The nut who brought “America’s pastime” to Sydney

PUBLISHED: 22 MAR 2014 02:39:08 | UPDATED: 22 MAR 2014 02:47:19

Sports promoter Jason Moore at the SCG . . . .clay had to be imported to make the pitcher’s mound. Photo: Rob Homer

JASON CLOUT AND JOHN STENSHOLT

The operation to bring Major League Baseball to Sydney this weekend is costing about $15 million, but the deal almost didn’t happen for promoter Jason Moore.

The Los Angeles Dodgers will take on rivals Arizona Diamondbacks at a revamped Sydney Cricket Ground in two games on Saturday and Sunday.

More than 70,000 tickets have been sold and hundreds of millions of viewers will watch the matches live on television across Asia and the United States.

Yet just before the contracts were signed last June to bring the sport known as “America’s pastime” to Sydney, Moore thought almost a decade of hard work was about to go to waste.

“About three months before the official announcement I thought it wasn’t going to happen,” Moore told the AFR Weekend. “There were some dark days and I threw the toys around the office a few times.

“I was thinking I’ve wasted the past seven years and a lot of money but in the end we got through.”

Such was the complexity of hosting the matches, including the specifics of the field – clay had to be imported to make the pitcher’s mound, for example – that the deal almost collapsed.

Moore says he has effectively bought two home games from the Diamondbacks, who will be compensated. The team will receive a payment based on the average financial return it would usually get from hosting two Dodgers matches at its stadium in Phoenix.

His boutique sports promotion company Moore Sports will also make money from merchandise sales across the weekend. Moore Sports company also sells sponsorship at the SCG and the adjacent Allianz Stadium.

He says the costly exercise has been worth the effort – which has included paying $2 million to reconfigure the SCG – but quips it won’t be a huge moneyspinner. “l will make a profit but . . . while I won’t have to sell my home I won’t be moving into a deep water frontage either.”

Moore, who was keen to make a splash by organising a big event, had been in ultimately fruitless talks to take a Bledisloe Cup rugby union match to Denver in the United States between Australia and New Zealand before turning his attention to baseball.

“Part of the reason for the time it has taken to get this up and running is that the MLB [Major League Baseball] decide which teams are going to come,” he says. “All the negotiations are through their New York headquarters .”

Moore was insistent the matches had to be regular season events and not practice games.

Baseball authorities then stipulated the teams involved had to be from the west coast of the United States and be in spring training in Arizona, minimising as much as possible the gruelling travel to Australia.

Negotiations eventually led to the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, with Moore, MLB and the NSW government covering all costs for the teams.

“It doesn’t cost us anything but it brings our brand to Australia and also to Asia,” says Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall.

“Baseball is very big in those markets, particularly Japan and Korea”,

NSW Sports minister Gabrielle Upton said the event will deliver more than $16 million to the state economy, though Moore believes the figure could be even higher. Upton says: “More importantly, this event will be a two-day advertisement for Sydney to the more than 170 million Americans tuning in from across the Pacific.”

Moore’s next big challenge involves searching for investors for franchises for a fledgling professional rugby union competition.