Softball Manitoba severs ties with John Blumberg Softball Complex after Winnipeg asks for $3.2M upgrades | CBC News

Softball Manitoba says it will not renew its lease at the John Blumberg Softball Complex, after the City of Winnipeg said the sports organization would need to spend millions of dollars to upgrade the facility.

“It’s a sad day in softball,” Don Klym, executive director of Softball Manitoba, told CBC on Friday. “It’s been great to us for 32 years, and it’s seen it’s time.”

He said the city approached Softball Manitoba with a 2021 report that showed the facility needs $3.2 million worth of upgrades. The city owns John Blumberg Park, though it sits in the rural municipality of Headingley, just west of Winnipeg.

Softball Manitoba has leased the John Blumberg Softball Complex from the city since 1990, and is currently responsible for its operations, maintenance and capital costs, according to a news release from the organization — the governing body for fast-pitch and slo-pitch softball in the province, which includes several youth and adult divisions.

However, while Softball Manitoba’s lease agreements with the city have evolved over the decades, Klym said capital investment costs for infrastructure upgrades and improvements at the facility have never been part of their responsibilities.

“We could just not afford to do that as a non-profit organization.”

The organization works with about 20 other softball diamonds that they do not fund at all, and Klym said it would be unfair to those spaces if Softball Manitoba were to fund upgrades for the Headingley complex.

‘No way we could continue’

Softball Manitoba spoke to several sports organizations across Manitoba and other softball provincial organizations across Canada, said Klym, who agreed that facility upgrade costs are not part of their obligations.

“No one really takes on facility costs. Any funding we have is for the development of our sport into programming and competitions, but definitely not into facility upgrades.”

In an email to CBC News, the city said it was recently notified of Softball Manitoba’s withdrawal from the facility, after months of negotiations.

The city is currently contemplating the future of the park but “remains committed to partnering on funding opportunities,” the email said.

Monte Miller, facility manager of the softball complex, told CBC News that it costs $155,000 to $271,000 to run the facility each summer. The city does not contribute any funds to its operations, he said, but assists with facility startups and shutdowns.

The complex was once “one of the best softball facilities in North America,” said Klym, but has deteriorated to the point where it can no longer host world or national championships.

He’s thankful Softball Manitoba has had access to the facility for more than three decades, and appreciates the people who came to use it, but said there was no way the organization could cover the upgrade costs.

“That $3.2 million is just too big of a chunk for us to take on as a provincial organization,” he said.

“Our board just felt there’s no way we could continue with this.”