With MiLB season canceled, Charlotte Knights now face a storm that ‘keeps on coming.’
Looking for a movie night, or even a wedding-reception venue? The Charlotte Knights would happily accommodate.
Major League Baseball made it official Tuesday that there would be no minor-league seasons this summer. As a result, Dan Rajkowski, chief operating officer of the Triple A Knights, has his staff searching for alternative uses of Truist Field in uptown.
“The way we do business has significantly changed,” Rajkowski said Wednesday. He said one-third of the Knights’ full-time staff has been laid off, with most events canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Truist Field, with a capacity of about 10,000, has lost a 70-game schedule for the Knights, plus five college baseball games and several concerts.
Under Phase 2 stay-at-home orders in North Carolina, the Knights could admit only about 100 fans, sitting at the ballpark’s restaurants, for a summer-league game of college players. The team is scrambling for alternative uses for the stadium, and is open-minded about ideas.
“A year ago, 95 percent of the things that came across my desk, I’d say this isn’t worth our time to do. They’re now becoming reality,” Rajkowski said of hosting disc golf, movie nights and potentially wedding receptions.
Rajkowski said his concern isn’t just losing this season, but how comfortable fans will be attending spectator sports next spring. He ran the minor-league team in Myrtle Beach when Hurricane Hugo swept through the Carolinas in the fall of 1989. But this is worse, Rajkowski said, because no one knows how long the pandemic will last, affecting people’s choices about large public gatherings.
“That storm came and went,” Rajkowski said of Hugo. “This storm keeps on coming.”
Rajkowski said the Knights have surveyed fans about the pandemic and safety measures, but “we don’t know how people are going to respond, coming back into a social situation.”
Major League Baseball plans an abbreviated 60-game regular season. Even before the pandemic, MLB was looking to downsize the minor-league system by trimming 160 teams to 120. There are 11 minor-league teams with MLB affiliations in North Carolina, including the Knights and Durham Bulls.
Rajkowski said smaller operations are in jeopardy of folding with no 2020 season; minor-league baseball is almost entirely dependent on ticket and concessions revenue.
“I’m not concerned for the Charlotte club, but I am concerned for the industry. You have (teams in) smaller communities that go year-to-year, month-to-month,” Rajkowski said.
“I’ve seen strikes, threatened work-stoppages, player-development contract negotiations. But I haven’t been as concerned as I am about this one. Because we don’t control a lot of this stuff.”
