A new baseball league is coming to Palm Coast this summer. But the Palm Coast City Council wasn’t quite ready to sign off on a three-year contract enabling the league’s Big Buoys to use a diamond at the crowded Indian Trails Sports Complex, particularly with unanswered questions regarding the new league’s effects on Palm Coast Little League.
“I feel like we’re writing a check we can’t really cash right now,” City Council member Theresa Pontieri said. “We already have enough conflicts on our fields and at our parks. I want to avoid any more of that. I welcome this. I think it’s super cool. But we just need to make sure we’re not legally overcommitting ourselves.”
The council voted unanimously to table the proposed contract between the new league and the city until later this month, giving the administration time to clarify contractual clauses and get Palm Coast Little League’s assurances that it is not feeling muscled out.
The Orange State League (OSL) was established in 2024 as a subset of the North Carolina-based Players League to develop college players and local teams “in scaling as major sports entertainment businesses,” as the league’s website states. The Players League itself takes its name from a short-lived league of the 1890s, when celebrated players back then broke away from the American and National leagues over salary disputes and formed a player-owned organization.
The Orange State League has four teams: The Palm Coast Big Buoys, New Smyrna Gnarlies, St. Augustine Sardines, and Cocoa Beach Tailgators. Palm Coast Baseball was incorporated in February as a company based on Fleming Island just south of Jacksonville and Oak Island, N.C.
The Big Buoys joined the league on March 19, when a league release stated the team “will now begin building their roster and community partnerships as they prepare for their first season of play.”
The four teams will play 74 games between June 1 and July 26. Twenty of the games are at Indian Trails Sports Complex over 20 nights, all of them at Baseball Field #2. There are no double-headers. Each game starts at 7 p.m. and is scheduled for three hours. It’s not clear from the contract with the city how much earlier the league may take over the field.
The first game in Palm Coast is billed as “faith and family night” on June 17, between the Big Buoys and the Gnarlies, assuming the teams’ rosters fill out (the current roster for Palm Coast has just one player listed, Logan Shudy, a Lesley University sophomore.) Other local game nights include “Military Appreciation,” “First Responders Night,” “Senior Night,” “Latin Night,” “Teacher Night,” and so on.
The city owns eight fields at the complex. According to the contract with OSL, the league would have non-exclusive rights to use “the existing baseball fields, including batting cages, and concession stands” at the complex between June 1 and August 1, with the understanding that the league’s uses are subordinate to the city’s master scheduling. Meaning that the baseball league’s schedule “is subject to displacement or modification by other leagues, tournaments, or organizations that have secured prior reservations through the City’s Parks & Recreation Department.”
If there’s a conflict, the city “shall have the final and absolute authority to determine field occupancy,” reserving the right to preempt league uses for city-sponsored events, community programs of repairs–with at least 48 hours’ notice. The city has the option to renew the contract for an additional three years.
“I think this is really cool,” City Council member Theresa Pontieri said. But she’s concerned about overlapping commitments. “We already have so many issues right now with limited field space. We have issues with permits as it is. So I want to make sure we’re not adding another iron into the fire that’s going to create further issues that we can’t accommodate. I mean, can we accommodate this?”
“I believe we can,” James Hirst, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, said. The league has accommodated the city by pushing the start of its Palm Coast schedule later in June, enabling Palm Coast Little League to complete its playoffs. He said it was Palm Coast Little League that asked the city to bring the new league to the city.
Ticket prices are $5.72 for children 12 and under, and $11.63 for others, fees included. The league retains all proceeds from ticketing, concessions and sponsorships, including field advertising. It has exclusive use of the concessions while using its field. That arrangement has not yet been ironed out with Palm Coast Little League, which could be using other fields at the same time.
That could create issues, Pontieri said, because the contract is not precise: it grants exclusivity of concessions and the rest of it to the new league during the term of the agreement, not just during game time.
Pontieri is looking for consistency between agreements. For example, one league should not be responsible for more than another when it comes to maintenance and what the new agreement calls “policing”–a misnomer, Hirst said: the word refers to cleaning up, not actual policing. Council member Ty Miller wanted to ensure that the new league would pay the same fee as other users of the fields.
“I want to make sure that little league is comfortable with this agreement as well. You know, because they’re an asset to our community, they do great things,” Miller said. “This is a great thing, because it’s just more of that, something that people can watch and enjoy and get excited about. I just want to make sure that they’re good with this as well.” He wanted to hear from Todd Milner, president of Palm Coast Little League. (Milner was contacted for this article but had not replied before this article initially published.)
Mayor Mike Norris suggested tabling the proposal so the administration could work out the details, and the rest of the council agreed.
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