Torey Brummett
Matt Schlitz
Ryland Ward
In the article Klein talks about growing the game of baseball. Growing the game to Klein means gaining supporters for the game of baseball and educating people of the game as well. Growing the game also includes getting kids interested in the game and getting them to play. The WBC has effectively helped grow the game of baseball. It gets viewers to watch in a few ways. First, viewers that may not even be interested in baseball may watch just because of the fact that its team USA. Second, people may watch because of the sake of it being a baseball game because they are fans of the game. Lastly, people may be interested because of their favorite MLB players playing on different teams.
Some of the pros of having international play in baseball would be spreading the game around the world and making it a more internationally recognized sport. Another pro of having international baseball would be that we could get to see more talented baseball players from around the world that maybe would not get the chance to play at the professional level.
I think the best way to make baseball grow in the global marketplace would be to televise the games on more stations and in more places. The games also need to be more advertised. I don't think that the games are very well advertised, not enough people know about the games and they are not made available unless it is an MLB game.
I think the idea of globalizing this through by putting it on more channels is a great idea. I also think that if there is exhibition games around the world would be a great idea. If you get American pro's to play in different countries would help grow the sport. The NFL also tried to do this by having games in Canada and also in England. The games were packed and I think it gained a bigger audience by playing internationally.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest drawback to the WBC that I see is the timing. Maybe because the MLB season is so long, it makes it difficult to find a time that would work better. But maybe MLB needs to make some concessions to the international community if they really want to grow the game. Since it is played during the time when most teams are having spring training, it makes it hard for players on MLB teams to really commit, and that is understandable (but regrettable) to me.
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