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PORTLAND — When the University of Maine scheduled its first baseball game in 14 seasons at Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field, alumnus Evan Myers jumped at an opportunity to purchase tickets.

Myers lives in Portland and doesn’t make it to Orono much to see the Black Bears compete, so the April 29 game was a perfect opportunity. Myers joined his two friends, Jared Gay, of Westbrook, and David DiMinno, of Augusta, for the game at the Portland Sea Dogs’ home field.

“It’s $12 well spent,” DiMinno said.

UMaine has long scheduled neutral-site games for a variety of sports in Portland. The men’s hockey team played two games in the Cross Insurance Arena this season, and the women’s basketball team hosted national power Indiana in Portland in 2023 and the Portland Shootout in 1995. The UMaine baseball team played here in 1998 and then again in 2012.

The university has long sought to expand its brand into southern Maine as a means to connect its athletic teams to more fans. Now, as schools are able to directly pay their student-athletes, expanding that brand becomes more pivotal.

In March, Athletic Director Jude Killy announced UMaine would start paying student-athletes via the Black Bear Student-Athlete Experience Fund. About two dozen student-athletes across multiple men’s and women’s sports have deals that start at $1,000. The fund, which can be used for scholarships, nutrition or travel, includes no tuition or state funding, so private donations are crucial.

“Maine is a state based on connectivity, so I think the more we can get out and be in front of people and connecting with people, the better off we’re all going to be,” Killy said. “Whether that’s donors, alums, fans, corporate partners, I think all that’s relevant as part of this. … (The games) in Portland do well financially for us, as well. That’s not necessarily the case everywhere we go in the state, but it also doesn’t stop us from going.”

Killy added that UMaine has a responsibility to showcase its athletics program to Mainers who don’t make the trip to Orono. It’s an opportunity for the more than 18,700 alumni who live in Cumberland and York counties to feel engaged with a familiar community, and a chance to welcome in new fans.

And new donors.

The baseball game at Hadlock Field was coincidentally scheduled on the university’s annual day of giving. A QR code popped up on the video board in the second inning asking people in the stands to donate.

“We aren’t playing baseball in Portland to raise money for the student-athlete experience fund,” said Seth Woodcock, senior associate AD for development and capital planning. “We’re bringing our product down here, it all kind of goes together, right? The more out there, the better we’re branded. The more people get to see us and kids get to meet our athletes, and vice versa, the better for UMaine athletics, which inevitably leads to more people coming to games and supporting the programs and just being part of the team.”

Killy acknowledged that expanding the brand is “really critical for the department.”

Also on April 29, the UMaine athletic department received a $10 million gift from longtime donor and Red Sox minority owner Phillip Morse to be used in capital projects, facility maintenance, as well as athlete recruiting and retention efforts.

The game’s official attendance was 1,720, but given the weather, actual peak attendance was closer to 1,000. Both figures easily exceeded the Black Bears’ previous best turnout (451 at an April 25 free-admission game against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County).

Lew and Eleanor Miller were among the first people waiting to get into Hadlock Field after making the more than two-hour drive from their Glenburn home. The married couple visit Portland every once in a while to catch a Sea Dogs game or enjoy a brewery tour, and Wednesday was their first Maine baseball game in a few years.

The men’s hockey season-ticket holders say they don’t travel to Portland for hockey games.

“If all of a sudden six hockey games were in Portland, I’d be upset,” he said. “But one or two? I don’t care.”

Woodcock says determining the number of neutral-site games changes each year. Furthermore, Killy added, scheduling games can be challenging because of venue and opponent availability.

“We’re not gonna be leaving there anytime soon, every weekend to play some place else in Maine, but we do like to get out there when it makes sense,” Woodcock said. “End of the day, the facilities up in Orono are our home field. That’s where our locker rooms are, where our student-athletes live, that’s where we want to play the majority of our games, if not almost all of our home games.”

But would baseball like to be back in Hadlock Field sometime in the next 14 years?

“I’d love it,” Maine coach Nick Derba said. “I was actually talking with Kyle (Emerson, baseball’s sports information director) about this and the rest of our administration, if we (could) do this on a yearly basis, once or twice, I mean, we’d be so for it. It’s great to be out here, the Sea Dogs have taken great care of us, and the field’s in great condition, you really can’t draw it up much better than this.”