Baseball may eventually have a future in China. It seems the same can’t be said for the baseball venues built for the Beijing Olympics.
Put up as temporary structures, the two Olympic baseball stadiums and a practice facility are likely to be razed next year unless baseball backers devise a plan to make the game profitable on a high-priced slice of land in western Beijing.
The venues were built on a 50-hectare site that’s scheduled to become a shopping mall and a sports/entertainment complex with 5,000 parking spaces. Development already includes a 280,000m² retail complex and the 18,000-seat Olympic basketball venue.
PHOTO: AP
Baseball doesn’t seem to have a place.
“We’ve had some baseball officials come for a visit, but nobody really has had a proposal,” said Jessica Guo, vice general manager of ACRE, the majority owner and developer of the site. “The baseball market is not there. I don’t think anyone can have a serious proposal. It has to be a proposal that makes sense and guarantees activities to bring people to the site. It can’t be a proposal to come once or twice a year to play games.”
The previous two Olympics were also played in nontraditional baseball countries — Australia and Greece — and venues there aren’t always used for baseball.
In Australia, Rugby League and baseball have been played at the venue, which is also home to Sydney’s Royal Easter Show, a large annual carnival. In Greece, the baseball field was converted to a soccer field.
TAPPING THE MARKET
Like many businesspeople, baseball officials see a giant, untapped market in China.
Millions of new fans could be won over and many scouts figure they are bound to come up with the kind of major league talent that is produced by smaller Asian neighbors Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Yet Guo said the three baseball venues were almost certain to be torn down next year, clearing the huge site for development of soccer fields, a running track, perhaps a cinema complex and an unspecified type of “theme park.”
She said the development could take three to five years to complete.
She seemed unimpressed by two exhibition games played 10 months ago by the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres.
Both games drew sellouts of about 12,000, as did the Olympic gold medal game between South Korea and Cuba, which the Koreans won 3-2.
“There is almost no baseball played in China and most of the people at the Olympic events were foreigners or from Taiwan,” Guo said.
Comments like these could discourage baseball officials who, in addition to struggling to get baseball started in China, are lobbying to have the game reinstated as an Olympic sport.
Baseball won’t be included in the 2012 London Olympics, but could be voted back for the 2016 Games. A favorable vote may hinge on European voters, and on MLB releasing its stars to participate as the NBA and NHL have done.
That vote by the International Olympic Committee will come in October in Copenhagen, Denmark.
‘CONFUSION’
Harvey Schiller, the president of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) — the world body of the game — said he’d been told recently by officials of the Chinese Baseball Federation that the smaller of the two stadiums would be saved.
In an interview, Schiller said the IBAF had been “pretty well assured that the second stadium will remain, and we may move some seats over there from the main stadium.”
Schiller said there had been “some confusion” over the future of the baseball venues and acknowledged “it’s been very, very difficult to get any direct answers.”
Meanwhile, MLB continues to run an instructional program called “Playball” at 120 schools in five Chinese cities. The US pro league is also training China’s national team, and pushing to get more MLB games on Chinese TV.
One key problem is figuring out how to make a baseball venue — built on expensive property in the central Beijing — turn a profit.
This may be even more difficult during the current economic slowdown, which is beginning to take hold in China.
The real estate management company Jones Lang LaSalle is forecasting demand for office rentals in Beijing will be down 10 percent to 15 percent next year, with retail rentals slumping by 15 percent to 20 percent.
“Our negative outlook on Beijing commercial real estate is largely due to the slowdown in leasing demand ... and the glut of new supply that is scheduled for completion in both sectors in the coming 12 months,” the company said in a statement.
Schiller suggested the business slump might help baseball’s cause.
“Maybe current economic conditions will work in our favor, hopefully,” he said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB