Thursday, 30 May 2019:

The creation of a women's baseball league and money to help an Olympic tilt are the objectives of two fundraising drives by Baseball Australia.

The fundraising initiatives have been launched to raise almost $500,000 to reach two key aims.

Baseball Australia, in partnership with the Australian Sports Foundation, wants to raise $250,000 to establish a professional women's baseball competition.

And another campaign aims to raise $240,000 to assist the Australian men's team in their qualification for next year's Olympic Games.

Baseball Australia (BA) chief executive Cam Vale said public support was needed to achieve both goals.

The push to create a women's league came after BA privatised the Australian Baseball League last year.

"We have had a range of different groups involved to keep fleshing out, we are still in that process just to try and work out what is the best way forward, what is the best model," Vale told AAP.

"The reality is that to continue this grassroots approach, that we had to consider how we could get the broader baseball community involved."

BA and the Australian Sports Foundation were seeking at least 1000 donors to contribute $250 each.

Another campaign to raise $240,000 - via 24 high-end donations of $10,000 each - to fund the men's Olympic team had also been launched.

"We have probably fallen behind in the investment in technology," Vale said.

"And the challenge for the men and our Olympic preparation is probably half of our team is based in Australia working full-time jobs.

"It's not crying poor, but we're not a heavily funded Sport Australia sport - we get $475,000 for high performance which has to be spent on the men's program."

Five countries will join host nation Japan in the baseball tournament at the Tokyo Games. The sport hasn't featured at an Olympics since 2008.

World No.7 Australia has a chance to secure qualification at the Premier12 tournament in Japan this November, where Australia has been grouped with Korea, Cuba and Canada.

Failing that, Australia has a second chance through an Oceania tournament next January and another tournament in Taiwan next March.

AAP