The Australian Baseball League will refocus its planning on making the 2022/23 season its 'biggest yet', after today announcing to abandon the 2021/22 campaign due to the ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 global pandemic. The 2021/22 ABL season was scheduled to open in December.
Baseball Australia chief executive Glenn Williams said the decision was incredibly difficult to make but made with the league’s long-term success and sustainability in mind.
"There is still too much uncertainty around Australia’s ongoing COVID restrictions for us to be able to operate a successful ABL season," Williams said.
"We know how much the ABL means to our fans, players, coaches, officials and the wider baseball community and we exhausted all options to try and find a way to conduct a sustainable season, but we couldn’t find a way through.
ABL fans can look forward to the biggest season yet in 2022/23 with the return of Auckland Tuatara and Geelong-Korea along with fewer or no COVID restrictions allowing Australian and MLB stars to take centre stage for an exciting summer of action.
"Our goal over the coming years is to build a thriving and sustainable ABL to ensure it regains a strong position in the Australian sporting landscape and remains as one of the best baseball leagues in the world. For this to happen we need financially strong teams," he said.
The ABL is an Associate Member of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). The Australian National Baseball Team programme is currently ranked seventh in WBSC Baseball World Rankings.
