Possibilities of Chinese Professional Baseball: From an Investigation of the Spectators in Beijing Olympic Stadiums

Abstract

The global expansion of sports has accomplished a transformation from a hegemonic spread, such as people in the colonies received from modern sports in the suzerainty of the colonial era to the diffusion of comodificated spectator sports after the World War Ⅱ. The expansion of baseball after the 1990's can be regarded as a model for the construction of interdependent relations on an earth scale which is based on the existence of a professional league in Latin America and the east Asian nations under the MLB, and the expansion of the market and the network for player recruitment to the baseball barren areas such as Europe and Africa. This article discusses professional baseball in China that started in the 1990's when the globalization of professional baseball was advanced. First, a general view of the history of baseball in this country is related, based on previous work. Then it discusses whether CBL, a particular professional sports league with a certain meaning, which hasn't constructed its earning system get, will be able to get on the right track as a sports industry in the future and whether the Beijing Olympic Games can provide an opportunity to do so is argued according to the results obtained in 2008 by the questionnaire used at the Beijing Olympic Stadium. It is diffi cult to forecast the image of the future of CBL. Optimistic observation can be derived from the high percent of opinion that watching the Olympic baseball game is good chance of playing baseball and watching CBL games. But it is uncertain whether this result reflects the testee's continuous intention. On the other hand, pessimism is derived from the result that the interest in baseball doesn't directly connect with the popularity of a domestic league, according to the development of media.