There used to be a time when each part of the world had its own past time as far as sports were concerned. Europe would have football(soccer), Asia had Cricket, and other parts of the world like North America were more diversified in their interests(Hockey,Baseball,Basketball, American Football). But lately, I’ve noticed that restricting yourself to only one part of the world is simply not good enough for some owners anymore.

Sports franchises have learned that there is more money to be made by traveling overseas to help showcase their teams as well as their leagues. Whether or not this helps them in the long run is still questionable, but in the mean time let’s take a look at some sports franchises that have taken the plunge into marketing their teams on a worldwide basis.

The New York Yankees( United States)

It was inevitable that baseball’s most storied franchise would expand itself globally and what better of a place to start than in Tokyo,Japan. Baseball is just as much of a pastime in Japan as it is in America and is one of the only other places in the world to have its own professional baseball league. On March 30th, 2004, the Yankees opened up their season against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to showcase to the fans of baseball the American way of playing baseball. This was the second time that MLB has played their opening game in Japan coming four years after the New York Mets played a pair of games against the Chicago Cubs.

It was also a chance for Japanese fans to see their hero, Hideki Matsui, play in Japan again as he left Japanese baseball to come and play for the Yankees. Many people might not know this but MLB has a long tradition with Japanese baseball dating all the way back to 1934 when a U.S. Major League All-Star Tour of Japan featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Since then, Japanese baseball has flourished into its own league and has a similar skill level to that of MLB. It’s only recently though that MLB has used Japanese baseball as a marketing tool to showcase some of its franchises like the Yankees to the world. What’s next for MLB?

How about the World Baseball Classic which will begin in 2006 which will have several teams from different countries competing against one another to call themselves the best country in baseball. More on that will follow in a separate article but for now it’s nice to see the Yankees getting some exposure over in Japan.It’s no surprise that after the Yankees; the remaining 4 teams all come from football (soccer) leagues with football being the largest sport in the world. (more…)

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Just because athletes are doing physical things all day long doesn’t mean that they can’t stop for a moment to deliver a funny quote or two. The commentators can also get into the thick of things and not even realize what they just said as well. So with that being said; let’s take a look at our first bunch of hilarious quotes straight from the world of sports.

[Gene Klein]-“In basketball, the first person to touch the ball shoots it. Either that or the coach carefully diagrams a set play and then the first player to touch it shoots it.”

[Kevin Keegan]-“I’ll never play at Wembley again, unless I play at Wembley again.”

[Jeremy Roenick After a playoff game in which the Blackhawks claimed that they deserved a penalty shot against Colorado, goalie Patrick Roy declares that Roenick would not have been able to score anyway. The Blackhawks forward replies:]-“I wonder where he was in the 3rd game (won 4-3 in overtime by Chicago). He was probably busy adjusting his jock strap when I beat him.”

[ Bill The Spaceman’ Lee]-“You have only two hemispheres in your brain – a left and a right side. The left side controls the right side of your body and the right controls the left half. It’s a fact. Therefore, left-handers are the only people in their right minds.”

[Charles ‘Casey’ Stengel]-“There’s three things you can do in a baseball game – you can win, you can lose, or it can rain.”

[New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season]:”I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first.”

[Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:] “That’s so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my fucking clothes.”

[Shaquille O’Neal on whether he had visited the Parthenon during his visit to Greece:] “I can’t really remember the names of the clubs that we went to.”

[Jacques Plante]-“How would you like a job where, every time you make a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo? ”

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Sunday, June 12th, 2005 was a great night to be a wrestling fan once again. I often talk way too much about wrestling and with good reason with my former background as a wrestling journalist/news reporter but last Sunday brought out some emotions I haven’t felt about wrestling in a long time. While the WWE and NWA-TNA have both been adequate lately, the emotions that I felt while watching the ECW PPV last Sunday were emotions that I had been waiting to feel for a long time. For the first time in a long time, I was actually anticipating this PPV as were other faithful ECW fans.

To recap a bit of wrestling history, ECW was a small, independent wrestling federation from Philadelphia that started out as Eastern Championship Wrestling and later quit the NWA Alliance and changed its name to Extreme Championship Wrestling. It was an innovative wrestling federation that had little to do with story lines like the soap opera WWE of today and more to do with blood,sweat and hard work ethic from the wrestlers that wrestled in that very ring every night. It was the first American wrestling fed. to bring the Mexican ‘extreme lucha-libre- style into the United States as well as to feature matches that other federations wouldn’t dare to touch like the barbed wire wrestling match.ECW didn’t have the production values of a WCW or WWE so they had to settle on smaller venues with lower production values and poor lighting. What set ECW apart from the rest though was its connection with its fans. ECW had some of the craziest,most loyal fans that you could ever ask for and if they didn’t like you than they would tell you about it right to your face. The fans would often start chants up during the match that I wouldn’t dare to repeat in this blog due to their choice of language and they would also bring weapons to the shows to give to the wrestlers to use on each other.

Because ECW couldn’t afford to travel very often ; they would often hold their shows at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia which is now known as The Viking Arena. The fans would come from different areas of the North-Eastern United States to Philadelphia just to show their dedication to the product.ECW learned to create brand new characters and gimmicks and during their prime had some of the brightest wrestlers to come to the United States from all over the world. ECW was a victim of the Monday Night Ratings War between WCW/WWE at the time with both companies competing with one another and snatching up any rising star from ECW when the opportunity arose. (more…)

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