Pitching Baseball Across the Globe: The World Baseball Classic as MLB Marketing

In this paper, I explore the World Baseball Classic (WBC) as a Major League Baseball (MLB) branding, marketing, and advertising initiative. Taking a socio-cultural approach, I pay particular attention to the WBC’s inclusion of teams from Europe and China, where MLB has failed in past attempts to encourage both participation and spectatorship in baseball, as opposed to its successes traditional baseball markets such as the Dominican Republic and Japan. I consider television coverage and ratings as well as print advertising and other promotional material. Finally, I look at the WBC’s social media presence and the role social media plays in promoting both the tournament and the game, in general. By these means, I attempt to discover whether MLB has been successful in growing the game and, thereby, creating a global baseball brand.