| Abstract: |
When a Major League Baseball club signs a Japanese star player, it obviously
tries to commercialize its investment in the player. The initial focus is on
home attendance (ticket sales) and television audiences, plus merchandise
sales. These elements are similar to those considered for any high-performing
players. However, for Japanese stars, there is also the potential to attract
significant fandom from the local Japanese community. This represents an
opportunity for truly incremental local revenue for the team. In addition,
teams try to attract revenue from Japan-such as from corporate sponsors,
advertising signage at the home field, and visiting Japanese fans traveling to
the U.S. to see these stars perform. In addition to treating team efforts at
growing local Japanese community support, this paper examines seven factors
for success in attracting revenues from Japanese companies and fans: pitcher
or position player, player's popularity, non-stop flights from Japan, distance
from Japan, non-sport tourist attractions in a city, size of Japanese
community in the city and player's and team's performance. The most important
factor, however, is the player's talent and popularity in terms of performance
in both Japan and the U.S. and his media exposure in Japan including
endorsement contracts. In addition, if a MLB club signs a Japanese position
star player and is based in a city which is endowed with a variety of
non-baseball tourist attractions, this would have a further advantage for the
team. The field-based research reported here is derived largely from analysis
of team experiences with five principal Japanese baseball stars-Hideo Nomo,
Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Kosuke Fukudome. |