|
NABL – The beginnings
The North American Baseball League (NABL) came into being in December 2010 when 26 Charter Franchises were awarded. Twenty-Four of the teams would initially start playing in April 2014 with two more (Memphis Kings and San Jose Spartans) joining the following spring.
The NABL was to be split into two leagues, the Eastern and Western, split roughly east and west of the Mississippi River, with each league split into three divisions of four teams. The Eastern league consisting of Atlantic, Southeast and Central divisions and the Western league consisting of the Midwest, Southwest and Pacific.
In the East, the Atlantic division had the Boston Pilgrims, New York Senators, Philadelphia Independence and Washington Generals. The Southeast consisting of Atlanta Flames, Miami Everglades, New Orleans Blues and Tampa Bay Hurricanes and the Central, comprising of Chicago Zephyrs, Cleveland Corsairs, Detroit Giants and Indianapolis Racers.
In the West, the Mid West Division had the Denver Wildcats, Kansas City Tornadoes, Oklahoma City Outlaws and Minneapolis Bears. The Southwest Division contained the Dallas Mustangs, Houston Stars, Las Vegas Gamblers and Phoenix Eagles with the Memphis Kings slated to join in time for 2015. The Pacific Division consisted of Los Angeles Lynx, San Diego Mariners, Sanfrancisco Gold and Seattle Pioneers with San Jose Spartans beginning play in 2015.
Each Franchise would be assigned one team at each of the five levels of Minor League ball (Rookie, Short Season A, Single A, Double A and Triple A). All leagues, with the exception of Short Season A, would begin play in early April (alongside the NABL). The Rookie league would play a 60-game schedule which would run to early June. Short Season A, with an 84-game schedule would start early June (following Rookie ball) and run to early September. A (120 games), AA (132 games) and AAA (144 games) would all start early April and finish at various times from the End of July through to September and, for many young players, be their first exposure to full season Baseball.
The league would hold an annual Amateur draft to secure the services of the best prep and college prospects, which would be held on 1st March (just before spring training) and consist of 15 rounds. Draft picks would also be allowed to be traded between teams if they so wished. There would be no hard salary cap (although this was proposed in the early owner meetings but didn’t win enough votes) but there would be compromise, a “soft cap” set at 120% of the league average total team salary commitments, with any team spending more, being taxed heavily by the league and the resulting money pot being shared amongst the other clubs. The aim was that by taxing the overspending it would encourage the owners to be more fiscally responsible and thus the teams would be financially secure. There would also be National media revenue distributed equally amongst all the teams with franchises also allowed to negotiate for local media rights on top of this (some small market team owners felt this favoured the large market teams, but when this was put to the vote. They lost 18-8).
Now all the league needed was players. An inaugural player draft would be held which would take place during January 2014 and consist of 100 rounds, with the teams drawing lots to decide the draft order. Only 24 of the 26 teams would participate, as both Memphis and San Jose would not be ready to play until 2015. However as ‘compensation’ both teams would pick at the top of every round in the 2015 Amateur draft. Once the Inaugural draft was completed teams could still continue filling their Minor League rosters with Free Agents before the Amateur draft and Spring Training in March.
|