Baseball has returned to the Olympic stage after a gap of 13 years, and the Japanese naturally do not miss the opportunity to pay tribute to their hometown fathers and elders. The hosts, who are obsessed with baseball, have sent an absolute main lineup worth more than six billion yen, and even the Japan Professional Baseball League (NPB), which is in the middle of the season, has made way for this.
Unfortunately, Shohei Ohtani, who was the most popular japanese baseball player in the current year of playing, did not have the opportunity to wear a Japanese jersey.
Because mlb (major league baseball) seasons always clash with the timing of the Summer Olympics, MLB was willing to release a small number of players for the Tokyo Olympics, but the changes in the epidemic have made them retract this decision.
In a way, at this time, MLB also prefers to hold Shohei Otani in his hands, after all, he is the light star that the whole league is discussing.
Since landing on the MLB arena in 2018, the 27-year-old Shohei Otani has not won a championship so far, but his personal achievements have turned the American media and audiences into "tap fans".
The Athletic said he was "constantly pushing the boundaries of MLB", and the media called Otani a "once-in-a-century" player.
At the All-Star Game in July alone, he set multiple "firsts" — he was the first Asian player in major league history to participate in an All-Star home run; as the first player in MLB All-Star Game history to be named to the All-Star Lineup as both a pitcher and a batter, he also became the first player in a modern baseball game to serve as a starting pitcher, to be in the first position in the batting order and win the game — to use the familiar football imprecise analogy. This is equivalent to being able to play both forward and defender.
So far this season, Shohei Ohtani has blasted 37 home runs to lead the league, and in terms of pitching, he has made 87 three-strikeouts.
Some people "blow up", and naturally some people will inevitably open the black. Think of Yao Ming when he first landed in the NBA - Barkley kissed the donkey's ass, and Shohei Ohtani also encountered the public remarks of well-known Media people in the United States, which also caused a lot of controversy.
The perpetrator is Stephen M. Thompson, a well-known ESPN commentator known as "American Yang Yi". A. Smith. Commenting on mlb events, he bluntly stated that Shohei Ohtani, who was born in Japan, could not be the face of the sport, "I don't think the façade of this sport should be supported by a guy who needs a translator, because you can't understand what he's saying." ”
As soon as this remark came out, public opinion was in an uproar. Although Smith later clarified and explained that he was "talking about the marketing and promotion of baseball" and apologized to the Asian community on the show and on social media, behind the controversy was a somewhat intriguing fact that the future of MLB was really going to be handed over to the Japanese who needed to carry a translator with him.
On the one hand, MLB's attention is indeed declining in the United States. According to Forbes, an average of more than 8 million people watched the All-Star Game this year, up less than 1 percent from the lowest ratings in 2019 and still below the 2018 figures ,which were watched by 8.69 million people at the time, compared to more than 9 million in 2017.
Stretching the timeline a little longer, before 2016, the MLB All-Star Game was able to attract more than 10 million viewers, in the early 1990s, the number of spectators often exceeded 20 million, and in 1980, more than 36 million Americans would pay attention to the All-Star Game.
And last October, according to a Marist College poll, only 37 percent of U.S. adults considered themselves baseball fans, down 14 percentage points from 2017.
On the other hand, Shohei Otani's attention continues to rise. In the All-Star Weekend home run, the fierce confrontation between Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto brought viewers up to 8.7 million.
MLB naturally also saw the rise of Shohei Otani, and the league hopes that he can grow into a superstar representing the image of the league.
"We've been following Xiangping for a while," MLB executive Barbara McHugh said in an interview with CNBC, "and we've been planning a lot around the milestones he's reached." He also said the league had "a number of different plans" to market Ogu.
During the All-Star Game, a group called "It's Sho-time!" The ad was launched (Author's Note: Sho-time is a pun here, Shohei's Japanese pronunciation Shohei is close to the first tone of Showtime), hoping that Showtime, which belongs to Otani, will be maintained.
Raising awareness is part of the strategy of the alliance marketing Shohei Otani. MLB also placed a huge poster of Shohei Ohtani on the side of its New York City headquarters, hoping to attract more attention in this cosmopolitan metropolis.
MLB headquarters hung a photo of Shohei Ohtani on the streets of New York.
Last year, MLB negotiated with Shohei Ohtani's agent to launch an Instagram account, and he now attracts 965,000 followers, surpassing a million views every time he posts his own hit or training video. For comparison, the MVP of this All-Star Game, Guerrero Jr., has 880,000 followers on Instagram and around 200,000 views of the released video.
According to Forbes, Shohei Ohtani earns about $6 million a year in endorsement fees, and he has endorsement contracts with Asics, Desant, JAL Airlines in Japan and several brands such as Fanatics, Oakley and New Era in the United States.
While his on-court salary isn't enough to give him a place on Forbes' top ten high-paying rosters, he spends more on endorsements than veteran stars like Philadelphia Star Bryce Harper ($5 million) and Chicago Cubs veteran Chris Bryant ($3.5 million).
On the Forbes list, Shohei Otani earns more endorsements than other MLB star players.
Tony Ponturo, a longtime sports marketer, noted in an interview with CNBC that Otani's "difference" is that he is not giving up his dual identity, "and his 'international talent' will help partners grow their brands and markets outside the United States." ”
Shohei Ohtani was able to become MLB's highest-paid player off the field, in part because baseball players don't earn as much as other sports stars in endorsements. For comparison, LeBron James is Forbes' highest-paid athlete in the world in 2021, earning $65 million off the field in one year. And no MLB player has earned more than $9 million a year off the court in the past decade — former Yankees captain Derrick Kitt made $9 million a year between 2012 and 2014.
In terms of player influence, the main reason why baseball is so poor is that it has a long and intensive season, regionality, loss of young audiences, and competition from star athletes in other sports. In addition, the long-term guarantee contracts of top baseball stars and high on-court salaries may also inhibit players' motivation to pursue off-court success (in aggregate value, 16 of the 20 largest contracts in the history of team sports were issued by MLB).
Still, Otani's growing popularity is a fact. His dual prowess in pitcher hill and percussion zone has captured all the baseball-loving nations.
Maybe Stephen Smith inadvertently said the truth about political incorrectness, but right now, baseball needs Shohei Ohtani, and so does MLB.
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