Yu Darvish’s smooth start with the Texas Rangers has rekindled Japan’s love for Major League Baseball (MLB), but the sport is casting longing glances at the biggest potential market of all — China.
The tall, handsome pitcher has sparked a run on Darvish T-shirts since his debut last month, while more women are visiting Tokyo’s MLB-themed restaurant and bigger numbers of Japanese flying to Arlington, Texas, for Rangers home games.
“Fans are much more eager to buy goods than last year when there were not so many talking points,” said Takuya Ishihama, who works at a major MLB goods shop in downtown Tokyo.
Photo: AFP
Games featuring the 25-year-old right-hander have been telecast live in the morning in Japan, sometimes from 2am, leaving many fans sleepless and blurry-eyed.
Darvish, known for his fastball and various breaking pitches, cost the Rangers a huge US$111.7 million in January, a record for a new Japanese signing. He was twice Japan’s MVP with his former club, Nippon Ham Fighters.
Since his April 9 MLB debut, Darvish has performed solidly to win six games against two losses in nine starts, striking out 63 batters, but yielding 47 hits and four home-runs.
The debut has been a relief to Japanese fans after a series of top-rated players failed to live up to expectations, and their large transfer fees, in the MLB.
However, Darvish’s success has also reminded the MLB about the vast potential across the East China Sea in China, where baseball remains in its infancy after being all but wiped out during the Cultural Revolution.
His exploits come after the MLB opened its season in Japan in March, the fourth time it has done so, drawing more than 43,000 fans to both of the games between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics in Tokyo.
“The success is expected to help further intensify MLB’s offensive in Asia, including China and South Korea, aside from Japan,” said Masanori Otsubo, a professor of sports management at Tokyo’s Teikyo University.
Jim Small, the Tokyo-based vice president of MLB Asia, said the sport has made progress in recent years in China, where it was played for about 100 years before being banned under revolutionary Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
“So we have a lot more work to do in getting the game popular again and also developing major league players,” he said.
The China Baseball League was formed in 2002 and now, more than 400 million people there can watch the World Series on TV, Small said.
MLB has also introduced the game to more than 5 million people through grassroots programs, and opened two centers to train young players — in the hope that some can, one day, make the move to the US.
“Japan remains our most important market, from a financial standpoint and an popularity standpoint, outside of North America,” Small said.
“In Korea and Taiwan, our business is similar to Japan,” he said. “The game has been popular there for many years and we have local Korean and Taiwanese players playing in the major leagues.”
He said China is still a long way from overtaking Japan as MLB’s top Asian market. However, the long-term goal is clear.
“That will take a lot of work and might not happen in the next few years, but it will be fun to watch,” Small said.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to
RSS