Baseball, Softball Merger Ahead

(ATR) Leaders of the International Baseball Federation and International Softball Federation tell Around the Rings they have the IOC green-light to move forward with a merger and bid together for 2020.

Little more than 24 hours after touching down here in London, IBAF president Riccardo Fraccari and ISF counterpart Don Porter confirmed their plans in a joint interview with ATR.

"After much reflection internally, but more importantly, after having spoken to many, many friends in the Olympic Movement, we understood that merging our two IFs was in our best interests, not only for Olympic inclusion, but also and especially for our two sports in the long run," says Fraccari.

Talk of a joint bid stems back to SportAccord 2010 in Dubai and heated up at last July’s IOC Session in Durban, where the sports were included on an eight-strong shortlist for consideration in the Games.

Fraccari and Porter spent most of the past year deciding whether to submit a joint proposal to the IOC, then the better part of three months awaiting word as to whether the Olympic Charter would even allow such a pitch.

"We had to wait quite a while to finally get an affirmative decision to say yes," Porter tells ATR.

The International Baseball and Softball Federation is the name approved last month by the Juridical Commission of the IOC as well as the one mentioned Friday to IOC president Jacques Rogge in a letter seen Saturday by the IOC Executive Board.

"As the decision to ask the IOC's permission to merge was only a few days ago, we will take the next month or so to start working on our joint campaign and developing our value proposition to the IOC and Olympic Movement," explains Fracarri.

"Needlessto say, we believe that softball and baseball are aligned both technically and from a venue management/development point of view, but also in terms of adding significant value to the Olympic program."

According to Porter, the two sports will now work together on development and would share the same venue if added back to the Games, a convenience and cost-saver absent from their original stints on the Olympic program. Baseball joined in 1992 and softball in 1996, but both were dropped post-Beijing.

Next up for Fraccari and Porter is to hammer out a charter and constitution for their merged IF, then tohave those approved by extraordinary congresses of the ISF and IBAF before a December presentation to the IOC Program Commission and EB.

"Our disciplines complement each other nicely while each offering distinctive qualities in terms of universality, gender equity, media interest and commercial power," Fraccari tells ATR, "and we plan to make this case vigorously to the IOC."

Members of the EB will meet next May to decide which sport to recommend to the IOC Session in Buenos Aires set for September 2013.

Karate, roller sports, sports climbing, squash, wakeboard and wushu are the other known candidates for 2020, though the EB will add another to the fray in February when an existing Olympic sport gets cut.

"We understand that we’re still going to have competition," says Porter.

"We’re in a race with six other sports, we have a lot to do and we’re going to be working very hard between now and next year.

Written and reported in London by Matthew Grayson.

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