Baseball in NZ aiming to fix grassroots’ issues after demise of Auckland Tuatara

In the final part of our look at the demise of the Auckland Tuatara baseball team, David Long examines how the sport in New Zealand hopes to bounce back from having its shop window taken away.

During the three seasons the Auckland Tuatara were playing in the Australian Baseball League, the sport in this country was able to show New Zealand players there was a clear pathway for them to make it in the game.

At the same time, the sport was getting shown on Sky TV and attracting more fans and potential players. But with the Tuatara now in liquidation and Baseball NZ 48% owners of the team, that visibility has gone and there are the debts left to sort out.

For a minor sport in New Zealand like baseball, the Tuatara were a godsend, but the team’s demise is something that Baseball NZ and its CEO, Megan Crockett, have to move on from.

‘‘It was the shop window for our sport,’’ Crockett said.

‘‘One of the key reasons for the Tuatara to be set up was to promote the game in New Zealand.

‘‘There was an opportunity to join the Australian Baseball League and it was a real flurry I believe to take up that opportunity.

‘‘But the financial model for a sport like this in New Zealand is really hard.’’

Without the Tuatara, for any budding player who wants to make it in the game, their route is only getting a scholarship to a USA college now, while previously they could have hoped to be noticed by an MLB scout watching the Tuatara.

At the domestic level, baseball is back to being just a grassroots sport in New Zealand and

Crockett is trying to get that better organised.

‘‘We’ve got a sport that is very small in the New Zealand context,’’ Crockett said.

‘‘We’re in a strategic rebuild phase and we’re looking to build what we’ll do to 2026.

‘‘We’re working with our regions and we’ll have that locked in stone in June.

‘‘The big thing for us now is having a consistent model across the country. So we’re embedding a national approach to the sport.

‘‘We have had pockets where things are happening. Some things are happening well and some things maybe not. But nothing has been consistent, so now it’s about developing the game so that we’ve got embedded processes, structures and systems that we can start growing from.

‘‘By losing the Tuatara we lose that shop window, but we have to be really good at promoting our sport in other avenues.

‘‘We’ve also got to take stock of the situation and say what is it Baseball NZ can do to start filling a void?’’ There are five New Zealand junior teams heading overseas to play this winter, but when it comes to the men’s team, the Diamond Blacks, they remain one of the least active national teams in the country, having only played one tournament since 2017.

‘‘We went up to the World Baseball Classic qualifier (in Panama) last September and that was the first outing of the Diamond Blacks in a significantly long time,’’ Crockett said.

‘‘I’ll admit that was a real rush and tough to pull together . . . we have players across the world.

‘‘So now as part of our national programme, we need to look at having that consistency year in, year out.

‘‘Whilst we’ve got a lot of players who live offshore and are getting quality baseball, we need to look back home at the other players and see what we’re doing for these guys.’’

There are between 2500 and 4500 active baseball players in New Zealand, but the actual number is unknown, because so many clubs don’t register all their players and one of the issues holding back the sport is the infighting between the clubs, the regions and Baseball NZ.

‘‘I’ve never worked in a sport with a culture like this,’’ Crockett said. ‘‘There is a lot of infighting, a lot of hearsay that goes on. There are certain people in it who feel they can drive and manipulate.

‘‘It’s something we’ve identified and we’ve got to develop a culture where everyone is united and working cohesively. One that invites non-baseball people to come into baseball. At the moment, the culture we’ve got is not allowing new people to join and enjoy it, so they leave quickly.’’

‘‘By losing the Tuatara we lose that shop window, but we have to be really good at promoting our sport in other avenues.’’

BNZ CEO Megan Crockett