Imaginechina

A rare sight

IN A few days America's pitchers and catchers are due to report for spring training. So you would expect the managers of the New York Yankees, the “world” champions (meaning winners of America's main tournament), to be in America frantically trying to plug holes in the team's line-up or, at the very least, subverting similar efforts by their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox. Instead, the team's president, Randy Levine, and general manager, Brian Cashman, are busy with a much trickier task: hauling the championship trophy around China in the hope of drumming up interest in a country that views a baseball as something to be manufactured and sold (which it does by the million), rather than thrown and hit (which it barely does at all).

Somewhere in China, reasons Mr Cashman, there is a kid who can throw a baseball at 98mph (158kph). Find him, turn him into a star and he will awaken a nation of fans. He points to the spectacular commercial success of America's National Basketball Association (NBA) in China after the recruitment of the seven-and-a-half-foot Yao Ming, from Shanghai, to the Houston Rockets, whose jerseys are a ubiquitous presence on the backs of Chinese children.

The NBA does not release financial results from China but outsiders reckon it earns hundreds of millions of dollars annually from product licensing, television rights and sponsorship deals with firms such as Coca-Cola and Lenovo. NBA is one of the most commonly entered terms on Chinese search engines. Friday nights for many people in China are a time to watch American games on the state-owned broadcaster, CCTV. NBA stores are easy to find, as are billboards featuring stars such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. A faded star, Stephon Marbury, recently signed on with an obscure team in northern China, doubtless hoping to boost his brand of trainers. The NBA estimates 300m people play the game in China. It is participating in the construction of 12 new stadiums.

Major League Baseball's (MLB) plan to replicate this through the discovery of a hidden talent is not entirely implausible. Good pitchers are one in a million, which means that hundreds of them must live in China. Players from other countries have enhanced the sport's stature in their home countries by succeeding in America. Hideki Matsui's heroic performance for the Yankees last autumn was loudly celebrated in Japan. Chien-Ming Wang, who pitched for the Yankees, is more popular in his native Taiwan than the country's president (admittedly a low bar).

Is China, the Yankee executives ask, that different? It may be. In preparation for the 2008 Olympics, China built three lovely baseball stadiums, formed a national team and, with help from American coaches, did remarkably well, even beating Taiwan. Baseball, however, has now been dropped from the Olympics, and China has demolished the stadiums (leaving an adjacent basketball stadium). A few professional teams exist but are barely known.

Baseball's troubles in China date back to Mao's day. He is reputed to have decided that basketball was virtuous and should be encouraged, whereas baseball was a symbol of the despotic West and should be banned. It doesn't help that baseball is harder to learn, requires more equipment, and—perhaps worst of all—more space.

Despite a big promotional budget, MLB has not made much of an impression. It has brought branded clothing to Chinese stores, but not balls or bats. Fields are rare. MLB is trying, belatedly, to rectify this, funding a development centre at a school in Wuxi that has access to a field created by expatriates. Last July, QSL Sports, a company backed by a Chinese tycoon, Adrian Cheng, and a Chinese-born American entrepreneur, Kenny Huang, reached an agreement with the government to create a youth league. There are plans for a tournament involving hundreds of schools this spring, the construction of numerous fields, and eventually, it is hoped, large profits. If they are successful, revenues from sponsorships alone could be huge, says Marc Ganis, a partner in the venture. But he predicts that it may take a decade or longer for the sport to become a hit.