In May 2019, the brand new stadium in downtown High Point opens and that’s when the heated competition begins – not the one between the new High Point Rockers and whatever team they’re playing, but the intense battle between the Rockers and the High Point-Thomasville HiToms, a longstanding and storied baseball team that for the last 20 years has owned baseball fans in the High Point area.

With all the excitement and publicity around the new stadium being built in High Point, many people may be overlooking the resilience of the HiToms, which trace their ancestry back to the HiToms of the 1930s.

The HiToms play at Finch Field in southern High Point just 3.2 miles from the brand spanking new stadium that will be trying to attract those same fans.

Greg Suire, the HiToms owner and president, said this week that he and his team are gearing up for the 2019 season and they’re ready for a fight to hold on to the team’s longstanding fan base.

“Do I think it is going to have an effect on us?” he said.  “There will definitely be an effect.  We are so close and we overlap.  They are fighting for our fans – there’s no question about it.”

Suire said a study by backers of the new stadium in downtown High Point shows that the newly formed Rockers expect to draw fans from the south High Point and Thomasville areas – the same fans that have kept the HiToms in business since 1999.

Suire said High Point may have a new stadium but the HiToms have a solid following and a known brand.

“The brand awareness of the HiToms goes back 82 years,” he said.

He added that, by his calculations, only one of the two teams will be victorious because the playing field isn’t big enough for both of them.

“There aren’t enough people in the southern triad market to support two teams,” he said.