Australia Might Be Baseball’s Most Strategic Player

In this opinion piece, John Cairney and Rick Burton, offers their perspective on how Australia is becoming a crucial connector in global baseball, highlighting its unique role in a rapidly expanding international ecosystem.

When the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs took the field at Tokyo Dome in March 2025, they weren’t just playing baseball—they were executing a part of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) global strategy. 

In fact, in the lead-up to the Tokyo Series, MLB and Fanatics transformed the iconic stadium into a consumer spectacle. A 31,000-square-foot MLB Ballpark Store was established at Prism Hall within Tokyo Dome City, staffed by 700 employees, and equipped with 140 registers to accommodate the anticipated crowds.​

An event highlight was the launch of a limited-edition Tokyo Series collection designed by renowned Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. The collection featured exclusive merchandise celebrating the Dodgers and Cubs and reportedly sold out online with more than 100,000 fans downloading the Fanatics app to secure items.

This merchandising initiative represented a calculated move in MLB’s long-term strategy to deepen its presence in Japan—an elite baseball market that has already produced stars like Ichiro Suzuki, Shohei Ohtani, and Seiya Suzuki. The next move for MLB is cultivating not just players but a robust fan base, revenue streams, and regional cultural relevance.​

While Japan has become a commercial and competitive cornerstone for MLB, about 4,000 miles away, Australia is assuming a different kind of strategic role. Not as a dominant force, but as a connector. In an increasingly global baseball ecosystem, Baseball Australia and the Australian Baseball League (ABL) are building bridges to make the system work.​

Pro baseball has been played in Australia since 1989, but its origins go back much further. The sport’s first major professional imprint came in 1888, when Albert Spalding’s Chicago White Stockings and a team of all-stars toured Australia. More than a 125 years later, the Dodgers swept the Arizona Diamondbacks in a two-game series to start MLB’s 2014 season.

Hailed as “the great event in the modern history of athletic sports,” the tour introduced Australians to top-tier American baseball and drew sizeable crowds. In its wake, Spalding’s assistant Harry Simpson stayed behind to organize games and foster local competition, ultimately laying the foundation for baseball’s early development in the country.

Today, six teams compete in the Australian Baseball League (ABL): the Adelaide Giants, Brisbane Bandits, Canberra Cavalry, Melbourne Aces, Perth Heat, and Sydney Blue Sox. The ABL serves as Australia’s premier professional baseball competition, attracting talent from around the world and maintaining the sport’s rich legacy Down Under.

Where MLB, MiLB, the NPB (Japan), KBO (Korea), and CPBL (Taiwan) represent the world’s most developed leagues, Australia offers something the others can’t: seasonal alignment and geographic neutrality. The Australian Baseball League (ABL) runs from November to February, neatly complementing the northern hemisphere’s offseason. 

This timing makes it an ideal winter proving ground, especially for developing talent and fringe players seeking exposure.​

In recent years, all six ABL clubs have featured players from major Asian teams, including NPB, enhancing the league’s competitiveness and providing Japanese prospects with valuable international experience during their offseason.​

The benefits aren’t limited to Asia. For North American players, the ABL is increasingly a stepping stone to Japan or Korea. For instance, after a standout season with the Melbourne Aces, Drew Anderson signed a $700,000 contract with NPB’s Hiroshima Carp. He later joined the KBO’s SSG Landers, where he re-signed for $1.2 million after a successful season.

Similarly, Shōta Imanaga, before joining the Chicago Cubs on a $53 million deal, dominated for the Canberra Cavalry in the 2018–19 ABL season, posting a 0.51 ERA with 57 strikeouts in 35 innings. His performance in Australia helped elevate his international profile, leading to significant opportunities in MLB.​

Australia’s role in this story fits an emerging concept from the world of business ecosystems. It’s called the keystone actor, a phrase describing not the biggest player but one holding the ecosystem together, facilitating collaboration, and enabling others to thrive.

Through the ABL, it hosts players from multiple leagues and national systems. It manages eligibility rules, coordinates logistics, and aligns player development protocols with MLB and NPB standards. In doing so, it gives everyone—from scouts to players to clubs—a platform they can trust.

It’s not just about operations. Keystone actors also stabilize ecosystems during volatility. Amid COVID-19 disruptions and shifting global schedules, the ABL has returned with consistency, recommitting to cross-border collaboration. Its governance model mirrors international best practices, and ongoing partnerships with bodies like the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) reinforce its credibility.

Most Australians know little (if anything) about their national baseball team. Ask a Japanese fan, and the result is quite different.

That’s what happened when Australia played Japan in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The game drew a 44% TV audience share in Japan, reaching nearly 60 million viewers, according to Baseball Australia.

While those numbers don’t rival the Super Bowl’s viewership, the data reflects an extraordinary level of national engagement and ranks among the most-watched baseball broadcasts in Japanese history. Japan’s dominance on the diamond certainly drove interest, but Australia’s historic quarterfinal run—their best-ever showing—made the matchup more than routine.

Suddenly, Japanese broadcasters, sponsors, and agents started taking the ABL more seriously. And MLB, always alert to global opportunities, began assigning minor leaguers to ABL clubs for offseason development. It is another sign Australia is becoming a strategic player in baseball’s expanding world map.

To be clear, Australia isn’t trying to dominate global baseball. It is using a different kind of leadership to connect it. Baseball Australia doesn’t control the market. But in a transnational sport landscape, orchestration matters more than ever.

The future of global baseball may not be limited to where games are played or who wins championships but rather who builds bridges between hemispheres, and cultures.

As of 2025, Australia is setting the pace for how a mid-tier baseball nation can connect with the global game. League operators know the ABL won’t stand out as the biggest show in town. But it might emerge as the most important league global fans aren’t watching.

John Cairney is Head of the University of Queensland’s School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences. He is the author of Immaculate: A History of Perfect Innings in Baseball and Field of Magic: Baseball’s Superstitions, Curses and Taboos.

Rick Burton is the David B. Falk Professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University and has been a frequent contributor to Memories and Dreams.

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