Race for Chinese Market

To some extent NPB is starting to realize the need to take the lead in Asian baseball.

Two things have given NPB a "wakeup call." First, the NPB Players Association strike and the fans' reaction to the Orix/Kintetsu merger in 2004. Second, the realization that MLB was serious in digging into Asian talent.

It was amazing how quickly the first Konami Cup Asia Series was organized in 2005 just months before the 2006 MLB sponsored World Baseball Classic.

With the WBC results, the NPB and other Asian baseball people realize they have a product that is competitive with anyone on the planet.

The NPB, Korean Baseball Organization, and Taiwan's CPBL seem to be working together to set a common direction for Asian Baseball. They realize they still have the opportunity to develop a competitive product and still cooperate with MLB without becoming "marginalized."

The NPB, KBO, and CPBL took the "bulls by the horns" with the inclusion of the MLB sponsored China Baseball League team in the Asia Series.

Asians look up to Ichiro and Matsuzaka not because they are MLB players but because they are Asian. Their popularity in Asia superseded their MLB experience. MLB exposure just magnified their popularity.

Asian baseball cannot stand by and watch the MLB parade pass them, but work together to take the lead.

Interestingly enough the Yankees are attempting to to create a partnership in China.

Source: ESPN

Yeah, the Padres mentioned an interest in opening the 2008 season there.

Source: MLB.com

I recall a picture of the one solitary fan watching the 2004 opening day in the (mainland) China Baseball League.

Baseball is a strange animal - it doesn't grow from the top down but bubbles from the grassroots up. It either takes hold or it doesn't. Almost every country has some form of amateur baseball. The successful development of professional leagues is not an exact science but a unique phenomenon.

Baseball has prospered in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia.

American Major Leaguers have been touring China since the late 1800s as well as Europe, Egypt, and other exotic locations. For over a hundred years people have proclaimed that baseball was going to flourish in one country or another - so we shall see what happens in China.

Baseball will only flourish in China when the people stop starving, stop making slave wages, and the government puts its citizens before its agenda. There's a reason why there are so many Chinese immigrants in the U.S. and Japan.

I used to talk to my Chinese friend about the really underwhelming Chinese musicians I'd hear on the internet. His response to me was, "It's kind of hard to practice writing songs when you're starving." And I think that's the case here. I don't think it's really an ethical thing to try and take money out of a culture in which the average person has so little.

Baseball has to compete with soccer in China. Normally China is a seething cauldron of rebellion. The communists triumph (and this was the only thing they were good at) was to give the impression of progress. Most Chinese think their lives are getting better, but are not going to become baseball fans.