Asian Unaffiliated Spring/Summer Leagues
The spring/summer unaffiliated baseball season is just about upon us. Previously, over at Baseball.FYI, I touched on the North American leagues worth paying attention to. This time, we’re headed to Asia where there is plenty of baseball being played. As usual, there are more leagues than the big three that I am going to talk about here. For streaming info on all of them, including up-to-date info on the big three, make sure to check out the Streaming Guide I put together. That being said, if you love baseball, the three leagues below should definitely be on your radar,
Chinese Professional Baseball League
The premier league in Taiwan has been around since 1989. It is the youngest of the big three and the lowest in terms of talent level. That’s not meant to be any sort of knock on the CPBL. In terms of atmosphere, competitiveness, and the fun had with the league; the CPBL more than holds its own against its older brethren.
The Taiwanese mainstay operates around a high-A to AA level and plays a full 120 game schedule split into two halves. The league consists of five teams, all pretty evenly matched. The small number of teams and such a long schedule results in a certain degree of familiarity between the teams and typically that means the games stay fairly close and competitive all season long. From the first game of the regular season until the final game of the Taiwan Series, anyone who gives the CPBL a shot can expect plenty of excitement, fun, and a high-scoring environment.
Of the big three, the CPBL is easily the most accessible Asian baseball league. They tailor their social media towards an American audience and streamed games in English last year. While it’s not clear if they will do that this year, they still offer their centralized streaming service, CPBL TV, as well as a number of free streams from third-party services that run all year long. At $45 for the entire season (plus access to all weekend games of the CPBL’s minor league, the Future League, as well as the CPBL associated winter league, Asia Winter League Baseball) you can’t beat the value that CPBL TV offers for the consumer.
The 2021 CPBL season kicked off on March 13th.
Korea Baseball Organization
Founded in 1982, the KBO made a big splash last year when they signed a deal for their games to be broadcast on ESPN. It was recently announced that ESPN will not be broadcasting the Asian baseball league’s games in 2021. Either way, the ESPN deal helped expose plenty more people to South Korea’s extremely fun and high-level baseball league. It’s a good thing too because if you’re not watching what the KBO has to offer you really are missing out.
The KBO is generally considered around a AA-level league. It’s a ten-team league that plays a 144 game regular season and a three-round playoff system that culminates in the Korean Series. The KBO season is always a fun time, with plenty of offense and great pitching. The main draw of the league for years now has been the excitement that comes from watching the action. Games can be high-scoring, but that also depends on which baseball is being used in a given season. KBO games are exciting because the talent level across the Asian baseball league is so close and because the league tends to attract a higher caliber of foreign player.
The one knock against the KBO remains its accessibility. They are not the best at maintaining a social media presence, let alone one that actually engages with fans in any language. They do not have a centralized streaming service, though every hardcore fan has been begging them to start one for some time now. However, with the ESPN deal not carrying over games will likely be streamed via the Naver TV app, or maybe KBO will finally create some version of KBO TV, and that at least is a bonus.
The KBO season, likely with fans in the stands, is scheduled to kick off on April 3rd.
Nippon Professional Baseball
The oldest of the big three Asian baseball leagues, NPB has been around in some form since 1950. It currently consists of the Central and Pacific Leagues as well as their minor leagues, the Eastern and Western Leagues. However, when someone is talking about NPB they are usually referencing the Central and Pacific League. They play a 143 game regular season that culminates in the Japan Series final pitting the Central League champion against its Pacific League counterpart.
NPB is the highest level of the big three, it’s generally regarded as a AAAA-level league in terms of talent. It has the most history and the largest following. NPB has become an institution in Japan, is highly regarded among baseball fans the world over, and has produced more Major League Baseball players than the CPBL and KBO combined. None of that detracts from the other two leagues, but it does highlight how much larger NPB is compared to the other two major Asian professional baseball leagues.
Where NPB drops the ball is both its social media presence and streaming. Neither league, nor the NPB as a whole, has much of a social media presence outside of Japan. That speaks to the main issue with NPB, it is a very insular organization that does not see any need to provide its product outside of Japan. To that end, the Central League has no centralized streaming service. The only streams coming out of the Central League are Hanshin Tigers home games via ToreTele and that costs $7 a month. The Pacific League does have a centralized service, Pacific League TV, that costs $15 a month. However, Japan Series games are not streamed on that service, or anywhere legally, and that makes for a very anticlimactic end to an NPB season for a foreign viewer.
The NPB season, also likely with fans in the stands, is set to begin on March 26th.
Bottom Line
Each of the big three leagues has its pluses and minuses. That being said, they are very fun leagues playing a great caliber of baseball. Anyone looking for more baseball or an alternative to Major League Baseball can’t go wrong in choosing to follow any of these leagues. The baseball is great, the games are fun, and it’s easy to fall in love with and form a fandom for a team in any of these leagues. If you give any of the big three a chance you won’t be disappointed.
