Wake up everyone wake up. It's nothing personal live on March 22nd, 2023. We were all up late watching the

World Baseball Classic and I am still recovering. I'm recovering from several things that happened last night. Japan beat the United States in a classic World Baseball Classic Final 3-2. If you haven't seen it yet, I can't imagine how it's possible because there are millions of places to see it anywhere you are on social media. The game ended with Shohei O'Tani, the starting pitcher, the middle of the order hitter for the Los Angeles, Angeles, Vanaheim, as the

closer for the Japanese team. With Mike Trout, his teammate with the Angels at bat in an at bat that I won't soon forget that ended with a wipe out slider that trout swung through strike three game over. Japan celebrates, Trout goes back to the dugout and all I kept thinking the entire time is what's next.

I went full Josiah Bartlett. What is baseball going to do to monetize this moment? We had a two week buildup to something that we thought could happen. Japan USA. You heard it on March 7th when I told you bet Japan. They're plus 280. They're going to win the World Baseball Classic. You've never heard of their players, but by the end you will know them all. You know O'Tani.

But you will have heard of them all. You'll love the Cardinals player. Newt. You'll love baby babe more. Comey and you'll say, wow, that guy can rake. You'll look at Suzuki and say, is he going to be an MLB one of these days throwing a buck to you'll see O'Tani win the MVP by pitching by hitting.

But we were absolutely excited by Mexico and Randy or Azurán excited by the USA excited by their lineup excited by teams that were a part of the classic who you didn't know Dominican Republic before it started best lineup, best pitching staff Vladimir Guerrero's hurt no problem Dominican is where it's at Puerto Rico beating Dominican and then losing Edwin Diaz in the celebration so many storylines.

What does Rob Manford do to capitalize on this?

When you plan the World Baseball Classic, you have to have concomitant revenue generating activities not tangential. They have to be completely related.

In the collective garden agreement, there are already approvals and agreements for MLB to play games internationally, whether it's in London, Paris, Japan, Mexico.

You set it up, you have the players agreed to it. You then go to those countries and you get a partner. The partner is the promoter. The promoter is the person who pays MLB to bring the act to that particular country.

And that particular home ballpark, it's like a concert tour. You wonder where springstein plays or Taylor Swift plays Taylor Swift has a promoter. Taylor Swift promoter goes around and says, do you want me to play at MetLife?

Alright, here's the cost of having my artist play at MetLife. You then can charge whatever you want with tickets, but by the way, we're taking a percentage of that. You can sell the rights to broadcast the Taylor Swift concert, but by the way, we're taking a percentage of that. You can sell Taylor Swift merchandise, by the way, we're taking a percentage of that.

You're going to give us a minimum guarantee and then we're going to take a percentage of the profit on top of that while we have rights to audit.

MLB, when they are planning international games, they take a sum of money from a promoter. They give that money to the players union, they give that money to the teams who are participating, where you have to replace their home games for the home team that's losing the home games.

For regular season, you give money to the visiting team and hire per diems and a flat amount of money for making the effort.

The promoter takes those games and sells them to local broadcast networks, local now streaming services who will show the games.

You add it all up, then on top of that, MLB takes another cut and you've got yourself an international strategy.

The best part about the World Baseball Classic was not the United States having such a good team and losing in the finals. The best part is that the United States lost in the finals.

The best part of the World Baseball Classic from baseball standpoint and they won't tell you this, but baseball does not root for United States to win. Here's why.

They are going for the globalization of the game. They are going for the incremental revenue because when you look at the Fox broadcast deal and the extra money they get for the WBC, it's something, but the main money will come with the bigger broadcast deals in Japan.

If Japan sees what's going on with the World Baseball Classic, when Japan sees what's going on with Major League Baseball and there's more and more Japanese players playing in MLB,

they will then spend more money with MLB for rights example. The Miami, Marlins had no presence in Japan.

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