Photo courtesy of MLB India
At India’s first MLB Cup in 2021 — an under-11 competition — only 12 teams took part. In a country obsessed with cricket and soccer, it was difficult to find the necessary coaches and ballplayers ready to come out and hit the field.
Just a few years later and the tournament has exploded. At last year’s MLB Cup, 150 teams took part with hopes for an additional 30-plus clubs to enter the competition this year. Not only that, the tourney has expanded to now include an under-13 age group, allowing those kids who played in the first tournaments a chance to continue playing baseball.
That grassroots growth and commitment to baseball across the country helped lead to Wednesday’s announcement that MLB has partnered with RISE Worldwide (Reliance Initiative for Sports and Entertainment) to deliver fan experiences, digital content, and a live event in Mumbai this October.
“This partnership is a key milestone in MLB’s international growth strategy,” said Noah Garden, Deputy Commissioner, Business & Media. “Working with RISE will allow us to introduce the excitement of baseball to even wider audiences while strengthening cultural connections through sport.”
“India is one of the most dynamic sports markets in the world, and baseball’s global rise makes this a natural moment to bring the sport closer to Indian fans,” a spokesperson from RISE Worldwide said. “RISE Worldwide is happy to partner with MLB to create experiences, on the ground and beyond, that make baseball accessible and exciting for audiences across the country.”
As the World Baseball Classic has shown, baseball is fast becoming a truly global sport and India is one of the countries that could one day lead the way. Since MLB first opened an office in India in 2019, they’ve introduced the MLB Cup, brought MLB’s First Pitch program to schools in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru – the three biggest cities in India – and have helped produce a pair of documentaries: “Indian Baseball Dreams,” about Blue Jays prospect Arjun Nimmala’s Indian heritage and “Hot Shots,” which featured cricket icon Shikhar Dhawan and MLB All-Star Adam Jones in the search for the country’s best amateur cricket and baseball players. MLB postseason games have been broadcast on Indian channels — and with Indian broadcasters.
There’s more, so read the rest. It’s a press release so it’s not the most compelling thing, but I am interested to see if something comes of this. I found the link via Craig Calcaterra’s Cup of Coffee News, which tells me what RISE Worldwide is (spoiler alert: a gigantic Indian petrochemical conglomerate) and speculates a bit about MLB’s interest in this partnership.
As for baseball in India: I don’t know much about it outside of the story of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel who, back in 2008, won a pitching contest on a reality show that resulted in them signing minor league contracts with the Pittsburgh Pirates and having their story turned into the 2014 Jon Hamm vehicle “Million Dollar Arm.” There has been some form of amateur baseball in India since the 1980s but it doesn’t seem to be particularly developed. MLB has been sniffing around there since the late teens, though this initiative is by far the most serious thing they’ve done there.
Maybe MLB is assuming that because cricket is so huge there that there is an appetite for another bat-and-ball sport. Maybe it’s just a “well, they have a billion people, and even if this gets no bigger than a niche of a niche of a niche there’s a few million bucks in it for us” sort of deal. Maybe they’re looking for a way to go into business with Reliance Industries Limited and this seemed to be the best way to get them to return their emails. Maybe they’re just looking to sell caps and jerseys. I don’t know and I don’t think MLB would ever really say even if you asked them.
I lean towards the second choice, that this is a big enough market that even a small bump in interest there could mean a lot of new eyeballs and customers. If this does stick around, it might be a decade or so before you see a payoff in the form of Indian prospects in the minor leagues, but if it does get to that then at least from the teams’ perspective that will have been worthwhile.