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.
Nineteen wickets fell yesterday on an opening day of carnage in the first Ashes Test, with England’s attack led by skipper Ben Stokes bowling them into a position of strength after Australia dismissed the tourists for 172. A rampaging Mitchell Starc took 7-58 to put England on the back foot after Stokes won the toss on a fine day at a packed Perth Stadium and chose to bat. Harry Brook (52) and Ollie Pope (46) offered the only resistance as they crumbled after lunch, but England’s elite fast bowlers, led by an exceptional Stokes with 5-23, fought back to reduce the hosts
Paul Pogba on Saturday described his emotional Monaco debut as a moment of relief and gratitude, after the French midfielder returned to the pitch for the first time in more than two years following a doping ban. The former Juventus and Manchester United player, who joined the French Ligue 1 side on a free transfer in June, had not played a competitive match since September 2023. Pogba received a four-year ban in February last year after testing positive for banned substance DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), which boosts testosterone levels. The suspension was cut to 18 months after an appeal at the Court
Houston’s Calen Bullock on Thursday intercepted reigning NFL Most Valuable Player Josh Allen twice and the league’s top defensive unit powered the Texans over Buffalo 23-19. Allen was sacked eight times, his most in any game, for 70 lost yards and Bullock’s final pickoff killed the Bills’ last desperate drive with 18 seconds remaining. The Texans, who have allowed the NFL’s fewest points and fewest yards a game this season, shut down Allen, who produced six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay just four days earlier. “The defense stayed disciplined,” Houston’s Danielle Hunter said. “We had a game plan to keep him
FINAL STRETCH: After the McLaren drivers’ disqualifications, Verstappen’s chances of a fifth successive title would depend on another big slip-up from Norris and his team Formula One world champion Max Verstappen on Saturday produced a masterful drive to win the Las Vegas Grand Prix and his title hopes were boosted further with the McLarens of championship leader Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri being disqualified. Norris finished the race in second with Piastri fourth, but the skid blocks on both cars were found after the race to be less than the minimum depth. The disqualifications mean that with two race weekends remaining, four-time defending champion Verstappen is level on points with Piastri in the title race, just 24 points behind Norris. However, Verstappen’s chances of a
RSS