Major League Baseball, boasting over $6 billion in annual sales, will again begin a new season in Asia, increasingly a source of earnings and talent.

Some 20 Japanese stars play on teams from Seattle to Boston, the Red Sox taking on the Oakland Athletics on March 25 and 26 at Tokyo Dome.

The $11 million curtain-raising event is underwritten by media giant Yomiuri and other Japanese corporates such as Ricoh and Lawson.

TV and marketing deals from top international market Japan, estimated to be worth up to 5 percent of MLB revenues, are shared among its 30 teams, while individual franchises can ink separate sponsorship deals.

George Rose, once a translator for the New York Yankees' former Japanese player Hideki Irabu and who now pitches business for the franchise in Asia, told Reuters just how valuable the continent is for MLB teams.

"In Japan any year the Yankees could potentially sign any free agent or player that's posted," he said in his Tokyo office.

"The revenue-producing activity that we are pursuing here is sponsorship that can be brought back to the home stadium."

The "House that Ruth Built" made early inroads by signing Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui and with joint venture ties with Yomiuri, as well as sponsorship pacts with Komatsu, Canon, Sharp and Sony.

Boston CEO Larry Lucchino, on a late January visit, invited Japan to join "Red Sox Nation", promising to bring the team's World Series trophy and predicting even bigger Asian ties.


BRAND RECOGNITION

Despite a threat by Boston to boycott the trip over a pay dispute involving coaching staff, the Red Sox arrived early on Friday with Japanese pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, who cost them over $100 million but bought immediate brand recognition.

The rivalry with New York now bridges the Pacific, but Rose says it is good for the sport to have several winning franchises.

"The Yankees have been the most popular team and that's borne out in the merchandise sales," he said. "But Red Sox merchandise sales have definitely come up, based on Matsuzaka."

Sitting under his own mini-World Series trophy for his translating role in 1998, Rose believed the MLB's current success would have been hard to predict when Hideo Nomo and Irabu began an export wave.

"It wasn't so easy for them to come over and they were criticised in Japan. Now, it's the complete opposite," he said.

"It doesn't benefit either league to have an all-out battle to keep players...and Japanese have become more used to players having the ability to go to MLB if they want to."

CHINA TIES

Within Asia, the sport's footprint now extends to China, where the first preseason games were held between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres earlier this month.

New York already has training facilities and individual sponsorship ties in the country.

Even at the Beijing Olympics year, MLB officials say Japan will likely top the international batting order until a "Yao Ming of baseball" emerges, much as Nomo, Matsui and Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki brought fans in over the last decade.

The Yankees signed their first Chinese players last year, but Rose, who attended the Beijing preseason games, says the world's most populous country is only just coming to the plate.

"The first game people didn't know quite what to do," he said. "(They were) cheering more for foul balls than hits, but by the second day they were really into the game."

(Source: Reuters)