As winter settles in on the central Kenai Peninsula, area baseball fans have always been able to take solace in the fact that, come June, some of the best college players in the country will be throwing and batting a white ball on the verdant grass and manicured dirt of Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai.
There is no such solace this winter.
Thursday, Nov. 7, the Oilers announced the team will be skipping the 2025 season in order to try and regroup financially and start back up again in 2026.
“I can’t imagine it going away but we’re going to find out now,” said Michael Tice, who has been president of the Oilers board since 2011 and has been involved with the team since 2000. “We can’t just do it on our own.
“So if we don’t get the help, it’s going to go away.”
The Oilers started in 1974 and have played every season since then except 2020, when the Alaska Baseball League took the summer off for the pandemic.
The team quickly grew into one of the more iconic collegiate summer programs in the country. Peninsula won National Baseball Congress World Series in 1977, 1993 and 1994, and finished second in 1991, 1999 and 2011.
The Oilers have put over 115 alumni in the major leagues.
Peninsula celebrated its 50th season of baseball in 2024. Tice said the hope is that putting on that season does not turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.
“We really should have done this last year,” Tice said of taking a season off. “The whole 50th anniversary just kind of grew a life of its own.
“We weren’t going to stop.”
Regularly competing at the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kansas, is not cheap. The main reason the Oilers were able to make it happen for so many years was bingo and pull-tabs.
The increasing loss of gaming revenue began to catch up with the Oilers in 2010. The team has not won the ABL or gone to Wichita since 2011.
“We’ve talked about gaming being down in the past, but now it’s almost nonexistent,” Tice said. “It’s like one night a week we’re doing bingo.
“That doesn’t even pay the rent on the building.”
Tice said the task for the Oilers board is to find enough new revenue streams that, in the fall of 2025, a coach can be hired and a new team of players can be assembled.
The board is looking at the Oilers bingo hall as one source of revenue.
“What we’re trying to do now is set the building up so we can rent it out for other people’s events,” Tice said.
The building hosted a Sip ‘n’ Paint event in October and will host another Nov. 17.
Tice also said the coaches quarters in the upstairs of the building will be set up to be an Airbnb. If that proves lucrative enough, Tice said the Oilers could find coaches another place to stay when the season rolls around in 2026.
“We’ve put the entire focus of our board meeting and the committees on fundraising,” Tice said.
He said the Oilers will do a big fundraiser modeled on the old Gusher fundraisers in February.
“We’re really going to try and get out and talk to sponsors and see if we can have people sponsor ballpark signs,” Tice said. “We’re still going to have the Legion play there this summer.”
Tice said the Oilers board is made up of 18 volunteers. Not having somebody who is paid doing all the selling makes it tough.
“We’re either going to figure it out or we’re not,” he said. “That’s all there is. That’s the only choice.”
Tice also said the Oilers have not raised sponsorship prices by a lot in years. He said that will need to change.
“We’re going to have to get businesses and organizations to understand we need more,” Tice said. “It’s just not sustainable.”
He also said the Oilers will see if the cities of Kenai and Soldotna, and the Kenai Peninsula Borough, can do anything to help.
Tice also said he is hopeful the ABL will do something to help, because the Oilers have helped out other ABL teams in the past. The Oilers do appreciate that the ABL allows teams to take a year off and regroup.
Last summer, the Oilers tried some fundraising and a club membership drive with their 50th anniversary season. Tice said the results were not nearly enough to keep the team going.
Tice said the Oilers had no choice but to cancel the 2025 season and give the community a final chance to see if the Oilers are wanted. After Thursday’s announcement, Tice said he hasn’t heard a lot of feedback, but it’s early.
“My fear is that we politely asked for help before, and really didn’t get a lot,” he said. “We got some, but we really didn’t get a lot.
“So at this point, are they just going to turn their back completely, or are they going to jump out and help? I’m hoping the community helps.”
