POSTED: June 15th 2009
ViewPoint
Baseball puts best foot forward for 2016 Olympics bid
LAURA WALDEN / Sports Features Communications
LAUSANNE: Baseball's IBAF team, having just met the IOC, shared their Olympic campaign plans in an exclusive meeting with SportsFeatures.com.
IBAF president Dr Harvey Schiller, executive director of the Major League Baseball (MLB) player’s association, Donald Fehr and president of the MLB, Robert DuPuy all were prepared and anxious to get their plans for the future of baseball in front of the IOC executive board.
Meetings today and decisions by the board will decide the future of the sport within the Olympic Games program.
The IBAF team also includes John Ostermeyer, IBAF secretary general, Sidney de Jong, from the Dutch national team, Jean-Pierre Moser representing the anti-doping arm of the IBAF and Sandra Monteiro, president of the Portuguese federation and member of the new committee for the Women’s Baseball Committee.
Schiller said, “We are pleased to have the opportunity to be able to present before the IOC executive board which will be the body that will make the suggestions to the voting group in October in Copenhagen.”
He also noted on the rare chance to be able to meet and dialogue with so many IOC members and that it was a perfect situation for the bid sports.
Schiller clarified that he believed that the IOC would be likely to put forward two or maybe three sports for consideration by the whole IOC session at the upcoming August executive board meeting in Berlin.
Baseball sharpens the game
Baseball sustains the fact that it has been both a successful demonstration and medal sport and that it is very integrated worldwide. The universality is very important to be practiced on a worldwide basis and baseball reaches out across more than 125 nations.
Schiller noted that the whole sports environment has tried to work harder to be WADA compliant and tried to take a real leadership of the fight against doping.
All four of the bidding cities for the 2016 Games have venues in place so there would not be an impact on the over venue plan for any of the cities to add baseball.
There has been much outreach to grow the game on a grassroots level worldwide, and MLB has taken great strides to work with countries all over to help foster valuable young players. What they are doing not only helps the pro leagues but also enhances the interest and growth of the sport.
Baseball was working in China seven or eight years prior to the Beijing Olympics to help reinforce the host country so that it was strong and competitive heading into the Games. And the baseball movement in China is still looking to develop the game and consequently, is leaving a legacy.
One of the IOC concerns was the length of the game so the game-ending extra-inning rule was initiated and was put in play five times in Beijing.
Finally, on the question of having the best players present at the Olympics, Schiller noted that they plan to bring the best players in history, and in Beijing seven of the participating countries had pro-players. The Japanese came with its ‘dream team’ and they stopped league play to come to the Games. There is a new generation of players emerging now that potentially would be Olympic-destined, and they are excited at the prospect of participating.
MLB televising blackout
MLB has agreed to not broadcast any games during the key Olympic competitions so as to not interfere or compete with the Olympic programming of the Games.
MLB president Robert DuPuy confirmed, “We are looking at not planning any games on the days of the medal games to enhance the viewership and keep the focus on the Olympic competitions.”
All the IBAF’s focus will be on the Olympic qualifying tournaments and they will take precedence. This will depend on time factors wherever the Games are awarded – either Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo.
Universality
The overall statement is that baseball is growing on its own and is looking to work with the movement to enhance the Games.
DuPuy said, “Baseball is a major event in about 13 countries and our events are broadcast in 13 languages in 220 countries.”
And he reiterated that as far as the competition is concerned it may be the toughest competition of all the team sports. It is hard to deny the global impact of the sport.
Donald Fehr, executive director of the MLB Player’s Association said, “The percentage of players that are in international baseball that don’t come from the U.S. is a direct reflection of the fact that the game is growing all over the world.”
“The number keeps expanding and this speaks clearly about the global reach.”
“The second thing is that baseball is the most competitive team sport – there are more upsets; the best teams win six times out of ten,” Fehr said. “The worst teams win four times out of ten and you can’t say that about any other sport.”
He added that from a business point of view, when you include Major League Baseball, the Japanese Leagues, the winter leagues in Latin America plus all the youth leagues baseball has a huge global presence and arguably one of the largest in the sports movement.
Baseball was the first to present its campaign today to the IOC Executive Board. The board will be studying all seven of the sports and passing on its suggestions at the next Executive Board meeting August 13-14 in Berlin.
Keywords · IBAF · Harvey Schiller · Donald Fehr · Robert DuPuy · John Ostermeyer · Sidney de Jong · Jean-Pierre Moser · Sandra Monteiro
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