How Major League Baseball is looking to expand into the Asian market

Football is the number one sport in America and there is little chance of that changing anytime soon, so for the two other mainstream sports, the best way to expand their brand and reach is to look to overseas markets.

It’s why basketball is increasingly looking to market itself in South America and Europe and it’s why baseball is going big on the Asian market.

In decades to come, baseball chiefs are hoping that fans in Japan and South Korea will be regularly tuning in to watch their favourite American teams and keeping up to date with all the latest MLB odds.

What are the obstacles facing them though and how likely is baseball to gain a real foothold in the Asian market? Read on to find out.

It Must be Targeted

What is the biggest sport on the planet? Go on, we’ll wait… Football? Absolutely not. Basketball? Nope. Soccer? Nuh-uh. The number one sport on the planet, in terms of global audiences, is… cricket.

Yep that’s right, the game that lasts anywhere between a day and five days is the world’s most popular sport and that is largely down to the popularity of the game in Asia. India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka account for just under a billion cricket fans.

In terms of baseball means that these countries must be off the radar, there’s absolutely no way that it can compete with such an established and loved bat and ball game. Which means that baseball’s expansion efforts should be focused exclusively on Asian countries with real growth potential, so which ones are they?

Japan: Already considered a hotbed of baseball action, Japan is a safe bet for further expansion by the MLB. Japanese fans are just as passionate and avid about their teams as us North Americans are about ours. The next challenge for the MLB is to make sure that Japanese eyes are just as focused on MLB as their own domestic game.

South Korea: As an Asian country with a real historic and cultural affinity to the United States, South Korea is a slam dunk (to mix up our sports metaphors) for Major League Baseball. The Samsung Lions are the most successful and supported team in the country, but there is also an avid fan base for MLB in South Korea.

China: The Holy Grail for Western sports. Soccer has tried to expand into China with limited success as has basketball and baseball. The rewards for breaking the market are huge, with a massive population any sport successful in doing so would almost certainly rival cricket to become the world’s most popular sport, but how could MLB achieve that?

Whilst baseball has found it hard to gain a foothold in China, it is still enjoyed.

The American Problem

The United States is not a popular country and that is a major obstacle to the expansion efforts of not just baseball but basketball and football too. In China for example, one of the main reasons that baseball has failed to take off is that it is viewed as synonymous with American culture and therefore anathema to Chinese audiences.

It’s a similar story in other Asian countries, albeit to a lesser extent, where baseball struggles because it is seen as an American import. In order to overcome this baseball needs to think of a way to become a global game like soccer and cricket, which whilst invented in the UK are both viewed as egalitarian, international sports.

The American Solution

The World Series is not a world series in the true sense of the word but it could be. It could be a way to bring together the various global baseball hotbeds and help to truly create an international baseball brand that isn’t so America-orientated.

The FIFA World Cup and the Cricket World Cup are two of the most watched sporting tournaments on the planet because they bring together teams from every corner of the globe in a bonanza of sporting excellence.

Calling it the ‘World Series’ might seem like a small thing to American sports fans, but it’s a major reason international audiences are put off baseball.

Regular tournaments between Japanese, South Korean, Latin American, and North American baseball teams would be one hell of a way to increase the global appeal of baseball and change how the game is viewed abroad.

The issue with this solution is that it is not in the commercial interests of MLB and its franchises to promote international leagues and teams from abroad. The guiding principle of MLB is to continue the financial growth and expansion of its own teams.

Whilst this remains the goal for MLB it’s hard to see a future where baseball ever really makes a mark on the global sports market.