Brooklyn Cyclones sold to Diamond Baseball Holdings
While the Cyclones will continue to be an official Minor League affiliate of the Mets, DBH CEO Peter Freund says "the Mets, their main focus is on player development, but ultimately, the fan experience is what we're focused on."
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New York's Major League clubs aren't the only local baseball teams having busy offseasons, with the Minor League Brooklyn Cyclones getting sold by the New York Mets to a group called "Diamond Baseball Holdings," or DBH.
While the Cyclones will continue to be an official Minor League affiliate of the Mets, DBH CEO Peter Freund says "the Mets, their main focus is on player development, but ultimately, the fan experience is what we're focused on."
DBH owns 40 other Minor League Baseball teams in North America, and with the Cyclones, Freund says "we just see something that needs a little bit of love and a little bit of a facelift."
They tell News 12 that means things like better seating options for groups, redoing some of the indoor spaces and putting in a new video board that will be three times as big.
Cyclones Vice President Steve Cohen says the hope is for Maimonides Park to host even more events, like "parties, card shows, birthdays, brunches on Sundays."
If all goes to plan, Freund says the ballpark "becomes a year-round destination."
The Alliance for Coney Island, which works with local businesses says if that happens, it will help everyone.
"The best thing the Cyclones can do obviously is continue to bring people to the neighborhood," says Alliance for Coney Island Executive Director Daniel Murphy. "The better they do, the better the neighborhood does, and especially our small businesses, and our residents, who get more work hours."
The teams admit it might to be enough to get people from other parts of Brooklyn to come to Coney Island during the winter, but as more high rises go up, and more people live near the boardwalk, they hope to at least stop people from leaving, by giving them a reason to hang around the area and spend money in their own neighborhood.
"There's enough people right in our own backyard that we should be able to give them a great experience 12 months out of the year," says Cohen.
While the new video board is expected to be ready this summer, DBH says some of the other upgrades might take a few years.
