Chung Yi-min would go to a baseball game almost every month and watch many more on television until four or five years ago, when the 36-year-old fan started getting fed up with the nation’s most popular sport.
“If they don’t catch balls I get suspicious because these are professional players,” said Chung, who works as an event planner and has watched baseball since childhood. “Everyone will think that the game result isn’t the actual result.”
Chung now prefers televised US Major League Baseball to local games because of illegal betting, which has cost the nation’s 20-year-old league a chunk of its fan base, taking income away from the sport’s development and lowering the national team’s odds of international championships.
Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau logged 102 illegal baseball betting cases involving 222 people last year and have tapped 20 cases covering 32 people so far this year.
Justice ministry spokesman Luo Chi-wang said that punters could keep their names secret from betting ring operators.
The Cabinet has said it will take a swing at betting this year, while celebrities and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) have attended games to stimulate audience interest.
“Local prosecutors will keep looking into this matter,” Luo said. “Of course there’s a mafia connection but we haven’t deeply analyzed it. We’re not saying it still exists or whether it has changed.”
Taiwan’s four professional teams have lost 45 percent of their stadium attendance over the past five years, cutting attendance to about 573,000 per year, league statistics show.
Television viewership had sunk by more than half over the same period largely due to public suspicions about betting, a team president said.
Taiwan went out early from the World Baseball Classic last month and won only two of seven games at last year’s Beijing Olympics.
“If there’s no one watching, how can you develop a team?” said Richard Lin, secretary-general of the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association.
A decline in the number of baseball fans reduces box office income, drying up training funds and pressuring companies to consider dropping team sponsorships.
The specter of betting and threats against players also discourage students from taking up the sport in school.
“If no one watches, that will affect the images of companies that sponsor teams and they will question whether they want to continue the sponsorships,” said Jason Lin, president of the Uni-President Lions team. “And parents won’t send their children to play ball.”
A players’ association said last month that up to 100 members would sign more than 10 percent of their salaries to a local bank for their retirement. If a player was convicted of intentional poor play, the bank would donate the money to baseball development.
“False play has been such a problem in the past, so we need to increase self-discipline,” said Lions pitcher Pan Wei-lun, adding that he had never been approached by betting rings.
Most players were in fair territory but “a few” still played poorly due to mafia threats or the money received for cooperating with bettors, league commissioner Chao Shou-po said.
“Let’s not make the wrong friends or go to the wrong places,” Chao told players at a ceremony with the bank.
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
Batting great Virat Kohli yesterday announced his immediate retirement from Test cricket, just days before India name their squad for a tour to England. Kohli, who scored 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, posted his decision on Instagram five days after India captain Rohit Sharma called time on his own Test career. Since making his debut in 2011, Kohli struck 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out, mainly batting at number four in the order. “It’s been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket,” the
RSS