Nearly a week into a crowdfunding campaign to determine community interest in bringing a minor-league baseball team to Mid-Missouri, the Jefferson City Renegades are pleased with the initial feedback but hoping donors turn up in more volume.
The Renegades ownership team hopes to have a Frontier League team - unaffiliated with any major-league organization - on Jefferson City's Vivion Field as early as the 2017 season. The field, owned by Jefferson City's Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department and best recognized as the Jefferson City Jays' home field, would be renovated to a seating capacity of 2,500 from its current 800, assuming the team could negotiate a long-term lease with the Parks and Recreation Commission.
To gauge whether the Mid-Missouri area would support the team sufficiently, organizers launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website Indiegogo on Monday. While the campaign lists a monetary fundraising goal of $15,000 to go toward architectural designs, with the real purpose is to garner a large number of individual funders - at donations as small as $1 - to determine just how many people would be interested in attending Renegades games, as well as what cities and counties they represent.
As of Friday afternoon, the campaign had raised 18 percent of its monetary goal at $2,766 and gathered 26 individual funders.
"We're all pretty excited about the direction we're going. There's actually a lot of people I know in the community that are excited. The numbers keep going up," said Jefferson City Renegades President Steve Dullard. "We're starting to see more people do the smaller donations, which is what we're really wanting. We're not looking for large sums of money; we're looking for just overall support."
Dullard expressed the team's gratitude for the larger donations, but emphasized determining the level of community support depends heavily on gathering a large number of small donations - their goal is to surpass 1,000 individual funders.
"To show your support to bring a team to town costs less than a 20-ounce soda at the gas station," Dullard said. "The overall goal is to be able to show Parks and Rec and the city the numerical value of where these people are coming from, that we do have the support and we can fund our next phase."
That's not to say they don't welcome larger donations as well. A range of perks offers supporters an official Renegades Frisbee at $20, T-shirt at $30, T-shirt and hat at $60, founders' party ticket at $100, founding member status at $150 or all of the above at $265. Founding members gain influence on the Renegades organization through voting on team decisions, as well as 50 percent off the price of tickets.
The crowdfunding campaign will remain active through May 15, leaving just under two months to continue gathering community support. If the Renegades don't reach their goal, however, they plan to try a more traditional mail or email survey method. They might also try piloting the idea with a less expensive college, wood bat, summer team for a year, Dullard said in a previous interview.
"If they really want to see this project come to Jefferson City and Mid-Missouri, we really need people to get out there and step up to the plate - pun intended - and donate a dollar," Dullard said.
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