Adelaide Crows adamant new baseball team won’t impact winning games of footy

ADELAIDE is adamant its takeover of national baseball team the Bite will not impact its core business or be a drain on football department resources.

• Why the Crows have made leftfield move
• Crows take over Bite
• 36ers and Crows in talks over joining forces
• Crows acquire eSports team

ADELAIDE is adamant its takeover of national baseball team the Bite will not impact its core business or be a drain on football department resources.

Crows chief executive Andrew Fagan and chairman Rob Chapman on Tuesday said the club’s decision to run a team in the Australian Baseball League next season would not be a distraction or hindrance from winning games of football.

“It was one of the first questions the board asked of Andrew and let me emphasise this — this will have no impact on the football club,” Chapman said.

“The people running the football side of the business will continue to run it and devote 100 per cent of their time and energy and resource to fulfilling their obligations and achieving the best they can.

“If Andrew and his team were not going out to assist the Bite be the best they can, they’d be doing something else.

“It will have zero impact on football and their resource and time spent making sure they do what they’re here to do.”

Adelaide Football Club chief executive Andrew Fagan and Crows chairman Rob Chapman discuss their take over of the Adelaide Bite Australian Baseball League team. Picture: AAP Image/Kelly Barnes

As revealed first on Advertiser.com.au on Monday, Adelaide Football Club secured the Bite licence with no capital expenditure but an ongoing commitment to fund the cost of the team and grow the sport locally.

The Bite will continue to play home games at West Beach but there are no plans for the Crows to relocate their training base to the beachside suburb.

News of the takeover was welcomed yesterday by Adelaide Bite boss Nathan Davison who will continue with the team as baseball operations manager.

Adelaide Bite boss Nathan Davison with Crows chairman Rob Chapman on Tuesday. Picture: AAP Image/Kelly Barnes

“It’s fantastic, a five or six-month process to get to this stage today and it’s exciting to hear what they’ve got to say and how invested they are in what we’re doing,” Davison said.

“It’s exactly what we’ve wanted and needed.

“We’re heavily into the roster build and management of that. There are some new rules in place by the ABL and with the expansion into Korea and New Zealand we can have 12 imports where it was eight last year.

“We have 22 on game-day roster and contract 30, they come from far and wide, there is a Dutch guy, a Taiwanese, Korean, probably Chinese as well, so we’re creeping into new markets that we haven’t used before, and we have MLB affiliate clubs that we’ll still work with so that will be exciting.”

[e-mail]

LIVE stream every match of every round of the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week trial & start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW >