posted by Kristen Finelli
It is no secret that sports are trying to globalize. Globalization of sports such as rugby, American football, and hockey would mean increased revenue for everyone involved. However, most of these sports have failed to attract worldwide audiences.
When most people think of globalization of sports, they imagine the World Cup, which draws millions of viewers around the world. Even here in America, a country that has never embraced soccer, we watch the World Cup matches. There is even a bid going on to bring the World Cup to the United States. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/sports/soccer/31vecsey.html?em
The Olympics is another example of the globalization of sports. But recently, there has been a new tournament that has brought a certain sport worldwide attention. And that’s the World Baseball Classic. The World Baseball Classic is a brand new concept. The first tournament was played in 2006, and the second tournament was played just last month. Baseball is thought of as a purely American sport, at least by Americans. It was founded here and has a long, colorful history. However, people all over the world, especially in Spanish-speaking countries, have tuned in to the WBC. And the teams have proved that baseball is not purely an American game. Team USA made it to the semi-finals, but in the end, the final came down to Korea and Japan. And who would have expected the Netherlands to get as far as they did? This just proves that baseball, a small sport that Americans think of as their own, has spread around the world with positive results.
There was a question of whether the WBC would do well in the States. We’re a little snobbish when it comes to our sports, and it was debatable whether fans would want to watch people from other countries, whom they didn’t know, play a sport that we feel attached too. However, coverage on ESPN was a huge success. http://www.multichannel.com/article/189969-World_Baseball_Classic_Starts_Strong_For_ESPN_Vehicles.php And part of the reason for that was the opportune timing of the games. For Americans, the off-season is long and spring training games get old after a while. In MediaSport it says that in sport, “the audience is targeted in its most vulnerable condition, relaxed yet fully receptive to the physical action and the inserted sales pitch” [Wenner 128]. True baseball fans are desperate for baseball, so of course they will watch. I did.
The WBC is still in an experimental phase. What are your opinions on it? Do you think that it’s a good thing for the globalization of baseball? Or is it purely a publicity stunt by MLB? Did you watch the World Baseball Classic this year or in 2006?
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I think the World Baseball Classic is a little bit of a marketing ploy for the MLB. The Olympics has a plethora of athletes from all over the globe compete in sporting events which in turn has a large television following of people everywhere. If it worked for the Olympics then why wouldn't it work for the World Baseball Classic?
ReplyDeleteEveryone loves watching the Olympics to cheer on their country and its athletes and it should be the same for the World Baseball classic. Sports are contagious and the fans love competition. As the Handbook of Sports and Media states, "more important than simply the global movement of cultural wares, this shift towards the competitive, regularized, rationalized and gendered bodily exertions of achievement sport involves changes at the level of personality, body deportment and social interaction"(439-40). Baseball fans love watching their favorite players compete at a high level and a certain thrill comes when you you're favorite athlete representing your country. It is also a lot of fun to watch players interact with one another. A once rival is now a teammate and a once teammate is now batting against you.
I think on many levels the World Baseball Classic is a great idea. Baseball's popularity in America has the potential to spread to other countries if athletes continue to represent their country with pride and put on a great show.
Christina Gaudino
ReplyDeleteAmerica Shares its Favorite Past Time:
I think the idea of an international baseball tournament is somewhat interesting, but in my opinion this may not globalize as efficiently as planned. The fact that the WBC features professional baseball players from around the world makes it appealing. Supposedly the competition will be composed of the best baseball players in the world and they will represent their home countries while competing against each other.
As Wenner points out in our text the potential value in global markets is undeniable. The WBC plans to continue and eventually expand the number of teams for our viewing pleasure. Do I think this is a publicity stunt by the MLB? How can I not? The Web page is filled with more merchandise and memorabilia then information. I didn’t watch last years and I couldn’t even figure out the basic information of the idea from the webpage alone. With headlines like “Be there for your country, Get your official WBC merchandise,” it just seems foreign to me. As Wenner points out “when playing surfaces are surrounded with advertising, when the names of arenas are sold to corporate sponsors, and when athletes routinely wear corporate logos, the effect is surely to naturalize and even make beneficent the role of these corporations in our lives.”
I am an American, so when America competes in something, I want it to not only win, but to destroy the competition. I am not the biggest fan of the World Baseball Classic, but I love baseball and I love my country, so I watched it and rooted for Team USA as hard as I could. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be.
ReplyDeleteAccording to David Rowe, Jim McKay and Toby Miller in MediaSport, "When viewers tune in to the Olympic Games, they are certainly addressed as biased observers. It is assumed that they wish to see representatives of their nation at work, but it also believed that they wish to see a more transcendent excellence - that they want to watch the best" (128).
Because the WBC was in March during spring training, I don't think they US fielded the best team it possibly could have. Major League Baseball, it seems, hasn't put much thought into this contrived tournament. It wants to globalize an already globalized game by forcing players into an international tournament that isn't exactly needed.
It most certainly is a marketing ploy. MLB.com is selling Team USA hats for $35 a pop, T-shirts for $30 a pop and jerseys that cost as much as a trip to the supermarket for a family of four. But don't get me wrong: I'm a patriot who would've bought the championship T-shirt had the US won. MLB has me right where they want me. I've been to two baseball games this spring and I saw countless Team USA items on people's bodies. So they're doing something right.
However, this all said, the tournament isn't needed. If they want to keep doing it - which they do - they need to find a better way to schedule it. I can't really take anything seriously when they control pitch counts.
The idea behind the World Baseball Classic is nice, but the implementing of it is way off. Tossing it at the beginning of spring training, when many MLB baseball players are trying to shake the rust off a long winter away from the day in-day out grind of baseball, is detrimental to the development of the team chemistry for that season.
ReplyDeleteThe players being out of camp for weeks at a time, depending on how far their country advances, can't be helpful to the managers or teams they are apart of. This is especially the case when a player comes to a new team. Obviously, the situation that comes to mind for me is having J.J. Putz and Francisco Rodriguez pitch for their respective countries. The Mets had acquired them in the off season and then they weren't around for most of spring training.
But in relations to the readings, the WBC was good for one moment for the USA.
"Loy and Hesketh concur, asserting that sports heores are classic agons: individuals who gain honor by publicly displaying their personal prowess, moral character and social worth in compeition evaluated by their peers and the broader society." (Wenner, 138)
One night, David Wright was a hero. An American hero, to some.
Two outs, bottom of the ninth, USA rallying late...Everything that sets up for the perfect sports hero moment.
As Yogi said "It ain't over till it's over."
Wright reached down for a ball in the dirt and blooped a ball just inside the right field line, allowing the winning run to come home. For a night, to many Americans who may not be Mets fans or fans of baseball at all, he was a "hero."
The WBC was made for moments like this -- for entire countries to rally around a single player, a single team, as they vie for bragging rights among all other representatives from other countries.
America turns a blind eye to globalization
ReplyDeleteBy: Michael Radomski
The main purpose of globalization is to expand a central thought to a vast amount of people to all parts of the world. The possibilities are endless for globalization but not all stories lead to success. It is a dubious process and a difficult one at that to try and advance a single sport to the masses from different countries and another hemisphere.
Many professional sports are trying to make the leap overseas to expand the horizons to new unchartered waters. Joseph Maguire, of Loughborough University, explored the issue of globalization in the Handbook of Sports and Media written by Raney and Bryant. Maguire looks at the “people’s living conditions, beliefs, knowledge, and actions” as key aspects of globalizing sports (Handbook 436).
Sports has the difficult task of trying to work with all of these characteristics when trying to advance a sport in another country to a new audience.
I feel that some sports have been able to do this correctly, while other sports have really struggled.
Soccer in America has always been a struggle in the sports world. Soccer is arguably the number one sport worldwide, but it never has caught on in America. Even with such monumental sporting events like the 1999 Women’s World Cup win against China, soccer has never quite caught on with Americans. The country typically likes high speed action (Nascar) or high scoring events (football, baseball). Hockey has even struggled in America as a low-scoring sport that has never reached the pinnacle of sports in America, but soccer is definitely in the same discussion.
Football has recently tried to expand with NFL Europe, a minor league system for NFL teams that held franchises in Europe. The experiment worked for a few years before the league folded, but as we continue to see, it is very difficult to try and popularize an American sport oversees.
I feel that the NBA and MLB are some of the rare cases winning the race to globalize. Major League baseball has reached out to Japan and China were the game has really involved, including the birth of the World Baseball Classic. Arguably, the WBC hasn’t follow become popularized in America, but the event is worldwide popular in the eyes of competing countries and fellow citizens. The NBA has even embarked on global pursuits as more international players are being drafted and playing in the league than previous generations. The basketball game has even reached China were citizens look up to fellow players and American superstars including Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
It’s very difficult to do, but MLB and NBA have excelled in reaching the cultures and citizens of these other countries with their respective appeals of the game. Hockey and soccer have fallen behind and it is a tenuous climb to try and follow.
The World Baseball Classic is an event that is extremely polarizing for many baseball fans. There are some that love the event and think it’s a great idea while others (great majority of American fans) find the classic a waste of time and a great risk to injuring players before the season even starts. I find myself siding with those who enjoy the event as I found myself watching games every night on the new MLB Network and loving every minute of it.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion any event with a bunch of international nations competing such as the Olympics and the World Cup will bring about large amounts of nationalism in the stands and incredible intensity on the playing field. In MediaSport, Wenner describes the attitudes of fans viewing international events on TV; “It is assumed that they wish to see representatives of their nations of their nation at work, but it is also believed that they want to…watch the best” (128). I agree with Wenner’s assessment as I love watching the Olympics because the greatest athletes in the world are on stage competing against one another. Although many complain of all the MLB players who refused to play in the WBC, there were still a great amount of players who chose to represent their country. Nations like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic still supported stacked lineups that included superstars such as David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, etc. Neither of these teams made the WBC “final four”.
One thing that many people are forgetting is that this was only the second ever World Baseball Classic. It will undoubtedly take time for more people to become accustomed to the event and for more players to want to get involved. Arizona Diamondbacks ace pitcher Brandon Webb was quoted as saying that he would give serious consideration to playing for Team USA in three years after seeing how much fun the team and how much pride they took in representing their country. Personally I feel the event will continue to grow in popularity and for diehard baseball fans like myself, how can you not love competitive baseball in the middle of March?
BY MICHAEL CEA:
ReplyDeleteYou know it's funny, ask any American what their favorite sport is in this country, and most of the time you're going to hear either football or baseball. If that's the case, then why is the WBC such a dud in our country? I feel like it can almost be compared to a small child who loves playing with his toys but the second someone else wants to play he gets all upset. Baseball is America's past time and to me it seems that our country wants to keep it that way. Our interest as a whole in this years WBC was abysmal.
While it's popularity everywhere else is second to non, American fans see the WBC as a way to impact whether or not their favorite team could win the World Series. Yankee fans don't want to see Derek Jeter sliding into second base and breaking his ankle in a game against the Netherlands, get it? For whatever reason it is, American Fans don't get caught up in world-wide competitions of individual sports. The World Cup is another example of a world wide competition that is loved in every other country except our own.
However, you will never hear a player argue that playing in the WBC is a bad thing, no matter how little attention they receive from their own fans. Regardless of the sport, people love being able to "play for their country." It's an honor for many to robe the red, white, and blue and play anything that represents their country. Everyone wants to be the hero at one time or another. "...individuals who gain honor by publicly displaying their personal prowess, moral character and social worth in competition..." (Wenner 138). Regardless of who is watching them from their own country, they know that their are people from other countries who aren't aware of the talent they have.
However, regardless of what we as Americans think of the WBC, its popularity world wide speaks volumes. And as long as every other country is selling out the ball parks then this is going to continue whether we watch it or not. This past year, the Americans played a game in Los Angeles against Cuba I believe, and without questions there were more fans for Cuba than USA. AND THAT WAS IN OUR OWN COUNTRY.
Other than the Olympics, which at times has its troubles as well, it seems that international competition of an individual sport isn't something that American's really like to watch... at all.
I think that the World Baseball Classic is a good idea for bringing baseball together, but is just not implemented properly. Baseball has always been called “America’s pastime,” obviously because it originated in America. However, these days there are so many professional baseball players coming to America from various countries to play ball. With that said, a lot of countries are popularizing baseball since they usually start playing in their home countries. Therefore, the globalizing of baseball is already in full swing because it is played all around the world.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of the people that have already posted in saying that when it comes to the World Baseball Classic, the timing is way off. I think that if the MLB wants to implement and keep the WBC going strong, they need to find a different time to do so because holding it during spring training just doesn’t work. I understand that at this time, to Major League Baseball, this may be the only plausible time frame, but it needs to be thought out as a whole. In order for teams in the MLB to do well they all need to work together and when you’re taking players away from their teams to play in the WBC, they are learning how to work with a different group of individuals. Therefore, it could definitely take away from teams in the MLB because it will take more time for those players to adjust to a different team and a different set of individuals.
I have watched some of the games of the World Baseball Classic just because baseball is my favorite sport, so I will watch it whenever it’s on; because ideally I wish it were baseball season year round. Since it is split up by countries, there are going to be people who are going to watch simply to root for their country, just like during the Olympics. I think that Major League Baseball just needs to find a better way to implement the whole tournament so that there is a better showing of baseball players and a bigger fan base.
In chapter 8 in MediaSport, David Rowe, Jim McKay, and Toby Miller state, “Audience and nation can only profitably meet, as far as the commercial sector is concerned, under the sign of pleasure” (128). I found that interesting because I don’t think there is any way that the WBC would be held if it wasn’t being televised because everything always comes back to money and ratings. So if they thought that no one was going to watch the World Baseball Classic, then it probably wouldn’t occur because they would essentially be wasting tons of money putting this event together and televising it. Therefore, the way for audience and nation to meet would only be profitable because of the money that they spend in order for baseball fans to watch the tournament.
The World Baseball Classic, in theory is a great idea to try and globalize the sport of baseball. If you can get passed the fact that it’s basically just another excuse to try and sell a truckload of WBC merchandise, the tournament is actually an intriguing globalization tool. It involves a wide array of countries and players from all over the world. The theory behind the World Baseball Classic was that if there were players from Major League Baseball present on at least the majority of the teams, fans would have a reason to watch. That’s why people watch the Olympics, they want to see the best we have to offer to the sporting world. “When viewers tune into the Olympic Games, they are certainly addressed as biased observers. It is assumed they wish to see representatives of their nation at work, but it is also believed that they wish to see a more transcendent excellence – that they want to watch the best. It is further believed that they want to be a part of an ethic, however fractured, of international spirit;” (Wenner, 128) People may be drawn to this idea of the “international spirit” but if there aren’t enough people tying the viewers to the event, they’re not going to be interested. For example, if only two players on the Italian team are from the MLB, and one of them is David Dellucci, no one from the United States is going to watch their games. They don’t have enough reason to become invested, because they don’t feel as connected. That’s why the teams that are most closely watched by American fans are Team USA, the Dominican Republic, and Japan. (The Japan team doesn’t have as many MLB players as the other two, but they did win the WBC in 2006 so that creates a certain amount of appeal as well) American sports fans have unfortunately built a reputation that we don’t care about any other country’s sports/teams but our own. In theory, the WBC is good for the sport of baseball, and I do agree with its implementation, but it doesn’t seem to be capturing much attention.
ReplyDeleteWhile I like the WBC, the one problem I have with it is the scheduling. This year, the WBC forced Spring Training schedules to be extended by an additional ten days. This interfered most importantly with the throwing schedules for pitchers and took players away from their teams so they could participate in the tournament. Many of the players, especially on the USA team, also got hurt during the WBC. This was unfair for all of the individual teams that these players have a responsibility to. Many of the players in the majors who choose to participate in the WBC get caught up in the emotions of “representing their country” and forget that their first priority is always to the team that writes their paychecks. If they get hurt, the WBC won’t suffer for long, but their teams will. David Wright, Derrek Lee, Chipper Jones, Dustin Pedroia, Derek Jeter, Ryan Braun, and Matt Lindstrom all suffered injuries. While most were minor, they were substantial enough to give Team USA Manager Davey Johnson the idea to forfeit the tournament. If any player were to be seriously injured, it would jeopardize the success of their team, considering most of the players participating in the WBC are the best players in the league and are invaluable to their particular clubs. For example, the Brewers were less than pleased to hear that Ryan Braun would miss opening day and an additional extended period of time due to the injury he sustained in the WBC. The WBC would be great for the sport (if more people started actually watching it), but the scheduling conflicts are unfair to the teams that invest hundreds of millions of dollars into their players.
It’s tricky to try and decide when the WBC should take place. Immediately after the season, players are tired and worn down. Immediately before Spring Training still conflicts with their team schedule. Ideally, the tournament should take place in the middle of the off-season. The players may not be in the best shape and might be a little rusty, but it will at least prevent spring training schedules from being affected. In addition, any minor injuries would have healed by the time spring training starts. I think if somehow the WBC and the Major League schedules were to balance each other out, the tournament would be looked at by individual teams in a much more positive light and perhaps that would give people an extra push to watch the tournament. It’s a long shot, but you never know.