Scottsdale businesswoman says lack of spring training is devastating
Feb 25, 2022, 4:35 AM
(KTAR News Photo/Torrence Dunham)
PHOENIX — A Scottsdale businesswoman says the lack of spring training and the crowds that come with it are devastating for small businesses and communities.
Katie Dufort owns Puzzle Rides, an escape room-style scavenger hunt on golf carts. Her business also does pub crawls, including partnering with the Cactus League Historical Association this year to build a pub crawl based on the popular event.
She told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Thursday that the second-longest work stoppage in Major League Baseball history, which has delayed the start of spring training and already resulted in some exhibition games being canceled, is not only affecting her business but also those she partners with.
“This is devastating because we partner with a lot of small businesses. We partner with a lot of bars, but we also partner with a lot of tiny mom-and-pop shops where we use them as part of our scavenger hunt, our escape rooms,” Dufort said.
She said the bookings have not been there for the Cactus League Crawl or anything associated with baseball.
“We still have a little bit of our normal, you know, springtime surge,” Dufort said. “But these other communities, you know, like Mesa, Peoria, Surprise, they depend on spring training to bring people there. You know, that’s a big problem.”
Dufort estimated the damage to her business is around 30-40%, but said it’s much higher for others like the golf cart community that could lose as much as 80-90% of their yearly income.
“It’s devastating to some of these independent operators where they’re counting on that huge push for four weeks, the games,” she said. “That can literally take them out for the summer because that’s money that you make in March that you’re not going to make in June, July, August and September when it’s 110 (degrees).”
Dufort said her business almost lost everything when spring training was cut short in 2020 due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fight between Major League Baseball and its players’ association is making it hard for Dufort to be a fan, especially all the work that was put into working on the history of the Cactus League.
“After spending 2-3 months of working on the history of the Cactus League and really seeing what a major thing it was for this area and … how much it brings to the Valley and to see the history of it. Now, it’s like, you know, they’re throwing that away,” she said. “They don’t care.
“I’m really at the point where I look at Major League Baseball and say it’s hard to be a fan anymore. Why would we continually go to these games and do things when they really don’t care about everybody else, the businesses around them.”
Representatives for the league and players have met every day this week to try and work toward an agreement, with another meeting scheduled for Friday.
The two sides still remain far apart on a number of issues, and a league spokesman on Wednesday said a Monday deadline was set for a deal to play a full 162-game regular season.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said four weeks of training are needed before the season starts.
In the meantime, Dufort said she is focused on day-to-day operations and what can be done to increase the exposure of ride shares with no baseball.
She added the business will have to find a way to recapture the money and time already spent in a different way.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.