The (Multi) National Pastime

America’s national pastime isn’t as “American” as it used to be. Like most other big-league sports--and American life, generally--baseball is being dramatically transformed by globalization, an awkward term that refers to the rapidly growing flows of people, goods, images, information and just about everything else across national boundaries. Nowhere is this more evident than in Los Angeles, where the Dodgers are about to start their season with a pitching staff commonly referred to as the “United Nations of pitchers”: Hideo Nomo from Japan, Ismael Valdes and Antonio Osuna from Mexico, Ramon Martinez and Pedro Astacio from the Dominican Republic, and probably someday soon, Chan Ho Park from Korea.

Given the central role of spectator sports in the cultural life of America, how major-league sports franchises respond to globalization could have a decisive impact on society in general. The attractions (and pressures) of expanding global markets could cause professional teams to further loosen their connections to local communities, which would add fuel to the simmering revolt of Americans against immigration, trade and multinational business. On the other hand, if leagues, owners, local leaders and players grasp the initiative, professional sports could play a leading role in helping U.S. communities move into a new global era.

There is nothing new about foreign athletes, especially foreign baseball players, coming to America to seek fame and fortune. From 1920 to 1945, for example, a period when most of America was turning inward, nearly 50 foreign-born players, almost half of whom came from Cuba, played major-league baseball--and the Latinization of American baseball teams now so evident really began in the late 1950s and 1960s, when such Latino stars as Roberto Clemente, Luis Tiant, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, Tony Oliva, Mike Cuellar and Zoilo Versailles captured the affections of American fans. In the 1990s, however, the numbers of foreign players in the major leagues have reached unprecedented levels--and most expectations are that they will increase even more rapidly in the years ahead.

This trend is most evident in baseball. Almost every major-league club has a potential international attraction. San Francisco is counting on a new Cuban exile, Osvaldo Fernandez, to end their pitching woes. The Florida Marlins are eagerly awaiting the development of another former Cuban pitching star, Livan Hernandez. The San Diego Padres are gambling that Fernando Valenzuela still has enough of his old stuff to pilot them to a pennant. And, in Dodger Stadium, there is a possibility that an all-Latin outfield--Raul Mondesi from the Dominican Republic, Roger Cedeno from Venezuela and Karim Garcia from Mexico--will soon be playing defense behind Tommy Lasorda’s “International House of Pitchers.”

The influx of foreign stars is not limited to baseball. During the past decade, professional hockey teams, which had long been Canadian-American preserves, have rapidly internationalized. More than 100 non-North Americans, mostly from Finland, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic, are now playing in the National Hockey League--and having a major impact. Four of the last six NHL rookies of the year, including the Mighty Ducks’ Teemu Selanne, have come from Europe.

In professional basketball, the numbers aren’t as great (yet!), though the trend is similar, with Africans--Hakeem Olajuwon (Nigeria) and Dikembe Mutombo (Zaire))--and Europeans--Vlade Divac (Serbia), Rik Smits (Holland), Detlef Schrempf (Germany)--leading the surge in foreign players. And Major League Soccer, which will launch its first season April 6, is counting on the ability of international stars like Jorge Campos of Mexico, who will play goalie for the Los Angeles Galaxy, to attract fans.

Numbers aside, the current crop of athlete-immigrants are playing in a sporting world that is quite different from the one that existed only a decade ago. Until the 1980s, foreign players had little impact on the business side of baseball. The markets--read: fans--that mattered most were hometown fans, the overwhelming majority of whom were American-born and white. This was even truer for basketball and football. Today, the sports markets with the most growth potential are international--and stars with global ethnic appeal like Nomo, Park and Valenzuela are valuable assets.

The globalization of the American sports marketplace is largely a product of revolutionary advances in transportation and communications--and the keen marketing sense of a few sports pioneers like Walter O’Malley. A truly national market for sports did not exist until first radio, then television began to bring professional sports into American homes across the country. It was only after the launch of the Boeing 707 and initiation of non-stop transcontinental air travel in the late 1950s that the Dodgers and Giants could bring major-league baseball to the West Coast. And advertisers were quick to recognize the benefits of linking their efforts to penetrate national markets to the growing national appeal of major-league sports. Today, a similar set of forces are pushing and pulling professional sports into the global marketplace.

Fans in distant countries can now follow sports in America in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. For example, Nomo’s pitching starts are broadcast live in Japan and his performance can be analyzed on the Internet at web sites set up exclusively to cover his career. Thanks to cheap air travel and tour companies, whenever and wherever he pitches, the crowd includes Japanese fans and reporters.

But it’s not just foreign-born players who have international appeal. Thanks largely to the NBA’s skillful international marketing, Michael Jordan is now almost as much of a celebrity in China, Germany and South Africa as he is in Chicago. When he retired, then unretired, it was front-page news in Europe.

The profits that will be made when a truly global market for major-league sports develops are certain to be huge. By the early 1990s, the big three sports--baseball, basketball and football--were each already bringing in more than $2 billion a year in worldwide licensing revenues. By some estimates, more than 400 million households (100 million of which were in China) watched the Chicago Bulls win the NBA title in 1992. But the real bonanza will come as ESPN and other networks expand their reach into foreign television markets, which is why Disney’s chairman, Michael D. Eisner, was so quick to identify ESPN as the most important asset in the $19-billion acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC.

But there is another side to the story. As professional franchises reap ever greater returns by reaching into global markets, they will become ever less dependent on local fans and local revenues. This trend has two implications. First, it means that league officials and team owners will be under pressure to organize play and develop teams in ways that will expand their global-fan appeal--and this may occur at the expense of local fans. Second, as they become less dependent on local support, team owners will become even more demanding in their negotiations with local officials on issues such as new stadiums.

There is an alternative path--and the Dodgers (and possibly Disney) are pointing the way toward it. Instead of chasing global markets in a manner that downgrades hometown interests, major-league teams can choose to internationalize in ways that will help their communities deal with the societal dislocations caused by globalization and to build cultural and economic bridges to foreign countries.

Just as Branch Rickey and the Brooklyn Dodgers chose to play a critical role in changing American racial attitudes by signing Jackie Robinson, major-league sports teams (including the new soccer franchises) should assume an active role in reducing the ethnic, racial and class chasms that are beginning to tear at the fiber of American society. They can do this by identifying themselves (and operating) as models of the kind of cross-societal partnerships that will be necessary in a new global age. And, in this regard, there is reason to hope that Park eventually succeeds in his quest for major-league stardom and thus may be able to play a small role in helping Korea and Korean-Americans overcome lingering animosities and rivalries.

More concretely, major-league teams need to expand their efforts to bring together kids from the all-too-separate worlds that exist in large U.S. cities. One way to do this is to sponsor teams and tournaments consciously organized to transcend the segregation of city and suburb.

At the same time, major-league sports teams should become more active partners in the growing efforts of cities, states and regions to develop their own international relationships. For example, Anaheim officials might be well-advised to drop some of their demands for pie-in-the-sky facilities and instead search for ways that a partnership with Disney and the Angels could help businesses in Anaheim and Orange County develop new global contacts.

Ultimately, the most successful and profitable teams will be those able to go global while strengthening their bonds to their local communities.

Ed Marcum provided research for this article.