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MLB to air Yankees-Sox on Chinese provincial stations

Saturday, 3rd April 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (2)

Guangdong pitcher on the mound at 2009 National Games in Jinan
Guangdong pitcher on the mound at 2009 National Games in Jinan
With baseball out of the Olympics, the Chinese professional league on the rocks and the ball fields built for the Beijing games now long gone, America's favorite pastime faces an uphill battle in China.

But Major League Baseball clearly hasn't given up—the league recently announced that the season opener between the Yankees and Red Sox will broadcast live in China this year, for the first time ever. The game takes place at 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, April 4, which is 8 a.m. the next day in China. That's not exactly prime time, but Monday is a national holiday in China, so people should at least be home. And as the Hollywood Reporter so nonchalantly points out, thanks to the prevalence of cremation in the space-starved nation, few people have grave sites to visit this Tomb Sweeping Day, a holiday for honoring deceased relatives.

With no deal to air games on CCTV-5, the national sports channel that has a near monopoly on the market, MLB is taking an alternative route to broader exposure in China—agreements with a bundle of the country's biggest provincial TV stations. The league has added Chongqing TV and Shaanxi TV to existing contracts with Guangdong TV, Shenzhen TV and Jiangsu TV. Guangdong TV will air This Week in Baseball, Championship Season games and the World Series, according to BizofBaseball.com.

For the tiny number of diehard baseball fans in China, MLB last year made great improvements to its local Web site, MLB.cn including high-quality free streaming of games. The league's youth development program, Play Ball, continues this year with programs in 120 schools in five cities.

Paralleling the league's efforts, the New York Yankees act independently to push their own brand in China. A few small Yankees stores market pinstripes inside big-city malls, and the team works closely with Kenny Huang of QSL, which has an agreement with the Chinese Baseball Association to develop youth baseball. QSL arranged for the Yankees to tour China earlier this year to do photo ops with young people and the Commissioner's Trophy.

Related:

NYT: Yankee Emissaries seek fans in China

Tags: baseball, Boston Red Sox, CCTV-5, Kenny Huang, MLB, New York Yankees, QSL, TV