Good video. I'm an agent. I work with one of the Baseball United team general managers and have clients in the league. I asked if the league felt like people in those places in the world would be genuinely interested and attend enough games to support what they're doing. The answer I was given was a confident, "Yes." I'm not sure that will turn out to be the reality, but I always say, "The more baseball, the better." There is plenty of money between those funding the league that they can give it an honest try. I'm hopeful that it works. We will just have to wait and see how things look by 2025. Long live baseball.

I really don't understand the strategy they're going for. It feels like they're just trying to make a flashy display and hoping that generates interest in regions where baseball is niche, at best, but even then the "flash" is star players from yesteryear so this would mostly appeal to the nostalgia factor of already established baseball fans. I also have no idea what they're doing, if anything, to cultivate interest at an organic level. I'm sure the people involved with this have all the money in the world to try to make baseball work in these regions but I have way more confidence in countries like Bhutan, Czechia, Uganda, etc. making waves in the sport in the coming decades, despite the limited funding they all have, than this league still being around during that time.

I live in Dubai and watched the saturday night game. overall it was well done, but yes attendance was low. Apperantly they've signed a 15 year deal with the UAE government so lets see how it goes. It's gonna take some time to get the fan base and start filling up those seats. I'm really excited to see how they develop here. I dont totally disagree with your assessment on what areas to focus on first but consider this: everyone rather live in UAE than India or Pakistan, including Indians and Pakistanis. You think pro ball players from USA will want to live in Karachi?! They gotta start it off in the Gulf; thats where all the money is anyway. 130AED for a ticket is not a big deal for someone living in UAE, but its around a month's pay for most in India or Pakistan.

It has been 40 years since the amateur baseball association was formed in India, still the majority is of the presumption that the sport does not exist in the country. The talent is immense, and it is easy to transform cricket enthusiasts to have an interest in baseball. With no media coverage and vested interest of the state and national governing bodies, there won’t be any change expected unless such breakthroughs are enforced. To my surprise, I was the only person to have travelled from India to Dubai for the recent Baseball United all-star show case games. Spectators constituted mostly of expats from the well-known baseball frenzy countries (The US, Dominican Republic etc.) and those from middle east/south asians were either members, sponsors, partners, or guests of the Baseball United organization. While future of baseball in India is promising with MLB India introducing the MLB First Pitch grassroots programs to grow interest in the game, league initiatives are a must to get the rhythm going.

One thing I started to wonder about is how much money are they paying these former stars? These guys had long careers and made plenty of money, how much are they being paid to come out of retirement and come play in this league. I find it hard to believe that they’re just doing it for the love of the game.

It was very enjoyable to watch the games, hopefully it can spread!

They probably needed Shohei Ohtani 😂 WBC exploded Thanks to the Unicorn. 🦄

They should play the league in India, the attendance will be low initially but it will pick up. But they need to sort out a proper plan for atleast a 1 or 2 month league season initially to hype or interest among public

baseball can do things in India. Pitching it as cricket like sport. And fantasy sports could make it work. That is the go to technique for sports in India. Focus on fantasy sports.

Didn't they said that the 4 new teams was going to be announced after the showcase? What happened with that? I was looking forward to it. The seat issue was expected but the more the league finds India 🇮🇳 Pakistan 🇵🇰 and other Middle East countries like Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 with top baseball prospects. The more we get good players, the more people from those countries will come and watch. A Mike Trout Shohei of India 🇮🇳 Pakistan 🇵🇰 & Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 players and you will attract slowly the fans from that region to watch a game. It takes time. They have 15 year agreement with the Dubai government. It will give them time to grow the game in Middle East. It will also give players more opportunities to play pro baseball. They have the right ownership group and people there to make it work. Just needs time. I love seeing Wahid & Akshay More. You would hope this league helps the baseball development with Pakistan national team for WBC and then India 🇮🇳 gets there someday. Sri Lanka 🇱🇰 too. I believe the cricket fanbase and the region of fans there will love baseball and watch the games on TV and person once they see an India 🇮🇳 or Pakistan 🇵🇰 Sri Lanka🇱🇰 version of Mike Trout or Shohei Ohtani or other attributes of MLB All Stars. Shoaib Akhtar is a great global ambassador to help grow the league with his expertise and pro legacy as a cricket player in Pakistan 🇵🇰 in gonna support the league because a baseball game in Middle East with those countries is good for globalizing the game.

The organizers won’t hear you… period… sigh

the one thing I don't understand is the lack of marketing in India (and South Asia in general). No one here is aware, and the only Indian outlets that covered it here is Bridge (which I'm not sure how many in India follow) and Sportskeeda (only one article which criticized the league). Probably should have done separate leagues in all the given countries (which if I were to guess which countries, UAE, Qatar, Saudi, India, Pakistan and maybe one of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) to test the local appetite and then later on merge the successful endeavours to form Baseball United. Also this statement is 100% bias, but I think they used the wrong place to put the Indian team (I check back on this after the full regular season). Mumbai is perhaps the most relevant Indian city in a global lenses (besides perhaps Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata) but consider the strong push towards the middle east, this might be a blunder. The UAE based ones would work for obvious reasons. Pakistan is also fine because the cricket PSL's inaugural season was held in UAE so there is probably an audience of cricket fans leftover after they went back to Pakistan that would be interested in a live bat and ball sport experience. This is not there with India as the IPL does regularly come back to UAE because of election season (happened in 2014,2019 and will happen again next year) and loyalties might be more divided due to the deeper rivalries with the Mumbai Indians. This is also not to mention the lower diaspora of Marathi people in the gulf.So I believe they should have went with a South Indian team and specifically a Kerala (Trivandrum as the base) or Tamil Nadu team (Chennai as the base). Both states have high diaspora in the Persian Gulf and specifically in UAE and Qatar . And this where most of my bias comes in, the team definitely should go to Kerala as they have the highest diaspora but also lacks an IPL team (only 'major' sports teams in Soccer and Volleyball) and have good stadium in Greenfield Stadium in Trivandrum that doesn't have much going on (ignoring the current India vs Australia test). Not much else to other than I'm making Baseball United 2050 jersey and logo concepts, with additional teams (in Riyadh, Jeddah, Cairo, Kuwait, Doha, Manama, Dhaka, Colombo, Lahore, Trivandrum, Odisha and Delhi as well as the OG 4) here as I really do want sports outside of Cricket to thrive in the Subcontinent : boards.sportslogos.net/topic/127261-alternate-asian-leagues-2050-part-3-baseball-united/

For the 4 cities I think will be 1: Doha 2: Chennai 3: Ahmedabad 4: New Delhi

need to get the kids playing there.