The World Baseball Classic: the production and politics of a new global sports spectacle

Abstract

The number of global sport spectacles has risen significantly in the last part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. These monolithic forms of sport-related mega-events purport to bring together the world’s practitioners of a particular sport or, in a more festival-style organization, a plethora of sports all celebrated in one massive spectacular display. The first such events established themselves in the early twentieth century but only truly gained worldwide recognition after World War II. Among them are the all-toofamiliar FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. Others are more recent inventions, such as the Rugby World Cup and the World Baseball Classic. While the Rugby World Cup is no more than three decades old, the World Baseball Classic has not even existed for one. Having discussed the Rugby World Cup elsewhere (Carter 2011: 21-2), thischapter examines the World Baseball Classic (WBC). The WBC is the premier international baseball tournament and features the best players in the world competing for their home countries and territories. More than 1.5 million fans from all over the world have attended the tournament games, held in March 2006 and 2009. The next World Baseball Classic will be played in March 2013 and thereafter the tournament will be held every four years. The WBC is a 16-team international baseball tournament. Participation for the first two Classics was on an invitation-only basis. Organized into four regional groups of four teams, the preliminary round is a round-robin series of three games between four teams in which the top two then proceed to a single elimination stage. These initial round-robin games are held simultaneously in four locations scattered around the world. The single elimination rounds begin with eight teams, two from each regional group, and whittle their way down until a champion can be declared. In the 2006 Classic, the sites were Tokyo (Japan), San Juan (Puerto Rico), Anaheim (California) and Lake Buena Vista (Florida) for the round-robin games, with the single elimination games played in San Diego (California). The 2009 Classic incorporated a number of changes. These included a double elimination framework after the round-robin play to determine the final four teams. The final four then played single elimination games to determine the champion. The sites of the round-robin phase included Tokyo and San Juan, as in 2006,but moved to Toronto (Canada) and Mexico City (Mexico). The double elimination brackets were played in San Diego (California) and Miami (Florida) and the final four teams played the single elimination bracket in Los Angeles (California). As in 2006, games were played the same day at multiple sites. Thus, the WBC is truly a global competition in that its games take place in several locales on the same day. As the various changes make clear, the WBC did not just magically becomethe most important international baseball event. It took considerable effort for the formation of this global sport spectacle. Clearly, the formation of any global sport spectacle is not a straightforward exercise and is rife with numerous stakeholders with different, potentially conflicting, agendas. These competing agents and their motivations form the central aspect of this chapter. A theoretical overview of the interrelated concepts of spectacle and global sport provides the analytical framework for understanding the machinations behind the emergence of the WBC. The history of the globalization of baseball and the politics involved in the initial production of the WBC are then discussed. The chapter concludes by looking at the current issues faced by the WBC organizers as the 2013 Classic rapidly approaches.