MLB launches a 10-year investment plan in China

Although baseball is not particularly popular in China, one of the most watched TV shows in the most crowded country is precisely the favorite game of the Americans. The show is called `Adolescence` (Boyhood, 2017) and tracks the story of a kids baseball team on which the popular local tee-off The TFBoys helps to win. The series has the highest national rating in its time zone this year. It seems that China`s baseball popularity is steadily rising. The number of high schools and universities with their own baseball teams in the country has doubled over the last 6 years. MLB matches are available to almost 1 billion viewers on national television channels (CCTV). Only over the past year in China more than 40 new baseball facilities have been built. This does not go unnoticed by Major League Baseball itself, and last week, one of the four leading professional sports leagues in the United States announced that it has begun implementing a 10-year program to popularize the game in China. As a first step, MLB signed a long-term deal with the state-run brokerage firm Beerin Enterprises Real-Estate Group Limited (BEREGL) to build 20 baseball schools. In the complexes of MLB will be taught children aged 7 to XII, in whose curriculum will be included professionally organized baseball training. The idea is borrowed from baseball academies that have been working for decades in Latin America. At present, MLB has three development centers in China. Over the last four years, 36 players have played out who play high-level baseball in the US, China, Japan and Korea. Three of them signed contracts with MLB clubs adviced by contacts with soccer-tips , 12 played professionally in China, 11 were in the national team. The most significant part of this partnership is the active participation of governmental organizations. At the moment, BEREGL invests in sites for the B eijing Olympic Winter Games 22 and its joint work with MLM will be something like that;finding suitable plots and real estate for investment. Subsequently, the American League will help with the construction of the baseball sites. `This link with BEREGL aims to accelerate our growth and provide first-class conditions and coaches for the growing number of Chinese baseball players, ` said Jim Smol, Asia Pacific Asia Pacific Vice President, at the official MLB. com site. it is an honor to join forces with one of the most promising, innovative, and successful companies in China to use baseball inertia in the country. `



Recently, MLB is trying to expand its reach more and morethe world by organizing official matches in different countries. Professional players from Japan and Taiwan have been playing in the Premier League for years, and Korea`s presence has increased recently. But China remains an undeveloped market. Only two Chinese-born baseball p layers ever reached the Major League -;Harry Kingman in 1914, and Austin Bryce in 2016, but none of them is of Chinese descent. In 2016, Baltimore Orioles signed a contract with Su Guiyuan (the first photo), the first finished product of the present?