Reaction: Alex Rodriguez Says the MLB Needs to Act on the World Baseball Classic’s Momentum

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Welcome back to the deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. It's

emergency pod time partner. Like we had to jump on the mics. You know, this

actually reminds me a lot of when one so does signed his record setting

contract. Something very similar happened, which is you and I are texting

over the weekend. We've got to talk about this. You left me a very long

voice memo and Saturday morning after your workout, essentially saying, this

is like nothing you've ever seen. I have a million questions for you. We're

talking about the world baseball classic, of course. And it is captivated

the sports world. And it comes at such an interesting time in the sports

calendar set the scene for me. You're there in Miami. You've been doing pre and

post game over the weekend. We're talking hours before the final. You're

going to be doing pre and post tonight for Fox. What are you seeing right

now? You know, it's like nothing that I've ever seen before, Jason, because

baseball has found something really big and really cool here. And when you tap

into baseball, a great sport that's been around for over a hundred and almost

40 years, you're tapping into the global ecosystem of the passion of all these

great countries, 20 of them that come into a two week tournament, just like

March Madness. And they're playing to be the king of baseball. And just think

about a team like Venezuela tonight playing against the US or the DR playing

it. You can never beat the US at anything. But if you can defeat them in just one

game, what it does for the spirit, self esteem, and energy of a country is

second to none. Look, we work for Fox, right? And we go into the pre and post

game. We're there about four or five hours before the game. When I say this,

25,000 people dancing and singing and concerts. And it feels like

Alabama against LSU on a Saturday. It's awesome. I mean, part of what is

driving this is talent. We talk about talent all the time. 78 major league

baseball all stars are participating or have participated in this tournament.

And one of the things you and I talk about all the time is this idea of like

best needs to play best. You really need to know that if you win this game,

you really are the best in the world. Help me understand. And then we can get

into sort of what it means for baseball. But help me understand the players

perspective here. You talked with Paul Skains for a segment on Fox. I know

you've been talking to a lot of players. How are the players approaching this

from the sort of the business of themselves?

I think when I first started when I played with Jeter and it chipper Jones,

20 years ago, I think it was wholly different. We didn't know what we're coming

into. It was a new place. It was a bit of a pilot. We know it was going to be

around for five years or 10 years. Well, here we are 20 years later.

And it's ballooned to the biggest events in baseball, according to the players.

Now, I talked to about five or six Dominican players about three or four

of Venezuela yesterday. And they all told me unanimously and we'll get to judge

in a minute. This is much bigger than us winning a World Series game.

We're playing for being a patriot of our country. And by the way,

we had Garcia on in the post game who had the game winning hit last night.

He goes, if we don't win, we would be scary to walk on our country.

This is how much it means to the people of our country. So that's really cool.

And then an Aaron judge side who had a quote, he said, this is bigger than playing

in a World Series. I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but for Aaron

judge, who's very smart and very measured in the captain of a team to say that,

I know it opened some eyes in New York and even for New York fan base for the

Yankees. So here's the exact quote, quote, the crowd we had when we played against

Mexico, it's bigger and better than the World Series. So, so let me ask you this.

What change? How did this go from like, Oh, yeah, we're going to do this thing

in the off season. It's a bit of an afterthought, as you said.

Thank you for mentioning Chipper Jones. I always appreciate you to form a

braves, braves legends. You know, you Chipper, Jeater and others are playing.

How did it become this thing? Is it the world we're living in?

Is it better marketing? Is it more viewership? Like, what is it?

Honestly, I think it's social media. And the reason why is I can tell you from

Dominican, because my algorithm is all Dominican in the US, right?

The two teams that I follow most, the amount of dancing, singing, celebrating.

By the way, the country, the world's not in a great place right now.

But when you see so many people dancing and singing and loving each other and

the pride that is tied into, you know, Puerto Rico, beating Venezuela,

Venezuela, being in the US, US beating Dominican, it's like second to none.

And I think they're feeling the pressure. And I think they see this as a global

stage to be able to not only become the king of baseball, but for players alone

to establish themselves as kings of their own country.

All right. So let's talk a little bit about viewership.

Versus 2023, this is based only on pool play.

So not even into the knockout phase where we're in now, where we'll have to

wait for a subsequent episode for those numbers.

Viewership up 142% versus 2023. That's incredible.

The US Mexico game on March 10th, average 5.02 million viewers,

that's bigger than the 2023 Japan USA final.

That was around 4.97 million.

And so, so far, and I'm guessing this will be surpassed tonight again,

most watched World Baseball Classic game in history.

Here's the stat that blew me away.

And this goes to something we've talked a lot about on this show, the autonomy

effect. One hundred million Japanese fans have tuned into the World Baseball

Classic. 100 million.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And to add to that, Jason, I was talking

to Francisco Survelli, who was my former teammate with the New York Yankees.

And he's doing a really respectable thing.

I mean, he's he was torn last night, right?

He's managing the Italian team, Francisco Survelli, but he was born and raised

in Venezuela. So one parent is Italian, one parent is better than that.

So he was an ultimate conflict.

Yeah. And he's done something beautiful.

He's moved six months out of the year to move to Italy.

And he's going in buses all around the country promoting and talking about

baseball. And they had a game at two o'clock, uh, when they went to Houston,

called it about a week ago, which was prime time in Italy.

Yeah. And like soccer, all the bars were open.

People were talking baseball and he's bright, great attention and energy to Italy

about baseball. It's a beautiful thing.

I mean, it's also amazing just to make it hyper local.

Lundipot Stadium, you're going to be there tonight, 35,000 fans sell out, right?

I mean, it's it's going to be it's going to be sold out with all, you know,

respect and admiration for our friends at the Marlins.

When was the last time there was a crowd like this at Lundipot Park?

I mean, it's crazy.

Well, I'll give you one better, Jason is my Dominican friends.

I had one of my colleagues by a flight in American Airlines coach.

Now, this flight from Dominican to Miami, it's very common.

Probably an average $500 for economy.

He played $7,000.

What? Right.

And you had about 12,000 people come from the R to to Miami.

And then you've seen online tickets going for $5,000 or $6,000 per ticket,

you know, obviously in the front, second to row, this has become really big.

And I got to tell you, baseball has something here.

And I hope they just keep it going because a good, good day for baseball.

So you obviously know Rob Manfred and his team, the commissioner are watching this very closely.

How do they take advantage of this?

What do they do?

What can baseball, what can major league baseball do to, as they say in the investment world,

consolidate these gains and really just build on this.

As we get into what you have said is one of the most important seasons in the history of major league baseball.

Yeah, I think we're starting to do that.

I think by having, you know, a lot of media there from all over the world,

bringing attention and focus to it, social media helps,

because you can have so many viral moments that are tied into emotion and self-esteem

and and countries being happy, but even having Fox there, right?

The pregame and the post game, it feels big.

You have John Smoltz and Joe Davis on the call.

That feels big, but I would just talk about it.

I mean, this is a page from Roger Cadill and the NFL to find a property in March.

When really nobody's really starting to think about baseball as more March madness,

they taking a bite at the Apple the other day.

And I'm sure on Sunday, when the Oscars were there, they took a nice chunk of that fan base

in the middle of March.

That was non-existent.

It was a non-starter.

Yeah.

The calendar is a really important point because, you know, that's what to echo what you're saying about the NFL.

The NFL has made the business of football a 365 day a year proposition,

whether it is playing up the combine, whether it's playing up the draft,

making a spectacle of all these different things.

There is a beauty in this, as you say, because it's the conference tournaments

that are happening in basketball.

You're not fully into March madness yet.

Obviously, football is out of the picture.

It's, as you know, from the Minnesota Timberwolves.

It's like, it's later in the season, but it's not quite crunch time.

The WNBA season hasn't started yet.

So there really is a nice window here.

And it's a great prelude to baseball, you know, and you can see some of these players,

you know, again, taking it back to the brace, as I love to do, Akunya.

You know, it's like you, you see when he's doing Round of the Kuneo Junior,

that makes me excited as a brace fan.

Like it sort of reminds me what a great player he is.

And, and, and that's going to carry presumably into the season.

Yeah, I agree with all of that, Jason, and a few things to add.

Number one, if you're Rob Manford, I like your question.

And Dan Halell, and other powers to be packed Courtney at the Major League Baseball,

who do a great job.

Think about the last six months from Major League Baseball, arguably the best six

months over the last 20 years.

You have a world breaking world series that's represented Japan, Canada, and the US.

You go seven games and you have 53 million people watch with absolute brilliant

baseball full of stars, strategy, and everything else in between.

Now you go to the world baseball classic and you have this.

And in a few weeks, you have opening day on Netflix.

I mean, the game is changing for the better.

And to your point, Jason, I think Rob has to do everything in his power

to continue the momentum as we embark in the most important season in the history

of a sport with the CBA.

Why 1994?

I was there when we walked off the field loop another semi down a week earlier.

I think it's August 12, 1994.

We're playing Oakland A's Mariners at the Oakland.

We walked off the field.

And at that time, baseball was still king.

At that time, there was no Netflix, no Apple, no prime, no YouTube, no, none of

this. No, what's up?

There's so many companies fighting for consumer eyeballs today that were not

alive then that baseball has to have a great year.

And please keep on wins. I'm going.

We're going to be talking a lot about baseball over the coming weeks.

We've got a really exciting calendar.

You and I just to tease ahead to things we have coming up later on this week.

We'll drop an episode, one of our regularity scheduled episodes with David Levy.

He, of course, going back to March Madness.

He sort of created the modern March Madness as we consume it now.

So he has a lot of thoughts on what's happening there.

I'm going to turn the mic on you again and really talk about what we can expect.

This coming baseball season for the business of baseball.

This will be a great sort of prelude to that.

And we're going to talk to the founder.

We have recorded this and you and I both were blown away by Jesse Cole,

who is the founder of the Savannah bananas.

I mean, a different view of baseball for sure,

but it, but it all is of a piece here of, you know,

something is going on.

And listen, I love talking about baseball.

You're so passionate about it.

I can't even imagine what the feeling was for you in your hometown

and watching US versus the Dominican just to close it out.

What did that feel like for you?

I mean, as the sort of Uber DR American man?

Well, I'm going to answer that and then I want to turn the tables on you

because I do have a question about you and your experience.

For me, you have 12 million people in Dominican Republic.

And I think this is as close as 100% attendance as you're going to get

for the whole country watching the game.

Basically, friends of mine down there, excuse me,

said to me, Alex, if you walked or drove down the street in the highway,

you can go a mile and let's see another car.

It was empty and it's just a really, really beautiful thing.

Again, trying to establish themselves as a king of baseball, you know,

it's a missed opportunity, but they'll be back and they'll be back strong.

They did a beautiful job.

My question to you is, talk to me about your mom and your dad and your wife

and your kids, even attract them.

Cause I'm sure mom and dad are huge Atlanta brace fans,

but they're not watching baseball in March.

Are they watching, for example, tonight, they're tuning in for sure.

And I think, you know, in part because of you, they'll probably tune in.

Because you know, you're, you're there, you're there, other son,

brother, uncle, whatever, whatever it is, uncle Arod.

But yeah, I mean, this is captured the imagination.

I think in part because of an akunia, you know, the, the players like that,

these are not, I think it is so important that these are the players that

were rooting for throughout the year.

And so I think having that connection with the individual players,

cause keep in mind, this is what you know this better than anyone

because you have Anthony Edwards and Fisa Collier as two examples of

athletes that you work with, you know, through your basketball teams.

We love individual stars.

And we love to follow individual stars.

And so if we can get to know them, you've been talking about this for so long,

if we can get to know them in different contexts.

If we can see them achieve different things in different formats or in different

venues, that's why we love the Olympics.

That's why we love the dream team.

That's why that helped the NBA.

So I do think I'm giving you a much broader answer to your question,

but I think these individual stars and these star making moments are really

the things that bring in those more casual fans, not just the, the die

hards like you and me.

So all right, have a great time tonight.

It's going to be, it's going to be wild.

I'll be tuning in.

So good luck.

It'll be fun.

The deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.

And this episode was made by Alexis Hot and Stacey Wong.

Will Connelly is our video editor.

Our theme music is made by Blake Maples.

Our executive producers are Ashley Zingaro and Amy Keane.

Additional support from Rachel Carnivale, Nick Silva and Elena Susandales.

Thanks so much for listening to the deal.

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I'm Jason Kelly.

See you next week.