India’s baseball community is a small but passionate group. In a nation dominated by cricket, converting fans from wickets to bases is no small feat.
But that’s not deterring Major League Baseball (MLB) from staking a keen interest in India. North America’s premier baseball league opened a permanent office in New Delhi in July 2019, the latest development in an ongoing campaign to win new fans and grow talent in the country.
MLB invests tens of millions of dollars each year in regions outside of the US to promote baseball as a global sport. As professional leagues thrive in places like Japan, China, and Korea, increased interest falls on India as Asia’s new baseball hotbed.
The Appeal of Winning Over Cricket Fans
Much of MLB’s strategy to ramp up a presence in India hinges on recruiting cricket fans and players. Cricket is far and away the most popular sport in the nation.
The audience is large and desirable by any measure–International newspaper The Economist estimates 400 million Indian residents watch cricket on TV while indiatimes.com suggests that the country accounts for 90% of the sport’s one billion global fans.
MLB is educating Indians about the similarities shared by cricket and baseball as bat-and-ball sports. The fundamentals of throwing the ball, catching the ball, and hitting the ball, are much the same.
Jim Small, MLB’s senior vice president for international business, notes how the skills of experienced cricket players translate to baseball.
“I’ve gone to practices seeing [players] brand new to baseball who are kind of awkward touching the base,” he said. “But they all turn and throw [a baseball correctly] because they have thrown a cricket ball.”
Small’s assessment is echoed by Vivek Sethia, CEO of sports technology firm India on Track.
“One of the things the MLB people face all around the world is that this whole concept of throwing and batting is very alien,” Sethia explained. “There is that big advantage [in India] that there’s lots of cricket fans. All of us played cricket growing up whether seriously or for fun.”
Economic Benefits for MLB
While baseball has been called “America’s Pastime” since the 1850s, the sport faces challenges on its home turf. Other major sports and entertainment options command the attention and purse strings of spectators who, in previous decades, would have turned to MLB as their preferred sport.
The league looks to international and interactive approaches to solve this fan-hemorrhaging dilemma.
Investing in foreign markets is just one way the MLB is persues new fans amid a competitive global sports landscape. In the US, baseball’s popularity in terms of viewers and revenue has been surpassed by American football.
In response to the shift, the league is adopting new technologies that boost the fan experience like digital fantasy baseball and online sportsbooks offering MLB betting options all season long.
Broadening the footprint in India
The MLB office in New Delhi, the league’s sixth international outpost, is tasked with growing fan engagement and player development in India. Its first efforts included broadcasting weekly fixtures from the US via Facebook and managing “Million Dollar Arm,” a contest that gives promising Indian players auditions with big league clubs.
MLB is working out a plan that will dispatch international coaches to 300 Indian schools to ensure baseball’s long-term growth. Known as “MLB First Pitch”, this grassroots initiative focuses on adapting cricket skills for baseball.
Formalizing how non-native players learn baseball is a key strategy for the league as it increasingly relies on foreign-born talent. In recent years, an influx of Asian players such as Yu Darvish, Tommy Pham, and Nori Aoki has found great success in MLB.
The MLB office sets the stage for eventual league fixtures in India. MLB annually stages international events, most often in Latin America and Japan. Two regular-season series was also played in Australia (2014) and the UK (2019).
With the league taking such a heavy interest in India, it’s only a matter of time before fans get to see MLB action in a large football or cricket venue.
