To read more about the insight and strategy behind this idea, including some quick history on Asian baseball jerseys, click below to read my piece on Medium:
Major League Baseball has held a Hispanic Heritage Month every season for the past several years, and during that time many teams in the league trot out special edition jerseys rendered in Spanish. While many teams take this occasion as a chance to have some fun with their branding and create some really great jerseys, there are many more teams (and the NBA is very guilty of this, as well) that simply add "los" to the front of their normal team jersey, which not only feels somewhat culturally insensitive, but also is just incredibly lazy design.
While this is certainly a fantastic idea to reach Latin American fans, MLB should be taking a similar approach to court an even larger foreign fanbase that are just as energetic about the game. Which is why I decided Major League Baseball should hold an Asian Heritage Month to honor that segment of fans, as well as some of the greatest Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese stars to ever play in the big leagues.
Not only is this a great chance for MLB teams to don some interesting and unique jerseys during the season, but it would be a great way for MLB to expand their reach overseas, as well as their profits, by selling the special edition jerseys in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Since baseball began flourishing in Eastern Asia around WWII, traveling baseball teams wore jerseys that spelled out their team/city names in English so when they traveled to play teams in America the fans could read their names. Both national and pro league teams in most Asian countries today keep that tradition alive, so officially licensed MLB jerseys with scripts rendered in various Asian characters would be a first-of-its-kind item and one can only assume a very big seller both overseas and in the United States.
To view this entire project, including logos and apparel for all teams, visit my website:
