Boulton’s Success Drives the Atlantic League

By Joe McDonald on May 31, 2009

Central Islip, NY – This foggy Friday evening wasn’t supposed to be special for the Long Island Ducks. After all, they were playing the York Revolution, hardly a rival and the team with the worst record in the league, while coming off being swept by the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs earlier in the week.

But this wasn’t a hum-drum day. Before the game, not a soul was found in the press box, where a pre-game dinner awaited, and the staff scurried around Citibank Park checking numbers and tickets at each of its gates. The Ducks 4 millionth fan was expected that day and nothing could change the historical significance of the event, no matter what Gary Carter’s team did later that night.

And at about 20 minutes before game time, it happened when Brett Liquori of Stony Brook, NY walked through the turnstile, making the Ducks the fastest North American professional sports franchise to reach the magical 4 millionth fan mark with a stadium the size of Citibank Park.

“I’ve owned baseball teams before,” said Ducks principle owner Frank Boulton. “My team down in Wilmington, DE, they were nice people and when Buddy [Harrelson] and I would go down there, we said ‘Gee this would be great on Long Island.’ So it was always my goal to put a team here.”

But then he added with a laugh, “Am I surprised that we got 4 million fans faster than anyone in a 6,000 seat stadium? Yeah.”

The Long Island Ducks have been a slam dunk from the beginning for Boulton. With a very dense baseball friendly population and rising costs for Mets and Yankee tickets, families were look for an alternative, and one that would cater to the casual fan, rather than the corporate monster.

“The casual fan will go to the baseball game,” Boulton said. “We have a lot of casual fans who go to five or six duck games a year, but don’t know a player on the Yankees other than Derek Jeter. Part of it, coming here, is to be close to the action. The ballpark is always clean and people are always nice. If you are not a baseball fan you will have fun watching Quackerjack race some children around the bases. In all of minor league baseball, you short of have a license to have more fun at the event.”

The Ducks have been fortunate, being in such a densely populated area. With so many people, it’s easy to draw. Add to the fact, the team gets name talent on the field and the winning formula is obvious.

But that’s not the case with every Atlantic League team. Although the league has done well over the years, some of the lesser franchises, such as Nashua  (now the American Defenders of New Hampshire in the Can-Am League) and Atlantic City (now defunct) were dropped to other leagues, as Boulton, who also serves as the league’s CEO, strived to put make his league the top independent league in baseball.

Although those two franchises were dropped in the past due to what Boulton described as demographics and population, two more teams almost were lost this past offseason with the Bridgeport Bluefish and Newark Bears both going through ownership changes due to the poor economy.

Both teams were saved in the end, though, with new ownership coming into Newark, while Boulton himself coming into to save Bridgeport.

Even though, it seems strange for an owner to head up two rival clubs, this is commonplace in the Atlantic League.  Lancaster, Southern Maryland, and York currently has the same ownership group and in the past, Somerset’s Steve Kailfer owned Newark at the same time, while Boulton himself had a piece of the Surf and Riversharks over the years.

Bridgeport, though, gave Boulton a challenge. Can he take the Duck formula and have it work on a floundering franchise? Right now, it’s too early to tell, but the results have been positive.

“That’s a work in progress,” Boulton explained. “The first part is we put a new field in, spruced up the ballpark, put a new ticket system in so fans can access their ticket. We made it more fan friendly.”

Boulton has Ducks general manager Michael Pfaff supervising the off the field operations, with former Nashua Pride general manager Todd Marlin holding the position of general manager. Boulton and Pfaff also promoted members of the Ducks staff to head up similar positions in Bridgeport.

More importantly though, Boulton has the Bluefish conducting business the way the Ducks have been over the past 10 years.

“We are reaching out to the corporate sponsors that we have done business in and believe in the way we have done business, signing them up for a three-year deal,” Boulton said. “So in that way you are not always renewing. All the signage [on Long Island] is sold on a rotating basis and if we had to renew everything on a one year deal, we would be in trouble. A lot of ballparks, that’s what they do, they have one year deals. So if our sponsors know they can lock in lower prices and they feel it’s a benefit to lock in.”

It’s too early to tell if it will work long term and poor weather has Bridgeport last in the league in average attendance after the first month of the season. But Boulton seems to have the right people in place and seem to be going in the right direction.

As is his Ducks. Like the Bluefish attendance is down due to the weather during the first month of the season, but it always picks up as the weather gets warmer. With inexpensive tickets, free parking and moderately priced concessions, Boulton heads up one of Long Island’s biggest success stories and it doesn’t have any signs of changing.

After all, he has 4 million examples to prove it.

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