Why can't Dawson be opened up when no tournaments are scheduled? I would think the young people in the area might enjoy the ability to play...just for "fun".

How about it.... some "free time" for the youngsters in Janesville?

People don't want to pay the kind of money they ask and sponsors are not willing to put up that kind of money anymore. the field conditions are not that great and the umpiring is poor at best. They lowered the price this year to 500 a team. Does not seem like any money is put toward the fields. And now this year they have competition with Back of the yards bring their leagues back.

Best thing would be to close it down. Unless Janesville is going to be serious about the upkeep and management of this place, people aren't going to choose to play there. People and sponsors are fleeing because there are better alternatives to Dawson that are within a few miles. Read some of the comments of people, they feel that the place is run down and mismanaged. If you think selling beer is going to save it, forget it, most of the sponsors of the teams there are local taverns, and they don't want the teams they sponsor sitting down at Dawson drinking beer. They want them in their establishments drinking beer. First and foremost, they need to get the diamonds up to standards of others in the area.

Both of my teams that played at Dawson (Monday night and Thursday night) picked up and went to Milton. Lower cost, better field, better competition, and we can drink at the park with a permit from the city.

Don't forget the schools, streets oh and water and sewer, privatize them as well.

BBB.. I suppose the city should stop all leisure activities, sell all parks/green spaces, public schools should stop all sports, music, drama, etc. because they are all managed by "government"! Then we would also have to get rid of the library, senior center, transit system, police & fire departments!
If only we could have these services provided by the open market! That would be a great idea, huh?

Allow tournaments to serve alcohol, grilled food, music and share profits!

Dawson field should be let go, as the ice arena should have been. Governments are poor managers.

We have tried to use Dawson for softball tournaments. The reasons we dont are:

1. Cost is too high
2. Cannot run concessions to offset cost of fields.
3. Leisure services wont return phone calls.

The reality is that a facility owner can get decent rental fees or they can keep concession money, not both. These tournaments are run as fundraisers for the organizations and it doesnt make sense to put forth a huge amount of effort for no profit. If Janesville were smart, they could have this facility rented almost every weekend in spring and summer.

Played at Dawson for 20 years. Every year the fees went up until, by the end, the business that sponsored us just said no. They had paid a lot, and the players also had to pay a lot, and the sponsor always bought us shirts and caps, and finally, the money was just at the breaking point. Neither the sponsor nor the players were willing or able to pay more and more and more, especially when you'd go through most of the season with lights out on the scoreboards and umpires who too often didn't even know the rules of the game. Some of the umpires were excellent; some were a joke.

I don't find this as a surprise! As stated in the article, many factors have come into play as why participation has declined. The fields are terrible, bathrooms are dirty and so much water is wasted from water and toilets leaking. The fees were also raised quite a bit. Hope something can be turned around so we don't see this place totally fall apart.