Is MLB not GLOBAL enough?

here’s Brody Brazil just want to try and clear up some voicemail confusion yes I do realize there are still some new videos coming out with my old voicemail hotline the 510 number don’t call that one anymore instead put your eyes on this one save it in your phone try and remember it hopefully it’s even easier it’s a good service but also yeah easy to remember that’s why I switched to it 833 for Brody it’s the same idea with the hotline you can call 24/7 and don’t worry I never actually answer i never pick this up you don’t have to talk to anybody i try and make it simple whenever you’ve got a thought that’s on your mind or something you want to get off your chest or a concept or a rant or an idea for something I should cover in a video let me know about it let me know your name where you’re calling from get right to it make a strong point i love these voicemails i don’t actually use all of them on videos obviously that’d be a lot of videos but I do try and listen to almost all of them and yeah I respond to the very best ones how you doing Brody my name is Al Orlando caller and a recent subscriber of yours awesome first of all let me just say I love the content you’re putting out you’re not only doing a great service to baseball fans but all sports fans with the news you cover thank you that being said I’d like to bring up International Baseball with a rising popularity for the Baseball Classic and a greater emphasis from players on wanting to win the Classic do you think MLB should make a greater initiative in funding and setting up baseball leagues internationally at least partially and I’m not just talking about continued funding in leagues like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela ormies to pick players but actually helping countries setting up the infrastructure and helping spread the cultures some that I can think of Nigeria and Brazil just to name a few do you think this is something that the MLB should pursue do you think this is something that could help the MLB grow for the future yes I personally think it’s a good idea but I want to hear what you got to say thanks once more for the response to the content you put out Brody you have a good one Al that’s awesome first off thank you for the call for the compliments uh makes me feel great i really do appreciate that and you bring up a good topic and I know you were leaving a voicemail and hopefully you’ll watch this eventually someday and watch me nodding and responding to you everything you said there was basically spoton i don’t know how much of a response or anything additional I can provide here but I I do want to touch on some key points you made and agree with a lot of different things if you’re looking at baseball here in 2025 and where players come from at the major league level there is some pretty clear super focus on North America right baseball has always been big in America and Canada but North America is a continent the Caribbean including Puerto Rico including the the DR including little parts of South America the northern part of South America but also Asia right japan Korea baseball has tremendously grown out there but I also think we realize baseball still has a lot of room to grow globally and I don’t know that baseball has the bandwidth right now to be pushing their sport their business outside of those main regions America North America and Caribbean and Asia i feel like they might be tapped out already and yeah they play some games overseas every summer the London games very cool but I really don’t know if they are pushing as hard let’s say as the NBA once did in the ‘9s and 2000s and the NBA is a much more global game and maybe there’s something to basketball there’s less of a barrier to get into basketball into playing basketball or you don’t need as much specific coaching as you do in baseball but I think football’s even trying to push the narrative a little bit more playing games in multiple different continents and countries across the globe and you’re starting to see more of it honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if like 5% of NFL games in a couple years are played in different countries and continents outside of the United States and North America so I just think baseball is doing a little bit and they’ve seen some inherent growth in other places but they could be doing a lot more and specifically in places like you mentioned Brazil South America countries in Africa Australia has always been a little bit into baseball i should say a significant amount of baseball into baseball but I think there’s so much more potential that’s probably the best word is potential in all of those places and I don’t know if baseball has really pushed it yet if you’re wondering well would you like would you get any value on that return if you spend hundreds of millions of dollars and time and effort and have people out there does it pay off in my opinion it does but it’s going to take a while anything we do here and now in 2025 it’s a generational thing you need parents of parents who grew up with a certain game and sport to appreciate it and to pass it on you’re planting seeds now though that are going to take two plus decades to actually see some tangible return on so if baseball were to do this they would have to understand that patience is a part of it and I’m not here to say that they’re not doing anything that’s not true in fact uh a maybe a viewer of this channel Jed Lowry himself is attached to Major League Baseball former big leaguer that does a lot of things around the globe to be an ambassador of Major League Baseball baseball is doing some of these things i just think on a larger scale in more diversified places how could it hurt right for the good of the game for the business of the game for the talent pool of the game if baseball’s eventually going to expand by more teams who knows when two teams and additional four teams or however many teams across the decades you need more competent players from across the globe it’s kind of like hockey honestly hockey used to be Canada and some other countries and then Russia and the United States and Europe and and what you’re seeing in the National Hockey League is a much more diverse demographic of players because it’s not just Canada and the US and some select countries there’s a lot more players from a lot different countries than there ever have been before it grows the game in the greatest way i feel like baseball has been behind the curve on this but there is some room to catch up i know this is only going to be seen by baseball as like the money thing to do and maybe not the right or wrong thing to do does that make sense like they will view this as well what’s the investment here and what’s the return not is this good for our game or not like are we willing to put this in and I get it they run a business but to some degree it is the right move it is the right decision it’s probably just going to take a lot longer than anybody would hope for there’s still so much value on this you know what let me know in the comments section down below if you could see baseball expand globally what countries would you want to see it in where would you want to see it go how would you want to see it grow and how quickly would you expect that growth to happen let me know in the comments section below also thumbs up while you’re down there also don’t forget to subscribe to this channel you know I’d love to see you back here next time

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31 comments

  1. Al’s voicemail was spot on as were Brodie’s takeaways.

    Yes, baseball does need to start investing now in non-traditional countries if it wants to prosper 2 decades from now. The fan bases in North America and Asia aren’t getting any younger.

    With the way MLB is being run now, we need a thorough housecleaning to right the ship. Bring in more baseball people are risk takers and innovative types.

    We need more Branch Rickeys and significantly fewer John Fishers and Pittsburgh Nutjobs right now.

  3. I'm German. We have baseball in Europe, in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands… Since 1988, we've had the Lippstadt Ochmoneks in my town, and very close by—a 30-minute drive—the Paderborn Untouchables (German Major League).

  4. I will say this about Asia, there are good leagues here in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. One reason why more Asian players aren't going to MLB is culture. Many players don't feel comfortable going to North America and leaving their families and friends behind.

  6. I’m confused, I can’t hear what this guy is really saying on the voicemail. That’s the first thing.

    The other thing I’m confused about though is other than my comment, every other comment in this video is two weeks old for a video that just came out six minutes ago.

  7. Read my comments…LOL. Why World Baseball Classic does so well in Florida and Marlins and Rays can't catch a break. It does work in Japan and that part of the world so they should be pushing that a bit more.

  8. Australia produces more Major Leaguers than you'd expect. I think Little League is fairly popular there, maybe like how youth soccer is popular here in America while the professional level doesn't have much popular interest comparatively.

  9. Europe is an intriguing opportunity for growth, especially because Italy has such citizenship rules that cause a lot of Italian-American MLB players to be eligible for the national team, and Netherlands controlling Curaçao and Aruba creates opportunities there as well. There also was at least somewhat of a push for Greece, especially while Peter Angelos was still with us. For the same reason as Italy there’s likely growth potential for baseball in Greece by marketing the expat descendant stars like Cody Bellinger (he has Greek great-grandparents), and having those players plant the seeds in their ancestral home for homegrown talent to rival the Italians and Dutch, who are regularly at the top of Europe’s baseball rankings.

  10. Baseball is to complicated for people aren’t born into American culture. Just think about how much baseball apart of our cultural lexicon and identity. Just try to explain baseball to a non American and you’ll see how much of your baseball knowledge is ingrained into you

  11. There’s a great video about my baseball is the best movie sport. I feel like the reason for that are similar to why it’s not that big across the globe.

  14. As a long time Angels fan in the UK, I fell for the game while travelling in California in the mid 90s. We have domestic amateur leagues here, but its very much a minority sport, its seen as overly complicated rounders, too long and too many rules. Yes we have the london games, but country wide it has a tiny presence. Baseball is so uniquely American, its a hard sell outside the USA.

  16. MLB needs to invest in "fun" like Banana Ball has. They sell out every major league park and NFL stadium they play in while signing a new contract with ESPN. Also expanding to 6 teams next year. Why? Affordable fun.

  17. I agree with chrisbunka and Al. There's a huge growth opportunity in Africa, particularly if Kasumba Dennis makes the majors or even ends up breaking the minor league barrier as a Rookie Leaguer or independent ballplayer. They could go the NFL route and target countries such as Germany and Spain, and go one step further and target Italy based on their recent World Cup showings. Australia would be a bit trickier just because of the Southern Hemisphere winter vs. summer issue; they'd probably have to do MLB games in early April to mid-May to counter that and boost interest, depending on where in Australia they played.

    If MLB were really smart…and they probably aren't…they'd create several international feeder leagues and use the games as fresh content for the MLB Network. Live baseball in December in January from the Oceanic League as the Sydney Koalas take on the Auckland Kiwis for first place! African baseball supremacy is on the line as the Accra Lions travel to Johannesburg to take on the South African Diamonds! (If MLB sees this and is dumb enough to use these team names that I just created on the fly, I demand royalties.)

  18. Soccer is popular everywhere but the NFL is most popular in America. Baseball needs to be like Walmart and go all out to grow the brand across the globe.

  19. I dunno, it sounds like a bit of a fools errand. Sorry Brodie, but the hockey analogy doesn't fit for what this caller is suggesting. The NHL did not pump money into European and Russian hockey programs. Quite the opposite actually. Many people in the league pushed back against the large influx of foreign-born players that started in earnest in the 90s after the Soviet Union collapsed. Hockey grew organically in countries such as the USSR and Sweden. There wasn't some Canadian contingent globetrotting to sell the game in the 1940s and 50s. You mentioned pumping hundreds of millions into the initiative? Who do you think those costs will get past along to. And where would you go? Poverty ridden countries with despotic governments?

    If you want to make an investment, start propping up the municipal little league programs we had when I was a kid. The problem with kids sports today is too much parental meddling. When I was a kid you'd see maybe a small handful of parents watching the game and they weren't hovering over their kids. That was our thing. It belonged to us and the coaches who volunteered their time. Now it's all about travel leagues and parents screaming at coaches if little Johnny isn't getting enough playing time. Baseball isn't as bad as youth hockey. The scenes you see at some of those games are disgusting.

    I point this out because if you went to a group of third-world countries and dumped a bunch money into a youth program who do you think would profit from that? It wouldn't be the intended target group that's for sure. Look at all the corrupt agents in Latin America who rope these players into one-sided deals when they are just teenagers because they know the family desperately wants to escape their dire financial situation and will agree to anything. I just think you would get more of that on a global scale and I don't think it would produce anything.

    My take may not be popular but I've traveled around the world a bit and I know sports, like any cultural tradition, grows from the ground up, not the top down. A bunch of Johnny Appleseed's from MLB aren't going to move the needle if there is no natural yearning for the game. I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer, I just don't think it would accomplish much. But that's me.

  21. I asked ChatGPT what they think will happen to the A's in Vegas the next 30 years. It said that they would likely be relocated again due to issues with the market and possibly move to Mexico as part of an international expansion lol

  23. I've said it before. If the Marlins were playing teams from Santo Domingo, Havana, Caracas, or Cartagena they would pack the house. 41.5% of South Florida residents are foreign-born. In the city of Miami it's 57.6%. Think about that. I don't mean this to be a racist comment, but a Dominican, Venezuelan, or Colombian fan isn't going to schlep their way through Miami traffic to Little Havana to watch Billy Joe or Jim Bob play baseball. And yes, there is a pretty good representation of Latino players in baseball, but they are peppered out throughout the league. It's not cohesive. (Then add on the ticket prices, the expensive concessions, the parking, the fuel to get there – say nothing of the aggravation of the traffic.) BUT…If you have a more or less continuous international tournament going on there – like the WBC – national pride might overcome all of that inertia…For better or for worse, Miami is not an American city. It's just not. So you need to put an international product on the field there…Something to watch, Brodie. The Navojoa Mayos team of the Mexican Pacific League (the winter league) moved to Tucson, to play at Kino. While this may not sound like a big deal, the popularity (or not) of the club in Tucson could be a bellwether for international play. I always thought that Mexican League teams spread across the border cities from Brownsville to SoCal would create some pretty interesting rivalries. Probably not a great time politically to do anything international, but maybe later…

  25. Im commenting before the video actually started. Asia is (in my opinion) the best place to expand if MLB wants to become a global league. NPB and KBO put on a fantastic product already and I feel like MLB teams in Japan and/or Korea could be successful!

  26. The MLB needs to do something because right now it feels stagnant but I don't see how the league can make a push to other countries when its shown to have any interest to expand in Canada, where are the teams in Vancouver, Ottawa or back to Montreal?

  29. As much criticism as the NBA gets locally (and justifiably so), it has done a fantastic job marketing itself globally.

    Living abroad, the NBA is the only sport I can talk to non-Americans about. MLB is somewhat popular abroad but more so because people are fans of specific foreign players (like Shohei) rather than actually knowing about the teams and history. I have yet to meet a non-American who knew anything about the NFL unless they lived in America before or they're Canadian.

  30. It would be a great idea for MLB to grow the game internationally. I know there were American teams traveling to England in the 19th century doing goodwill tours, but not so much since those early trips.

    I’m not at all how the game was grown in the Caribbean before WWII, unless it was because American bosses running the banana companies thought baseball with them.

    I do know that soldiers took baseball with them to Europe; I remember a 60 Minutes report from the 80s about the state of the game in Italy. One American playing over there interviewed for the report thought the Italian league was at the equivalent of Class A.

    Japan had baseball back into the mid-1930s, but with low amounts of rubber it was a dead ball sport. The War did affect the game; they outlawed English in baseball, for one thing, and there was no baseball in 1945. But the sport bounced back; after the 1949 season, it reorganized into the two current leagues. Unfortunately they are suffering from fan aging as much as the US is.

    I think Brazil might be a tough sell, I don’t know that they have enough open space in the heavily populated cities for baseball diamonds to draw enough interest. But I do think Brazil is sporty enough that baseball could become the #3 sport there. And I feel the same about South Africa and Nigeria and Australia and the Philippines.

  31. To me, it would make perfect sense for there to be a fully affiliated minor league in the Caribbean, and parts of Mexico, Central America, and South America. Maybe equivalent to a AA league. That way MLB teams can develop prospects from these areas and when they see someone that they think genuinely has the potential to play in MLB, they can move them to their AAA team and start getting them acclimated to the team culture and the way the team plays.

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