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Tony Johnston joins us to discuss the hopes for bringing a baseball team to the Champaign area. Johnston heads Champaign Mayor Don Gerard’s exploratory committee on bringing minor league baseball to Champaign. In recent months Gerard has repeatedly spoken about the issue to the local media. The committee is currently in the early stages of assessing the economic benefits of building a stadium and getting a minor league team in place.
Topics covered:
- Other cities’ successes in minor league baseball and how that can be mirrored here.
- The factors, logistics and history involved
- Stadium and team funding (private vs. public vs. some type of mix)
- Why is Gerard working on this with everything else going on in Champaign?
For some background, check out Joel Gillespie’s article (including links to further reading) here.
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