The Baseball Project in Brooklyn is described in a flyer printed in 2002 . . .

The Baseball Project in Brooklyn is a private economic development program that is in the fourth year of a five-year plan to create, in each of Brooklyn's 18 established community districts, the following new business operations:

• a commercial district baseball club

• a privately maintained district ballfield

• a district-based new media network

Members of Brooklyn Community Boards and residents and business inbterests in each Brooklyn Community District should understand six key features of the project.

Brooklyn Sports @ Ebbets Field

718/771-1771

10/2/02

Feature #1

An Economic Development Project with Broad Impact

The Baseball Project in Brooklyn is producing a 26-week, full season schedule of commercial baseball games for 18 privately owned district baseball clubs each of which plays its home games on a privately maintained district ballfield in its district and where coverage of the games is handled by district-based new media connected to nearby fans and businesses. Because of this local focus, the Project impacts a great many groups in any Brooklyn community district: young adult and youth ballplayers, local high school and precinct teams, park and ballfield facilities, and retail businesses and corporate interests.

The Project is fundamentally an economic development project aimed at local generation of district sports products for consumption within each community district and elsewhere. Development interests within each district work cooperatively with their partners in each of the other 17 Brooklyn community districts producing a total of 153 separate business relationships within Brooklyn. Existing Brooklyn community district structure provides not only an ideal basis for establishing regular local sports competition in the Brooklyn marketplace but is a rational basis for local business developent as well.

Feature #2

Brooklyn Sports Marketplace: Immense Amounts Already Being Spent

Current estimates place annual domestic expenditures on commercial sports products at over $100 billion - for games, playing fields, media coverage, and licensed products. With nearly 1% of the U.S. population, Brooklyn spends more than $1 billion of this amount. Yet almost none of these commercial products are generated in Brooklyn even though all of them could be.

The Baseball Project in Brooklyn seeks to capture (keep in Brooklyn) just 5% of these current expenditures. This amounts to a borough-wide total of about $50 million annually or approximately $3 million per district.

Feature #3

Job Opportunities for Older Teens and Young Adults

A 1992 NYU study entitled "Reinventing New York's Economy: Preparing for Competition in the Next Century" by Mitchell Moss, now an advisor to Mayor Bloomberg on urban affairs, concluded with two significant findings: (1) intellectual products are the future of New York's economy and (2) economic plans must directly address teenage and young adult employment. While the "information product" finding was (is) common knowledge the associated finding was (is) not. The study found that no economic plan for NYC was going to work if the youngest portion of the work force was excluded and ended up idle because, Moss reasoned, this growing segment of the population has the power, all by itself, to undo any other progress if it weren't included. The Baseball Project for Brooklyn has, from its inception, used these findings as its guide: older teenagers and young adults in Brooklyn are put into action as ballplayers, scorekeepers, organizers, field workers, operators and owners in a program which produces unique and compelling sports information of great commercial value.

Feature #4

The Baseball Project in Brooklyn is using the latest tools of information tech-nology in new and powerful ways in the second densest popultion center in the country.

Latest Information Technology Applied in Brooklyn

Personal web pages, fiber optic cable lines, cell phones, high speed servers, color newsprint, and the internet are just a few common examples of new information technology used today that only ten years ago were not commonly used at all. And technology development marches on unabated: many changes will transform the world again by 2012. In another study on the information industry performed by the Port Authority, the impact of all these new tools which operate on information was found to be the greatest in areas of high poulation density where people, the producers and consumers of information, are packed in closest to one another.

Feature #5

Trade Among Brooklyn Districts Sets Up External Trade

People and businesses throughout Brooklyn are frequently known for their "connections." Banking connections, connections upstate, connections in city government or in publishing. in religion, or in the Caribbean. A thicket of highly cooperative interconnections characterize certain established neighborhoods and groups throughout the borough.

In creating competition between district ballclubs representing all eighteen of the community districts in Brooklyn, the Baseball Project is opening doors to a great many interdistrict Brooklyn connections. The difficult part, not surprisingly, has been to foster the cooperation needed to keep fair competition, from which every district benefits, alive and growing.

Cooperative competition now extends the length and breadth of Brooklyn from one end to the other of both Atlantic and Bedford Avenues. A total of 153 interdistrict rivalries and ongoing commercial relationships has been put in place.

The successful develoopment of Brooklyn trade connections links up all of the other connections in a regional Brooklyn hub.

Connections, however, are not all that common between many of the different parts of Brooklyn. Neighborhoods, business centers, cultural groups, and other local interests frequently function with few, if any, Brooklyn connnections.

There is an immense opportunity to connect up Brooklyn - a huge market for just about everything.

Feature #6

Community Districts Become Economic Destinations

Larger and more diverse than many countries, some entire U.S. states, and all but a few cities, Brooklyn, the largest (most populous) of the five boroughs (counties) within New York City, is legally divided, by charter, into 18 permanent community districts, Each of these districts (many with world famous names) has a resident population of about 125,000 and has it's own district manager, police force, other municipal services, commercial zones and residential neighborhoods.

Early on in The Baseball Project when the naming of teams was considered, the world famous yet rarely promoted names of Brooklyn neighborhoods were adopted.

Now linked to the numbered community districts of Brooklyn, regular promotion of these identities occurs each time district ballclubs meet. This interaction is highly constructive for each district as it is promoting the identity, not just of the ballclub, but of its district management, businesses, community groups, and residents.

The Baseball Project brings 17 other ballclubs and their fans to home games in one's own district. And watching the local team play an away game is a short trip to a different district. These Brooklyn destinations offer places to eat and shop plus opportunities to live, work, and do business.

Summary

and now the Brooklyn Community District Map . . .