseball Haven and have a vote in how the team is run, carrying fantasy baseball to the next level. Organizers plan on fielding the team for the 2010 baseball season with money collected.

The foursome’s approach is called “crowdsourcing,” a concept based on a book of that name by Jeff Howe. The idea involves finding large groups of people in huge pools to carry out a project normally down top-down by a few, or not done at all. The concept was adapted to develop a soccer team in England. That team, Ebbsfleet United, is owned and managed by fans who have joined My Football Club.

New Haven’s foursome say they can make the concept work here to field a baseball team.

Our Baseball Haven would be the first team operated with the crowdsourcing concept in the nation, said the four, left to right in photo: Merrick Rosner, Brett Orzechowski, David Klineberg and Jason Zammiello.

Crowdsourcing Meets Fantasy Baseball

Crowdsourcing is possible because of the Internet and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, Howe said in a promotional video. Before the Internet, getting large numbers of people together was difficult. Using the Internet makes it possible to keep people interested and involved, he said.

For the unaffiliated, fantasy baseball allows a person or a group to choose a team from all major-league baseball players. The performance of that team depends on the performance of the players they have chosen. The problem, however, is that after they choose the players, the fantasy owners have no control over their teams.

Our Baseball Haven, and its parent organization, Interactive Sports Innovation, will give each owner a vote on just about every aspect of the team. That would include the makeup of the team including which players are fielded on any day, the scheduling of games, the promotions and just about everything except on-field decision by the manager during a game.

Business and city officials have welcomed the concept. But a major league consultant said the very concept could be a fatal flaw in the fielding of a winning team.

New Haven has a great tradition on baseball, starting with the New Haven Elm City, who played in the National Association starting in 1875. But lately, fans have had to travel to New Britain or Norwich to see minor-league baseball. The New Haven County Cutters lasted from 2004 to 2007, playing to less-than-packed stands.

The crowdsourcing model addresses the problems suffered by other teams, Zammiello said last week in an interview last week at the group’s office — which, for now, is a table at Clark’s Dairy on Whitney Avenue. He is the executive director of the Tennis Foundation of Connecticut and was executive director of the former Baseball Foundation of Connecticut.

“The [New Haven] Ravens and the Cutters were heavily reliant on sponsorships from business community,” he said. Businesses didn’t buy enough sponsorships to keep the teams afloat.

“Our model is to bring in enough memberships to support the team for the season,” he said. “We are not asking for handouts” to field the team, he said.

“Crowdsourcing model works well with baseball,” said Rosner, a real estate managing agent and former financial analyst.

“We want to tap into the rivalry between Red Sox, Yankees and Mets fans. Our fan base is hardcore fans who play fantasy sports. People are passionate about baseball. Baseball is on sports radio all year as opposed to other sports, which are discussed only during their seasons,” he said.

“Even when there was interest, the teams couldn’t put people in seats. Our members will fill most of the seats. You also get a ticket package for your buy-in. What ends up happening is that our members will fill 50-to-75 percent of the seats. The other 25 percent, we allocate to nonprofits and charities. The net proceeds [for those seats] will go back to the charity. It will in turn keep our stadium filled,” he said.

“Part of our job in making this a success is engaging our audience,” said Orzechowski, the founder of a media production company and a sports writer who does web work for the New Haven Register.

“We want to have a deep relationship with our fans,” said Klineberg, an account director with a New Haven-based marketing agency and the chairman of the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce Sports Council. The overarching goal is to be able to contribute to nonprofits and other helping organizations, to “do well by doing good.”

The group plans to begin collecting memberships today with a multimedia campaign to get memberships. “We have a pretty strong marketing campaign planned, ” Zammiello said.

What happens after that depends on how many memberships are garnered. The memberships would pay for all team and game-related expenses including hiring staff and players, transportation, playing field and equipment. They would solicit sponsorships from businesses that would be used for other, non-baseball related things, they said.

If there are 5,000 members, then the team would join the New England Collegiate Baseball League, which fields teams of college players. There are two teams in Connecticut, the Danbury Westerners and the Manchester Silkworms.

If the team can garner 30,000 members, then the organizers would approach the Atlantic Baseball League, where the Bridgeport Bluefish play. It is also possible that Our Baseball Haven will purchase an established team.

Memberships purchased this summer would be good through the 2010 season, they said. If, however, the team were unsuccessful in fielding a squad, the members would get about $90 back. All the terms would be explained at the time the membership was sold, they said.

They have entered into informal talks with both the NECBL and the Atlantic League. “What happens next depends on the fan response,” Rosner said.

The team’s name, where they play and who joins the team will be determined by members’ votes. The four will do the groundwork. Where the team will play will also depend on where the support is.

“We’d love to keep the team in the New Haven area,” Klineberg said.

Local Encouragement

The concept has been well received, they said. They have talked to the Chamber, the city and the West Haven mayor’s office and were warmly received, they said.

“I would love to see it succeed,” said Kelly Murphy, the city’s economic development administrator, who said she had been meeting periodically with the team’s backers.

“At the end for a team to be successful, people have to go attend. I found it a fascinating concept” that could help bring people to games, she said.

“One hundred dollars is a small amount of money,” she said. Keeping to relatively affordable might assure more people are engaged, she said.

But a major-league baseball consultant said the concept might not be conducive to fielding a winning team.

“The downside is that it might not necessarily produce the best decisions for the team,” said Mat Olkin, a consultant for the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Mariners baseball teams.

“Good ownership is considered to be people who hire the right people and then allow them to do their jobs,” he said. Owners who interfere with the professionals’ decision-making don’t help the team. “The only thing it does is satisfies the owners’ ego,” he said.

“In order for it to work, there would need to be a group of informed people making the decisions. That assumes that they have a high level of knowledge” about baseball and what it takes to produce a winning team, he said.

On the other hand, “people who feel that they have a voice in the direction of the franchise will be more invested in it,” said Olkin, who was a columnist for USA Today’s Baseball Weekly before it was subsumed into an all-sports publication.