The Industrialization of Baseball
Hall of Famers Ernesto Adorable (right) and Rodolfo Lugay autograph a commemorative baseball for the author.
[Last night] I was having a back and forth conversation with a friend of mine, mostly about macroeconomic development, the development stages of industries, the failure of the Philippines to industrialize, and other such topics that involved "development" or the lack of it.
It was after such a conversation that I wondered, "what caused baseball's stagnation in the Philippines?". Now that I think of it, whenever I ask people, no one person can offer a comprehensive answer, insight, or analysis as to why baseball — a game that was thriving well into the 1970's — slowly deteriorated in popularity and fell off the face of the country's sports mainstream conciousness. It appears as though the common denominator, upon consensus, is that the Philippine Amateur Baseball Association and its president, Hector Navasero, killed baseball. There is some truth to that, but it is an overly simplistic reason for the failure of baseball to develop as part of the sports industry (which is business, as we know) in the Philippines.
I am going to share with you the analysis and insight that I have arrived at regarding baseball's failure to develop. But before I get to the point, let me just set the tone by informing you that I will be using some analogies that will refer to baseball as a "business", sports as an "industry", other sports in the Philippines as "competition within the industry", and the like.
Let me begin by drawing the similarities between the development of baseball and the Philippines as a nation. The similarities are actually rather stark. Baseball had its golden era between the first half of the last century and the early 1970's. So did the Philippines. It was pretty much all downhill from there for both the country and the sport. While there were sporadic booms, they were generally beside the point.
Within that time frame, particularly from the post-war era, many of the Asian countries were gearing up for the next step towards industrialization, because that was the pattern of growth in the region. Countries like Japan, Korea, etc. got a head start by a decade or two. When I say "next step towards industrialization", I mean countries collectively transforming their natural capital resources — like agricultural land for example — into capital for building industry and commerce such as manufacturing. A lot of our regional competitors — Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and to some to some degree Indonesia — did just that. They industrialized. They did so because they knew that relying on traditional agriculture was no longer going to sustain the development of their nations.
Well, the Philippines did not pick up on the trend during this most crucial period. Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos designed some industrialization programs, but they never completely got off the ground. As a result, the Philippines staggered out of the gates in the 1970's and we have been lagging behind our regional competitors ever since. So contrary to the over simplistic popular belief that the reason the Philippines struggled to keep its economy competing within the region was caused by the Marcos regime (stealing and plunging us into debt which did not help of course), the primary reason actually was that the country failed to collectively industrialize. The Philippines did not convert its natural resources into capital to build industrial checkpoints like shipyards, steel factories, mining-facilities, etc.
At this point, you are probably wondering what all this has to do with baseball. Well the sport of baseball, like the Philippines, did not industrialize. Baseball neither re-invested its natural resources (the talented players and regional hotbeds) nor geared up for privatized industry. On the other hand, its industry competitor, basketball, did just that. The latter was smart enough to ride the modest wave of popularity that was building up along its coastline and eventually capitalized on the boom that was Caloy Loyzaga and Philippine Basketball's success in international play.
Since then, despite its failure to bring world-class glory to the country, basketball has been a multi-million commercial powerhouse (and some have gone to the extent of calling it a cultural phenomenon in much the same way baseball was during its golden years). The sport's brass invested in marketing its players and the game. And they built a privatized league, meaning it operated as a capitalist entity that generated revenue to sustain its growth. In other words, basketball industrialized.
Baseball's development on the other hand was left primarily in the hands of the government, if to anyone at all. This was done at a time when privatization (minimal or no government intervention) and open market forces were proven realities of economic growth. At the time, it was already shown that governments were neither efficient in operating government-owned corporations nor were they capable of delivering reputable public services. The red tape in bureacracy diminished the rapid changes and adjustments (ie. strategies, investment plans, etc.) that were required of a corporation to survive.
Coupled with the common knowledge that government-owned corporations are monopolistic in nature, whether they provided public services or otherwise, the recipe for stagnation became even more obvious. There is simply no incentive to grow and develop as funding is always appropriated by the government. Likewise, no initiative to prosper exists because the ceiling has already been set by the government budget.
Having said that, this is the primary reason that PABA (or whatever else public appointed agency) has failed to further baseball in this country. Put aside the undesireable instrumentalities that govern from within. It is the poorly kept development structure and strategy that is flawed.
It is true that there have been attempts in the past to industrialize and commercialize baseball. Such efforts however, were either doomed by a poor development strategy or done out of self-serving interests. In other words, the corporation(s) that attempted to capitalize on the sport were destined to fail from the onset just like any other corporation that attempts to do business under the pretense that it can be profitable and sustainable despite being run by incompetent individuals.
I believe that the most important factors to the success of any corporation would be its ability to innovate, market, and operate efficiently. This is exactly what baseball needs as it is imperative that it be managed like a private corporation and not left in the hands of the government sector to develop. The corporation that chooses to develop the product that is baseball must have innovative ways to connect with its consumers because times, like those consumers, are always changing. Such a corporation must also invest heavily on marketing the sport and its players because without generating awareness, furthering interest, and condutcing trials, the product is not going to leave the shelf. It must adhere to practices of good governance and operate intelligently and efficiently because all efforts are doomed to fail without proper execution.
Baseball Philippines is on the right track in breathing new life back into the game. The league, which is operated by Community Sports Inc, is directed by very capable and dignified individuals with sound strategic goals and plans. However, without the appropriate capital investment needed to further its development plans, it may end up like just another corporation eventually folding up.
This is the reality. This is the challenge that baseball in the country faces today. And to the stakeholders of the sport, this is the responsibility.