Empire State Building lit up in Japanese colors

To honor Japan’s victory at the World Baseball Classic:

However, as the Japanese TV news report notes, very few Americans know or care about the World Baseball Classic. Less than 3% of Americans watched it on TV, and a random pedestrian they interviewed didn’t know the meaning of the acronym “WBC.”

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23 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - March 25, 2009 at 4:29 pm

Categories: General Japan Tags:

Aceface

Problem I found is the reaction of the population of hyphenated Americans living under the Empire State Building.There’s tons of signs written in Hangul down there.

http://www.feitclub.com feitclub

Good point! That’s one neighborhood that was very disappointed by the final outcome.

Baseball TV ratings in America are poor, period. I’m betting a random sample of New Yorkers don’t remember who won the last World Series. Even I had to think about it for a while.

_kovert

I’m not really into baseball but I think i has something to do with spring training happening a the same time in the US. Supposedly it has a negative impact on preparing players for the regular season and most players do not want to attend the WBC. This leads to a lack luster roster and little enthusiasm for the fans in the us.

Richard

I agree. Most American sports fans are thinking about basketball rather than baseball at this time of year. It doesn’t help that WBC is also the acronym for the World Boxing Council.

Still, the games were pretty exciting, especially towards the end. I think that the World Baseball Classic has a better chance of becoming popular in the US than, say, the World Cup.
Sk1

It isn’t so much an issue with players not wanting to attend the WBC, but more-so their contracts. Right now the regular season and world series remains the top priority of the MLB. These teams spend ungodly amounts of money on their star players salary (Jeter makes $25 million a year). Obviously, teams don’t want their most important assets getting injured during the off season so they actually write that into their contracts, banning the player from participating in anything that may put their condition in jeopardy.

The WBC is fairly new (started in 2006)and only happens every 3 years(so this year was the 2nd year WBC was held). That’s a major contribution to the lack of interest in the WBC thus far. According to ESPN announcer’s comments during the games, the interest generated this year increased from the 06 event.

Also, like others have commented, most sports fan’s attention is going towards College Basketball and the NHL at this time, especially because of playoff races and playoffs.

Of course ratings for baseball in general have dropped because of the more commercialized “highly physical” sports like football. Generally people find watching baseball to be rather boring, aside from the kids that grew up playing it or going to games with their fathers. (those kids understand the game and strategies beyond the mere rules)

Big D

I didn’t know that, but I would understand. I used to think like that, too. compared to other sports like Basketball, american football, rugby, hockey and probably even soccer (the REAL football), theses sports are fast paced, the players always on the move and more action.
Before, I thought that though baseball kind of a nice sport, but it’s little boring to watch compared to the sports mentioned above.
but now I understand and appreciate baseball more after watching the WBC. there’s alot of strategies and tactics. alot of suspense before the pitch and alot of tension and excitement when the ball gets moving.

sdasdasda

WBC, never heard of it.
RT

Sports fans are all watching college basketball right now.
Matt

F U China for blocking youtube. This site has become useless for me now.

Jerry

There are ways to go over the Great Firewall of China
google Ultrasurf

http://witzl.blogspot.com/ Mary Witzl

Well, I’ve never heard of WBC myself, but I’m not a baseball fan. And shouldn’t they have asked more than one passerby? What kind of sample is one person?
Soulraiserz

WBC – never heard of until this month, when i was watching sportscenter, the score and all talks were about how it was being held in Canada. And when a tournament is held in canada it makes canadian world news. So in a way it was forced exposure for me. Good game between the JP and K.
madworld

Yeah, being an American, I didn’t here anything about WBC until I actually read it in some blogs such as this, but congratulations to Japan!

Most people already covered the reasons as to why WBC wasn’t as well known in America, but overall, baseball isn’t that interesting of a sport to watch (at least in my opinion).
Skeletor

3 years ago when I was in Iraq we watched the WBC, so I don’t know what the general public’s excuse really is in the U.S. Our country is chock-full of apathy, so that’s my answer for the reason’s no one heard about it. This year I didn’t even have a tv with which to watch any games, but I still followed it. It was very exciting, and I couldn’t have cared less if the U.S. won or not. They didn’t even make the semi finals the last tournament.
somegirl

Being an American and not liking baseball at all, I still think most Americans should at least have some pride in baseball sionce it used to be calls the All American Sport, this sport used to be more famous in America and yet the players don’t take it seriously when against the world, even though the WBC was on American turf I would have thought the Americans would have done better. The even did poorly in the Olympics. I think Americans live in a bubble of their own culture and forget about the reast of the world the live in as if it didn’t matter. ok, that was my rant for the day.
orion

Very classy new york. and congratz to us!
Sean

My god the replays wont stop playing on NHK. It seems like every other thing on the news is about Samurai Japan. Im just bitter that the US lost to them though. I hear about it all the time from the Japanese.

Anyways, in the baseball world, the WBC has been a success. All of the people who are interested in baseball are interested in the WBC. Baseball is not highly popular among americans who have never played it before. Thats partially why the MLB is trying to get baseball in to innner-cities. THe more people playing it, the more people interested in the MLB and the more revenue potential.

There is an incredible amount of pride in the WBC. Having gone to the semi-finals and finals of the inaugural classic, I can say it is an amazing experience. The atmosphere tops any play-off game. I was a bit bummed that my fight to Japan was a week before this years finals, in my hometown. Such is life.

Congrats Samurai Japan. Anyone wanna place bets on how long it will take Darvish to end up in the MLB?

Sk1

Darvish probably won’t end up in the MLB. He stated that his interests were to stay in Japan and try to help inspire Japanese youth to take an interest in baseball.

Sean

I think he will get bored playing for the ham fighters. It is a fairly good reason to stay in japan though.

http://www.japaneconomynews.com Ken

Still my favorite building in the world. Corner of 5th and East 34th. I love to go to the 82nd floor and use the payphones to call my friends in the city to ask them what they’re doing. Me? I’m just on top of the Empire State Building. It’s too bad the office rent is still so high.
inuZ

wow, koreans just cant shut up about takeshima
they just HAD TO do this in the finals…

http://la.gg/upl/snapshot20090327002807.jpg

The Overthinker

This is why I have no sympathy for the Korean cause. Aside from the fact that it is far from clear anyway, stunts like this make me want to give it to Japan just to teach the Koreans to behave.

Mister M

I think the same.

Empire State Building lit up in Japanese colors

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