Want to pay to watch Japanese baseball? You can't!

NPB has to be one of the most short-sighted professional sports organizations in the world.  At the conclusion of another season, here's the letter I have sent.  Unfortunately, it's identical to last year's letter.

============================

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am an overseas fan of yakyuu who would like to have access to all NPB games, regular and post-season.  At present, I can purchase streaming/VOD rights to games only of the Pacific League.  This means I can watch only half of NPB teams, only half of interleague games, and nothing at all of the Central League Climax Series or the Japan Series.

If you have a look across the internet, you will find the following baseball leagues offer streaming/VOD packages:

• MLB (USA)
• MLB Minor (USA)
• LMP (Mexican Pacific League, winter)
• LMB (Mexican Baseball League, summer)
• CPBL (China Professional Baseball League, Taiwan)
• KBO (Korean Baseball Organization)
• ABL (Australian Baseball League)

Why does a leading country such as Japan still not offer such service to fans worldwide?  If even small leagues on three continents have managed to offer affordable, easy access to _all_ their games, why not the NPB?

For the moment, I rely on fans uploading content to file sharing sites to avail myself of Central League games and the Japan Series.  I would be happy to pay for a quality product, but at the moment there is _none_.  I hope by the 2018 season NPB will resolve what issues remain in order to better serve their customers.

Best regards,

Book review: Kalmon, J. (2007). Magic, Miracles, and Mexican Baseball: The Amazing 2005 Season of Los Leones de Yucatan.

Kalmon, J. (2007). Magic, Miracles, and Mexican Baseball: The Amazing 2005 Season of Los Leones de Yucatan. 1st ed. Merida, Mexico: Self-published.

Mexican baseball seems like a tremendously rich field of inquiry, both the sport and the wider culture in which it thrives. This is one of the few English texts on the subject, and I’m sad to say it leaves much to be desired.  It is quite obviously a vanity project, available to audiences outside the Yucatan only through the author, who twelve years after it was published is still fulfilling orders from Mexico or through her family in the USA. Contact details are provided below.

Kalmon is an American expat in Meridia, home to one of Mexico’s professional baseball teams, the Los Leones de Yucatan. She writes in colloquial North American English, a conversational style similar to a blog post. Like many blogs, the text is presented for the consumption of a small circle of intimates. She telegraphs her intention early: