September 25, 2023
New York, New York
Shocking news coming out of Texas as we come to the final week of the 2023 PEBA season. In a press conference at The Cathouse at Petsmart Field in downtown Harlington, Texas the Rio Grande Valley owner Isabel Padilla announced that the ownership group would be pulling out at the end of the season and unless a buyer was found for the Ocelots team they would fold.
The franchise has already lost in excess of $11.5 million this season and in the last ten years has lost $167.5 million. “We cannot continue to cover these sort of losses” said Padilla “We were hoping the move [to Texas] would help us to become financially stable but after four years here we find ourselves in a $31 million hole again. I met with my backers last week and decided enough was enough.”
The Ocelots had just qualified for the post season as the Wildcard entrants and still have a chance of winning the IL Dixie division as they sit five games behind Florida with two three-game home series to come, one of those against the Featherheads. This will be their second straight PEBA post season outing after joining the league in 2020.
The franchise started life as the Yamato Battleships in the original LRS then in 2010 became the Kawaguchi Transmitters when the PEBA took control of the LRS. With the corruption scandal of 2019 changing the face of baseball the franchise was on the move again, this time to Harlington in Texas and for a new life as the Rio Grande Valley Ocelots. Now it seems after today's announcement that it was a short tenure and 2023 will be the final year for the franchise. They have never been that successful under the PEBA with just this year and last year producing post season play. They were however the last two champions of the old LRS before the league came under PEBA control.
A statement issued by the Office of the Commissioner read “We have been aware of the situation in Texas for a few months, we were hoping with in excess of $40 million possibly coming off the payroll at the end of 2023 the current ownership might give it a go but we were informed at the weekend that the intention was to hand back the keys and walk away. We feel that there are a couple of ownership consortiums out there we might be able to strike a deal with in order that the franchise might continue, be it there in Texas or in a new location. We are very hopeful that the franchise will remain an important member of the league going forward.”
This is the latest blow to the previously seemingly rock solid PEBA. After the league filled the void left by the collapse of the MLB it appeared that the league was going from strength to strength. The scandal of corruption in 2019 almost finished the league off but it survived that and came back stronger. Recently though rumours have been surfacing about the viability and health of several franchises and this is the first confirmation that maybe not everything is rosy in the PEBA's garden.