Baseball is very popular in the UK and South Korea, but why is it not so popular in China?

In China, it’s hard to find friends playing baseball, but table tennis, basketball, badminton and football are everywhere.

First, the space is limited. I’m afraid I can’t find baseball stadiums in second- and third-tier cities. A standard baseball field has a large area, with a sideline length of 97.54 meters, a center line length of 121.88 meters, and a distance from home plate to the backstop of 18.25 meters. The infield area is paved with red clay, and the surrounding lawn requires constant maintenance. The utilization rate is very low, and it is impossible to play baseball. If you play football, you can walk the track and run for exercise.

Second, Chengdu is not popular enough. There is very little publicity about baseball in the country, and it is rarely seen on television programs. As a result, baseball cannot develop. Few people know the rules. The rules are complicated and cannot be promoted on a large scale. Even if someone is playing, there is no companion. Baseball is a team sport, and there are very few people who can’t play it.

Third, baseball is more dangerous than other sports. To play baseball, you need a dedicated venue without interference from external factors. What should you do if you are playing on a track and field and the ball flies out and hits someone, or what if the bat flies out and hits you? Secondly, it’s hard to beat yourself up.

Fourth, equipment is expensive. Unlike basketball equipment, a pair of sneakers and a basketball are enough, and a better one will cost you one or two thousand. It's enough to buy a few hundred yuan of domestically produced ones. Baseball is much more expensive, about 2,500 gloves, about 1,500 bats, 500 to 1,000 shoes. Only this device can keep many people out.

Fifth, school education does not support it. China is an exam-oriented education, and everything serves the exam. For example, basketball and football can be cultivated as students with special talents, but there is no baseball in either the high school entrance examination or the college entrance examination, which becomes a limiting factor.

Baseball is very popular in the world, but it is unfamiliar to Chinese people. Even simple rules are unclear. For most people in China, it is difficult to get access to baseball, and they cannot even watch some baseball games, let alone play baseball.

One is the financial factor. Baseball is actually a very expensive sport. For example, the cost of baseball fields is relatively high. The investment in smaller amateur venues is more than 1 million, while professional venues often cost tens of millions. The state will not invest so much money in projects with a weak mass base, and neither will enterprises. If they invest, there will be no output and benefits. Second is equipment. An ordinary bat is worth about 1,000 yuan, special gloves are about 1,000 yuan, clothing is 7,800 yuan, sneakers are 5,600 yuan, a helmet is more than 200 yuan, a belt is more than 100 yuan, and the whole set is about 3,000 yuan. Compared with the investment of 1,000 yuan in popular sports such as basketball, football, table tennis, etc., it is indeed a bit high.

Second, social factors. In society, people's awareness of baseball is too low. An unofficial data survey shows that people's basic understanding of baseball accounts for less than 0.1, and many people regard baseball and softball as the same sport. Baseball is not included in the physical education curriculum, there are few professional venues, and the coaches are excellent.

Third, historical factors. American baseball has a long history. The origins of modern baseball are said to be the combined evolution of cricket, introduced to the United States by British immigrants, and the rounders game often played in Boston. After several evolutions and many different names, it was not until 1839 AD that the game was named baseball and was implemented. Modern baseball originated in England and developed in the United States. Although baseball has been recorded in China as early as the Qing Dynasty, there is no systematic development process.

Fourth, institutional factors. In a country like China, every sport that can be promoted under the state system has political reasons. For example, table tennis is because of table tennis diplomacy, volleyball is because of the spirit of the women's volleyball team, basketball is because of the star effect and the league, and football is because of the league and money. There are almost certain factors. At the same time, volleyball, football, and basketball have always followed the routine of sports school selection under the national system-city team-provincial team-national team, but baseball has never been established. Why are the United States and Japan developing so fast? Because they have a professional league and we don’t.

Fifth, human factors. Baseball is a ball game characterized by baseball, which is both collective and confrontational. Known as "the combination of competition and wisdom", it pays attention to unity. In China, however, all attention is focused on individual brilliance.

Chinese people are introverted, naturally do not have a strong desire to fight, and are not suitable for physical confrontation. Americans and Japanese have a strong desire for war, so they are very popular and are called "national sports".

Sixth, specific factors. The Olympic Games is a smokeless war in modern society, and the number of gold medals is one of the important indicators of a country's strength. Baseball missed the Olympics in 2012 and 2016 before returning to the Games in 2020. However, there was only one gold medal in the men's event. For a powerful China, this gold medal will not be taken seriously by China. At the Olympics from 1992 to 2008, Cuba won three gold medals, while the United States and South Korea each won one.

The editor has been exposed to sports since he was a child, and he can also be regarded as a sports student. He played football as a child, basketball in high school and now badminton. He is quite familiar with popular sports. The type of sports promotion in China is too single, and the facilities are even more pitiful. Up to now, whether it is football, basketball, badminton, table tennis, etc. , there are very few venues, most of them are paid, and the non-charged facilities are unattended. There are so many universities in China, and several of them have baseball stadiums. You can think about it. Only a handful. In short, although Chinese baseball is in the ascendant, it will explode in the foreseeable time.

The reason why baseball is not popular in China is because the past ideologies from capitalist countries such as the United States and Japan opposed such sports, and baseball was replaced by basketball, football and other sports. In addition, CCTV was the first to launch sports leagues such as Serie A, which led to football culture taking the lead in China and quickly occupying the market.

Compared with football and basketball, Asians’ physical fitness is more suitable for baseball, which combines physical and mental strength and emphasizes flexibility. With the increasingly close cultural exchanges between China, the United States, Japan and other countries, and the vigorous development of my country's sports industry, more and more people will participate in this sport. Because the country lacks baseball culture, venues, teams, players and corresponding appeal. Perhaps most important was a lack of motivation to play baseball. Unlike playing with jade, China has thousands of years of jade cultural history. Chinese people have an indescribable beauty in jade culture, especially jade. Commonly known as "gold is priceless" and "beauty is like jade"... are the best examples.

The key to why baseball is so small is communications and facilities. These two issues are important reasons why baseball rarely exists in China. At the end of this article, I hope that there will be more and more sports events in China and the sports level of Chinese people will become higher and higher. Not only will the number of gold medals in China increase, but the number of gold medal-winning projects will also be richer.