It Pays To Be The Only Game In Town

Over 8,000 people showed up for the grand opening of the University of South Carolina’s new baseball stadium this weekend – an event that the sports writers at La Socialista fawned over to the point of making our cheeks turn garnet.

Certainly, there can be no argument that South Carolina’s baseball team needed a new home.

In fact, among South Carolina’s historically under-performing athletic programs, baseball has been a winning exception to a losing rule.

And this new $35.6 million ballpark has been in the works for at least four years, so it’s hard to argue that it’s an irresponsible expense in light of the current economic climate.

Where we do take issue with the University of South Carolina, however, is the systematic way it has joined with the City of Columbia (and La Socialista, for that matter) to run out every other sports team that dares to infringe upon its sacred turf.

Remember the Capital City Bombers?

They were a great minor league team that won three A-ball championships during their time in Columbia.

Of course, that was before the University ran them out of town on a rail in 2004 by demanding that they pay $6 million in fees (up front) to share a new stadium with the Gamecocks in the Congaree Vista.

But that’s just the thing …

The Gamecocks didn’t want to cut construction costs or share expenses, they wanted this brand new stadium all to themselves – and they they wanted the Bombers out of town altogether, a wish that was granted when the team moved to Greenville for the 2005 season.

Then there’s the Columbia Inferno, a competitive East Coast Hockey League that has been forced out of action – and out of Columbia altogether – due to the University’s thuggish tactics.

Currently, the Inferno is spending its second year away from the ice due to an “undesirable lease” at the Carolina Coliseum, which doesn’t even host USC athletic events anymore.

The Inferno is hoping to return to action in 2010, but the team will have to relocate to the Columbia suburb of Irmo, S.C. to play its games because neither the University – nor the City – wants the team anywhere near its budding “Gamecock Gotham.”

Remember the Columbia Stingers – a National Indoor Football League (NIFL) Team?

They remain one of the few professional “franchises” USC actively encouraged to come to town – although it seems fairly obvious at this point that the University did so with the intention of sitting back and watching the franchise fail.

After all, the NIFL was clearly going under at the time USC offered to lease its new basketball facility to the Stingers, and the school allegedly knew before it signed the lease agreement that the team’s owner had a history of making rent payments … but failing to pay his players.

And that’s exactly what happened … USC got its money, but disputes over player payments helped shut down the franchise after only one year.

Of course, USC has resisted previous attempts to locate a team from the much more profitable Arena Football League in Columbia, which isn’t surprising given the school’s refusal to allow the NFL’s Charlotte Panthers to play their inaugural season in Williams-Brice Stadium in 1995-96.

Simply put, anything and everything has been done to maintain the Gamecocks’ taxpayer-funded monopoly over Columbia’s sports entertainment dollar.

Which is sad, because there is clearly a market for minor league franchises in Columbia – the center of the 69th largest metropolitan population in the country.

Consider El Paso, Texas, which boasts a similar metropolitan population to Columbia. Currently, El Paso hosts six minor league franchises – in addition to a Division 1-A college athletics program.

In fact, the only other game in Columbia at the moment – the sub-A ball Columbia Blowfish – drew 46,000 fans to a dilapidated stadium in a swampy, low-lying, forgotten corner of the city during their first year of existence.

And they’re a college summer league.

But that’s what happens when the Blowfish are the only choice Columbia-area sports fans have.

The University of South Carolina simply won’t permit a professional sports market to flourish here, which is why its officials have consistently conspired with the City of Columbia (and for that matter, La Socialista) to make sure that Gamecock Athletics remains the only option fans have available to them.

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