[CoryB]

Re the Seabears. Something that happened since the Thunder/Cyclone days is there has been a real organic growth in the game at the grassroots level especially in the Filipino community. It also doesn't hurt that nationally Canada has been on an upspring with players getting highly regarded and in some cases highly drafted too.

To some extent the Goldeyes might be getting hit on the opposite side of that trend as hardball and softball both seem to be in massive decline at the grassroots level.

It is actually interesting that the Bombers have a fairly large scale campaign happening this year in the community to try and grow their own grassroots levels.

I still think Katz is a major factor in the Goldeyes decline but they got caught in a perfect storm of things. Katz reputation started to bottom as the Jets and Moose are looking for sponsorship and around the same time Wade Miller takes over at the Bombers. If you had limited sponsorship money to spend it was easy to find ways to distance yourself from Katz. That is turn lead to declines in the fan experience at the Goldeyes. Coupled with shifting demographics at the grassroots level and newer facilities for other teams opening up.

The other side of this is seemingly when Katz stepped back from the mayor's office he started paying a lot less attention to Winnipeg in general so it could also be that he is not out in the local community enough to make/smooth over those relationships to bring in the sponsor dollars. Or conversely perhaps when he was mayor some organizations thought that sponsoring the Goldeyes could be a way to boost their own visibility with the mayor's office.