MLB is increasing its efforts to make inroads in India.
The league announced Wednesday a collaboration with the Reliance Initiative for Sports and Entertainment (RISE), highlighted by a live event that will take place in Mumbai in October. MLB’s collab with RISE will also include marketing, social media and commercial initiatives, with a focus on growing baseball fandom via fan engagement initiatives, original content and grassroots programming.
“For us, it’s a long-term play,” MLB SVP/Global Operations and Events Jeremiah Yolkut told SBJ of the league’s investment in India. “We’re not looking a year out. We’re probably looking at 5-10 years out. And our intent is that as India becomes more of a player on the international sports and business landscape, MLB wants to be present in the market.
“There’s interest from India to host a future Olympics and bring other world events to the country. And the economic upside in India is strong. We’re going to develop the game there and see where it takes us.”
RISE, a sports and entertainment company with a wide-range of specializations in the industry, including sponsorship consulting, athlete management and marketing and media rights management, is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), a massive conglomerate in India.
The league already has a broadcast deal with JioStar, which is controlled by RIL, and has shown postseason games on TV. Mukesh Ambani, who has a net worth of nearly $100B according to Forbes, is chairman of RIL.
“India has been on our radar for the last five or six years as an area of potential growth,” Yolkut said, given the similarities between its No. 1 sport — cricket — and baseball.
“We want to have a varied portfolio of international opportunities. India is sort of in the developing stages, and we’re testing the waters by creating opportunities for us to bring live events, in addition to developing the youth space.”
MLB has had an office in New Delhi since 2019, with two fulltime staffers.
In 2023, the league did a four-part documentary called Indian Baseball Dreams, which explored the rise of first-generation Indian-American Arjun Nimmala’s journey to being drafted in the first round by the Blue Jays. A year later, there was a Hot Shots hitting competition in the country, featuring cricket star Shikhar Dhawan and former MLBer Adam Jones.
In India, there are 160 teams that participate in the MLB Cup youth baseball tournament.
“There are over 2,000 players now in the country,” Yolkut said. “It doesn’t sound like a big number, but when you’re starting from zero it’s pretty good growth.”