Elimination of Mid-American Conference baseball tournament will affect Crushers, Avon

AVON — The elimination of the Mid-American Conference collegiate baseball tournament will have a financial impact on both the city of Avon and the Lake Erie Crushers organization, but neither said the loss will be especially devastating. The tournament, in which the conference's top six teams compete for an automatic berth to the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship, has been played at Avon's Crushers Stadium since 2012. The Mid-American Conference announced Tuesday that tournaments in eight sports, including baseball, would be eliminated for at least four years as an implication of the financial ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic. Avon Finance Director Bill Logan said the city won't take too big of a hit from the tournament's absence. "Quite honestly, teams coming into town, they have historically not stayed here in Avon," he said. "They have stayed at some of the hotels closer to the airport, so we weren't getting any real hotel business, so to speak." A more significant impact will be felt by Blue Dog Baseball LLC, the business entity that operates the Crushers organization. It has a contract with the Mid-American Conference to host the tournament. "It generates revenue for us and we are going to be sorry to see it go," said Tom Kramig, Crushers co-owner, president and CEO. "When we talked to the MAC about it, they said if and when it comes back down the road they would love to come back here." Kramig declined to say specifically how much money the contract brings into the organization, but said "in the grand scheme of things, it was not a huge amount of money." With organized baseball activity on pause due to the coronavirus pandemic, virtually all the Crushers' revenue has been taken away, Kramig said. The organization recently was awarded a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the second round of the U.S. Small Business Administration's forgivable loan program, which allowed the Crushers to bring its nearly 12 front office staff members back to work. Many are working from home, Kramig said, but prior to receiving the paycheck protection money, they had been laid off for three or four weeks. Baseball players, who are considered seasonal employees and did not report at all this year, are not receiving the funds. Up to a quarter of the Paycheck Protection Program loan money can be used to pay rent and utilities, and Kramig said the team intends to use the maximum amount allowed toward rent. The organization pays the city in installments totaling $250,000 each year, Logan said. With no plan announced regarding a start of play in the Frontier League, the independent league in which the Crushers play, the organization is preparing for the possibility of either a shortened season or no season at all. "Our food and beverage director is putting together a whole plan around how we're going to handle food and beverage if we open again this year, with social distancing and safety," Kramig said. Team owners are meeting weekly over a conference call and monitoring the situation with the coronavirus pandemic as it unfolds. "We're just waiting and watching to see what happens," Kramig said. "We are not going to put fans in harm's way just to hold baseball games, I can tell you that." Avon Mayor Bryan Jensen said that while the elimination of the Mid-American Conference tournament may not be a massive loss in and of itself, it is still a sad development in what has already been a tough few months for the Crushers given the delay of the season. "I think along with everything else going on, it's magnified," he said. "You have everything at once piled on the Crushers." Contact Dylan Reynolds at (440) 329-7123 or dreynolds@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @drey1357.