j-ball and the future of baseball

well, baseball is among of the most widely and played sports in the world, this born in usa, it was spread throughout america and asia and is taken root in korea, taiwan and specially in japan.
the baseball for japanese is used as a past time and used to strengthen phisically and mentally.

though japanesse team have come and gone, since 1958 j-ball¨ has had 2 leagues central league and pacific league. the yomiuri giants dominated j-ball  for many year and has attracted a lot of fans and the best superstars in japan, such as tetsuharu lawakami, shigeo nagashima, sadaharu, etc.
players of japan had some impact on U.S. the first one was mikamy goro, pitcher murakami masanori playing for sanfrancisco giants,nomo hideo a star pitcher who was joined the los angeles dodgers but the most succesful of theses batter has been suzuky ichiro who won the rookie of the year in 2001 with the seatle mariners and currently proyected to enter to the hall of fame of major league baseball in usa, besides he is the only japaness that has more fans in japan and all over the world.

Overview of World Baseball Classic

After years of planning, Major League Baseball (MLB) staged an international baseball tournament known as the World Baseball Classic (WBC) from March 3-20, 2006. Formally approved by MLB owners in 2004, World Baseball Classic, Inc., is a company created by MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) labor union to operate the WBC tournament, which is sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation and is supported by professional baseball leagues and players associations around the world (MLB.com, 2006). According to Paul Archey, MLB’s senior vice president of international business operations, the purpose of the WBC was to “build a platform where the best players in the game could play on behalf of their countries and get baseball better global exposure” (Lefton, 2006).

The WBC staged 39 games at seven international venues over 18 days (“Final WBC,” 2006; Fisher, 2006b). The tournament, which featured three rounds of competition, sold 737,112 tickets, was broadcast in nine languages, and was covered by 5,354 credentialed media members (Bloom, 2006; “Final WBC,” 2006). In the championship game, Japan defeated Cuba 10-6 to claim the title for the inaugural tournament that featured 16 competing teams (see Table 1).

Table 1. National Teams Participating in the Inaugural 2006 World Baseball Classic By Pool

Pool A	Pool B	Pool C	Pool D
China	Canada	Cuba	Australia
Chinese Taipei	Mexico	Netherlands	Dominican Republic
Japan	South Africa	Panama	Italy
Korea	United States	Puerto Rico	Venezuela

 world baseball classic,  is one of the most famous tournament of baseball worldwide, therefore the baseball is becoming the most played  and many team has been adding since was born.

the purpose of world baseball classic

This paper analyzes the 2006 World Baseball Classic as a promotional strategy by Major League Baseball to further its global branding pursuits. The WBC is qualified as a global sport event that is a marketing function of MLB in its efforts to emerge as an international brand; elements of the WBC are examined in the context of a global brand strategy. WBC promotional execution elements are studied in light of dimensions upon which consumers evaluate global brands. Four customer segments targeted through the WBC are characterized before the paper examines future WBC marketing approaches in the context of cultural production.

rigoberto alcantara vasquezr matricula 100054323