|
I'm a little curious about all this. The teams are named after cities in different countries (four so far - India, Pakistan, two in UAE) and I read the mission is to spread baseball in the Middle East and South Asia using existing cricket grounds modified for baseball. I just watched a vid with the president (yes, why I don't know either) and he talked about trying to export baseball to GCC countries (I think these: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) and the Indian subcontinent (which includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives).
The president sounds kinda sleazy (sorry, bro). His introduction by his new wife (the league VP) was awkward and he talked about the demographics of baseball fans being ideal because they're better educated, have better jobs and make more money than cricket fans and they have great habits around content consumption. He's a rich dude (American of Pakistani and Indian descent) with rich partners definitely trying to make themselves richer, but it feels to me like they're trying to capitalize on a giant whole in a perceived market and if it was going to be strictly a sports washing operation, IMO they'd probably never leave Dubai or Saudi. They wouldn't need to. I think they really believe baseball can take off in these places.
We named a few MLB guys, but the #1 pick overall was Karan Patel, apparently the first player of Indian descent to drafted in MLB. This will be wayyyyy more impactful for kids in India than a guy like Robinson Canó. I don't know if any of this works, but it'd be pretty cool if India became the next Japan or South Korea from a baseballing standpoint.
| 
