How the World Classic changed and will change Mexican baseball

never before a Mexican Baseball Team had galvanized the country as did Benjamín Gil’s ninth in the 2023 World Classic. For the first time in history, Mexico reached the semifinals of the maximum tournament for teams of the ‘King of Sports’. And he was just two outs away from eliminating Japan, perhaps the maximum power baseball player of the world, ultimately champion of the contest. Is now. It’s time for baseball. A deep-rooted pastime in the north and southeast of the Republic, is now facing a perhaps definitive junction, agree three experts consulted by AS. An explosion of national scope from which there is no point of return.

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“Without a doubt it will be a ‘watershed’,” predicts Horacio de la Vega, president of the Mexican Baseball Leaguewho intends to link the euphoria with the start of the 2023 season of the circuit (on April 20): “It will generate growth in the fans. We’ve already been doing it, with 700% increases in television rights, but this catapults the interest of someone who hadn’t seen baseball before. If you’re not a ‘red bone’ fan, at least you’re already a new fan. You will have an interest in attending a ball park. When he goes and sees the experience, he will be convinced, he will become attached to it”. De la Vega expects a pronounced rise in attendance for the coming season: “We already saw it in Saltillo: 10,000 people in a preseason game. It had never happened. This will also have an impact on television audiences and attracting talent. Many Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban players will see the result and ask themselves ‘what are they doing in Mexico?’ An appetite is generated to come and play the LMB. That gives you a better show. Thus begins a virtuous circle.

The LMB, one of two entities that participated in the formation of the ‘green ninth’, will already have several meetings to carry out a post-event analysis. And it is that the league not only had interference in the sports plan, but also in commercial control, based on a contract that the Mexican Baseball Federation (Femebe) cedes to the employer. “Very good decisions were made between all parties. LMB and Femebe, which make up the National Teams Commission, made the appointments of Rodrigo López, general manager, and Benjamín Gil, manager. Now we have to follow up with the team. We have to encourage everyone to be attentive to the results of our players and continue with the process. It must be recognized that a job well done deserves space and continuity (…) We want to put the right people in and let them work. That has worked now and that is what we want to focus on in the coming days: defining the work structure, not only for this Selection, but for all the national representations”, pointed out de la Vega, who qualifies: “The achievement belongs to the players, but the strategic and institutional decisions were made within the league, linked to Femebe. A decision-making system was generated that, I believe, has generated positive things for baseball in our country.”

impact on television

The exploits of the Mexican Baseball Team reached homes throughout the country through Imagen Televisión. It was the great irruption in sports broadcasts for the channel, on the air since 2016, but which had struggled to find a breakthrough definitive. With the WBC they hit the table. The result, however, exceeded the expectations of the television station: “It was a much bigger impact than we expected. Although since we began the negotiations for the rights, at the end of last year, we thought that we were going to do well, since we knew that Mexico had a good team, we gave it a lot of importance. What was experienced in Mexico vs. Puerto Rico and in Mexico vs. Japan not even in our wildest dreams would we have imagined it. It was a great way to enter the world of baseball on open television”, details Gerardo Ruiz Massieu, Grupo Imagen Sports Coordinator.

A piece of information fully illustrates the analysis. When Televisa broadcast the MLB World Series, its audience average was approximately 600,000 viewers per game; During the transmission of the duel against the United States, the second of the WBC, Imagen already scored that average. The bar broke highs in the last 15 minutes of the semifinal against Japan: it marked a peak of more than two million viewers and a total of 5.3, shared Gerardo. “Even in the same final, already with Mexico eliminated, we thought that it was going to fall a lot. Despite that, the rating was pretty good. It was on par with Mexico-USA in the group stage. Without Mexico, in a US vs. Japan, on Tuesday, at 5 pm, having those numbers was a resounding success. It was the graduation of a worldwide event ”, he explains.

Imagen will try to extend the baseball ‘momentum’ with the 2023 season of the Major Leagues, which they will have exclusively by open signal in Mexico. “Our motto is that baseball is to Image what soccer is to everyone else. That is why our slogan is ‘The House of Baseball’. I hope this communion continues to continue exploring the stories of the players,” says Ruiz Massieu, who agrees with Horacio de la Vega that it is a key moment for the industry: “It seems that it would have to be a watershed for the other media to turn around. To talk more about baseball. For this to have an impact on better national leagues, which are not at a bad level at all”.

sold out

It was also a boom time for New Era, the firm that dressed the Mexican Baseball Team in the WBC. “What happened is a result of the previous years, because we have seen a greater growth in the baseball culture. Many investments have been made in stadiums, in improving the in-store experience, and in expanding the merchandising (…) It shows in the culture and in people’s connection to baseball, which comes with sporting success. We have felt that fervor since we launched the jerseys”, develops Óscar Quiñones, brand director of New Era Cap México.

Quiñones accepts that no one was prepared for such a ‘boom’, but now an unbeatable opportunity has presented itself. “We had a sold out one day after presenting the jerseys. They hadn’t even played. Then we brought more than 20,000 pieces, between hats and clothing, and we will have a restock of more or less the same size next week. It’s going to be like 50,000 pieces in total. I think it’s going to end all over again,” he reveals. The victory in the quarterfinals, against Puerto Rico, was the turning point: “We ran out of inventory. That’s when we really realized that baseball attracts a great fan base. In our social networks and in our online store there was an explosion of questions to get the red uniform, the sizes. It was crazy. For two days we could cope. caused another sold out”.

New Era’s strategy will now be based on strengthening the local fans and strengthening the relationship of the LMB teams with their surroundings: “We are thinking about how we bring baseball closer to the culture of the cities. On Tuesday we launched the Diablos Rojos del México collection at the Monument to the Revolution, because that is the message: the team is from the city. The Yankees cap, for example, takes you back to New York. It is what we are seeking to capture in each team: that each one achieve, through us as partner, identify with their respective city. We are promoting it with content”, Quiñones details. Because it’s baseball time.