u/allenamenvergeben2

Now it's the fifa world cup, you see all those samurai blue fans celebrating in the streets, that could've happened for the wbc too, like how it was in 2023. However, this time with netflix, it was not accessible to everyone, you would need to buy extra subscription to watch the tournament, so the tournament became a thing that's mostly popular among baseball fans, which is already a big group, but it definitely failed to appeal to the more general public like last time

I feel like this sub is very first world dominated so you guys probably doesn't think about this at all. But in china there is a growing negative sentiment about those who are trying to leave the country desperately. We call them润人, they're usually the people that blindly thinks the western world are better, and they hate their own country.

Does similar things happen in other countries?

There are two sports that are similar to baseball, rugby and cricket, same as baseball, they're popular in 10-15 countries, and spread mostly through colonialism(although cricket more so than rugby). However, in the last 30 years, there are growth of those sports to new countries but not baseball. Georgia in rugby, Afghanistan in cricket, but the reason for the growth is heavily linked to international competition. Even in Japan, rugby grew massively after the world cup. While in baseball, although WBC do exist, it is much less important compared to world cups in rugby and cricket, and there isn't really anything other than that, your country's top players only play 4-7 games every 3 years, it is not going to help at all. Mexico wanted to play more games after the 2023 WBC to keep the momentum going (here is the post), as constant exposure is absolutely crucial for the popularity, but unfortunately it was not approved, team Mexico didn't play with their best players again until 3 years later, and failed to achieve success this time, so it seems like the baseball momentum will be gone soon.

Btw some think that MLB playing games in London will grow baseball, but no those games are aimed at promoting MLB itself, not the sport, as almost nothing is done at the grassroot level, there isn't much of a difference playing a game in Tokyo and London, despite one being a baseball city and one not, as the goal for both is to have more people watch MLB, not playing baseball.