Whether it's Major League Baseball in the U.S. and in Canada, Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, the KBO League in South Korea, the CPBL in Taiwan, the ABL Down Under, or anywhere else where professional clubs in this sport vie for local supremacy, baseball has spread to many corners of the planet - as evidenced at the national team level during the World Baseball Classic.
Many of these leagues and tournaments follow similar rules and guidelines to those seen in MLB... but not quite all. In Japan, the Central League is the last professional league to hold out from adopting the Designated Hitter rule; both it and the Pacific League call regular season games as tied after 12 innings; and both use a bespoke type of baseball made by Mizuno - which is not the same type of baseball that Mizuno sells in North America.
Ballparks appear in many shapes and sizes, also. Es Con Field Hokkaido, opened in 2023, has a retractable roof (to keep the snow out in winter, and to let the warm air in during the summer), a natural grass playing field, and its very own onsen! Meanwhile, the SSG Landers, a KBO team owned by Shinsegae Group, is set to move into a new ballpark in Incheon which is going to double as a shopping mall!
Outside of their respective home territories, MLB has perhaps the most in-depth coverage globally. Yet there are YouTube channels, licensed streaming services, and websites in English for some of the others: just recently, the KBO agreed to live stream games internationally via the SOOP streaming service.
So, I was wondering if there was much of an interest in baseball here on these boards - and, if so, to what extent does one's Venn diagram of interest in the game overlap between MLB, NPB, the WBC, or other such events and tournaments to be found out there.
