The Arizona Wildcats are looking to move some or their entire slate of games for the 2012 season to Hi-Corbett Field in Tuscon.
The Wildcats have played their home games on campus at Jerry Kindall Field at Frank Sancet Stadium since 1967 where they drew about 1k fans per game during the 2011 season.
Arizona Athletic Director Greg Byrne recently discussed the of possibly moving games off campus in his Wildcats Wednesday Weekly column saying:
Could our baseball program relocate to Hi-Corbett?
Yesterday we met with a group of our former baseball letterwinners and current and former coaches to give information and receive feedback on this idea. There was a lot of great discussion and opinions but the common theme from everyone present was that we all want to see Arizona baseball succeed at the highest levels both on and off the field.
The main question that we would like to address through Wildcat Wednesday: Why would we consider playing baseball at Hi-Corbett?
You often hear me talk about the importance of facilities and the impact they make on our program. As much as you want to believe that someone will want to attend our wonderful University because it’s the great place that we know it is, we also have to understand the importance the training and playing environments will have on decision-making during the recruiting process.
You then have to balance the training and playing environments with the need to have a good environment that will attract and retain fans and put the program in the best financial position possible.
After spending a number of months evaluating the possibility we have not made any final decisions, however we still believe that baseball at Hi-Corbett is worth seriously considering. We will do our best to provide more information as we continue with our exploration of this possibility.
This would be an interesting move by the Wildcats program as they are expected to compete for the Pac-12 title in 2012 while returning a very solid squad. I personally think this is a ploy by Arizona Athletic Director Greg Byrne to raise some more funds for the baseball program which will help for renovations to Jerry Kindall Field at Frank Sancet Stadium.
