Australian Baseball League general manager Paul Gonzalez unworried by Perth Heat and Sydney Blue Sox ownership

Australian Baseball League general manager Paul Gonzalez has denied Perth Heat’s new owners also holding the licence for the Sydney Blue Sox harms the integrity of this season’s four-team league. And despite losing two teams in the off-season before Perth also almost pulled the pin, Gonzalez is hopeful of a return to a six-team league in the future. Black Pearl Sports Group were unveiled as the Heat’s new owners earlier this month, just weeks after they also took over the Sydney licence. When Baseball Australia took back the licence after previous Perth owners Christian Galapoulos and Michael Carter walked away in late June, BPSG also took the opportunity to acquire the team. With Melbourne Aces and Canberra Cavalry having both withdrawn from the league this season, it means half the league’s teams will be controlled by the newly-created investment group. But despite 50 per cent of the league’s teams sharing an owner, Gonzalez told The West Australian the ABL would still serve as the operator and could step in if impartiality became an issue. “The ABL still governs the league, so they approve all contracts. If there was any competitive imbalances, we would be able to regulate any irregularities there,” Gonzalez said. “But when you look at the proximity of locations, there’s no advantage to start shipping players from WA to Sydney and Sydney to WA. “It was approached with the other license holders, if they were objective, and we had a full vote of confidence that they trusted the process, and hence why we proceeded and moved forward.” Gonzalez commended BPSG managing director Cole Sherertz and Perth-based director Stuart Scott on their approach and pitch to ABL. “They put together a very comprehensive five-year plan with a five-year marketing plan. They really did their due diligence over a number of years, just assessing if there were opportunities within the ABL, how they would approach that and how they would approach each market. “In particular, Perth has always been kind of their sweet spot. “They took a really strategic position with Baseball WA, and then they aligned that relationship with the WA government. ‘When you look at an international investor that’s looking at all the key stakeholders to be part of that puzzle, it’s really hard to say no, and that’s what the board assessed through their vetting processes.” With the absence of both Melbourne and Canberra this season, Gonzalez said while the league was adamant a four-team league would be successful, he believed a return to a six-team league was achievable and even optimistic it could happen next season. “The board was really adamant and believed we would run the competition even with four teams this year, with the scope of the expansion going into 2026-27,” he said. “We knew the reset was probably something that needed to happen from a league perspective, just to protect the sustainability of the ABL moving forward. “The resets have actually been really good, it’s helped us meet with the teams, work out what the priorities are moving forward for the league and teams, and now start to take a more of a collective strategy, as opposed to independent strategies “Teams are right now in contract signings, they’re in negotiations with their international teams, and they’re in their planning stages for a four-team model; once we park that, we’ll go straight into planning in March and if the board says we’ve gone into the expansion of the six teams, then I just plug that model in and away we go.”