Jack and the Visiting Giants: The Development of Chinese Baseball

Abstract

In contrast to other Chinese sports, which attract enormous commercial interests and relates to a kind of political kudos and ideological significance, Chinese baseball represents a singular case for the author to investigate the way in which China responds to sport globalisation due to its peripheral position in, and limited resource from, the domestic sport system and powerful stakeholders from the global society. The study examines the development of Chinese baseball and its interplay with the global sport giants and international events (i.e. the Olympic Games and the Major League Baseball [MLB]). Given the influence of sport globalisation, the author also identifies the consistent dominance of Chinese sport authorities and the spectrum of local stakeholders' reaction towards globalisation. The chapter ends with a discussion of the relationship between marginal position of Chinese baseball in the local sport system and the rationale of its response to sport globalisation.

Citation

Hu, X.R. (2024), "Jack and the Visiting Giants: The Development of Chinese Baseball", Tian, E. and Wise, N. (Ed.) The Mediating Power of Sport (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 21), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 111-128. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420240000021007