I’m pretty pissed at Ni fu te right now. I don’t think I’ll support the team he’s on. I followed Hu’s career. Never was able to establish himself as a major leaguer. Just bellow MLB talent.
It’s really hard to say. As there are companies out there have shown interest in the past. (PCGBROS and Li-Poh Group). And you have SK Financial who just recently become one of Lamigo Monkeys major sponsor. (Fubon Financial did the same a year before entering CPBL)
The biggest question/ concern would be where the new team going to be based in? As it’s safe to assume they all want to based in the major cities. However, apart from Kaohsiung, pretty much all other cities have been either fully adopted or partially adopted by a team.
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Kaohsiung - Great stadium, but the city council is known for not “fully support” the local pro team.
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Tianmu - Based in Taipei, but I think can only do weekend games.
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Doliu & Chiayi - I guess would be a good place, but is the population there big enough to support it?
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Hsinchu - Shut for rebuild until 2018. Potential buyer PCGBROS HQ is based in Hsinchu.
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Old Taichung stadium - Former home for Sinon Bulls. But Chinatrust Brothers is already sort of based in Taichung Intercontinental Stadium.
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East coast of Taiwan - They love baseball over. However due to public transportation, I don’t see it happening.
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Taipei Dome - Well well well… a fire deathtrap. But I think it is very likely to see Guardians or Brothers trying to adopt that dome once it’s completed.
By the way the expansion company prerequisites is here (CPBL Announce Prerequisites for Team Expansion - CPBL STATS)
Yeah, bit of a bummer with Hu. Had plenty of opportunity but towards the end he had some eyes problem caused by stress I believe. Bit of a shame, I always wonder what if another former Dodgers Chen Chin-Feng was given as much chance as Hu how it would turn out.
I think I’ll be rooting for the monkeys.
Anyone know how player development is done in the cppl? Is there like a minor league like system?
The minor league here is called 二軍 (second team). It’s a one tier structure much like NPB’s farm system.
However, most top prospects gets in the first team’s starting lineup right away. There are occasionally second team players that rise through the ranks and become permanent fixtures on the first team’s roster.
For the past 2 years, more and more top prospects are sent to the second team first, so perhaps the farm system is slowly taking shape.
So how are players drafted? Or is there a draft? Sorry, there’s no much English explanation of how the league works.
Yes, the players are drafted. There are many different versions of the rules in the past, but for the last 3 years, the draft takes place during the middle of the season.
They’ve done away with the post-season or pre-season draft, mostly because the league wants to nab high-school prospects, and they fear if they don’t draft them right after graduation, the kids might opt to goto college or sign a minor-league contract.
They used to have a separate high-school draft, but now they just have this one single mid-season draft.
That’s a really good sign of farm team being fully utilised rather than the “fake farm team” from years ago. Hopefully we’ll get to a stage where it actually takes time for newly drafted players to make it to the top team.
There will be one on the 3rd of July. Apart from several top high school and university players. I believe there will be a few who used to played in the Dodgers/ Twins/ Orioles/ Softbank Hawks minor system.
Try this link https://www.famiticket.com.tw/activity_info.aspx?code=1705Z06001 You can pick up the ticket at your local Family Mart convenience store. Saturday is All Star Game. Sunday is HR Derby.
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but do people actually go to the games? I remember in 95, after the MLB strike, most stadiums were half-filled (or empty) for at least a season. Any game I have seen on TV here, it appears there are more players and team personnel than people watching the games.
It took MLB about 2, maybe 3 seasons to regain its fanbase after the 94 stoppage. It has been 8 years since the fallout of the fixing scandals in CPBL. I think the damage is done. Maybe if they could get MLB to do some games over here, like they do in Europe and Japan. That might boost interest again.
I love baseball, do not get me wrong. Its just hard to get ramped up about something when everyone around you is like “yeah, whatever.” You see what I mean?
I think more people go to CPBL games then marlins games lol
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It’s a lot better than the “dark day” attendance figures. At CPBL lowest point, the average attendance was around 1600 per game.
118% growth in attendance since the 2009 game fixing incident. So, I guess it’s slowly getting better.
Here’s the attendance record stats for 2017. In Taiwan it’s more about the weekend games rather than weekday. Weekend games maybe looking at 6000 to 10000+ per game. While weekday is about 3000 to 6000.
- Lamigo Monkeys – 7594 – 20 Games
- Chinatrust Brothers – 6324 – 24 Games
- Fubon Guardians – 5190 – 22 Games
- Uni-Lions – 4599 – 23 Games
- CPBL average – 5884 – 89 Games
- CPBL weekend average – 7670 – 43 Games
- CPBL weekday average – 4223 – 46 Games
I guess the reason why it seems really empty is most stadium in Taiwan is around 20,000 capacity. So yeah, it always looks empty.
This is a picture of a marlins game recently. This was during the game. 
Those are Montreal Expos numbers, post-94.
That is what I liken this whole CPBL “recovery” to. In 1994, Les Expos were riding high in the NL East. For the first time in 12 seasons, they were going to playoffs and had a shot at the WS, continuing Toronto’s new tradition of a Canadian team in the WS. Then, BOOM. The strike. The rug got swept out from under the fans, and they never forgot or forgave. Attendance never went about a few thousand for the next decade and in 2005, they went to Washington.
I can see you really like the sport, and the idea of baseball here. I would love to see it flourish. But Taiwan has been burned by baseball. First, the LLWS changed the rules on them and then they couldn’t participate. Then the fixing scandals came to light. I can see why TWese BB fans seem to have moved on.
The Marlin’s were forced onto the citizens of Miami, with no one apparently asking the people of South Florida if they wanted a team. Despite having a larger potential audience, the Marlins were unable to beat their BB twins, Colorado Rockies in attendance. Even after 2 WS wins, they have no been able to get a firm hold on South Florida BB fans.
It’s unfortunate because their stadium is actually really nice. Besides that awful sculpture.
I’ve never seen it. But, I can remember the expansion selection. Tampa Bay actually wanted the team. They had a solid fan base, and the people of the bay built a stadium in preparation. TB/StP was where everyone thought the new Florida franchise would go. Then…they announced it was Miami. That was funny. Well, more tragic. They over-estimated the Cuban communities love for the sport. Or at least over-estimated how well they would take to the team.
It is like the Rams moving back to LA. Did anyone ask the people of LA if they wanted to have an NFL team again, let alone a returning one? When the Raiders and Rams left LA, no one really seemed to care.
That is my argument with the CPBL. I love baseball. I love following the sport. I love the random strategy. But…it is what it is. I could not even tell where the teams play. I guess one in Taipei, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and I dunno. Football is quickly rising in Asia and has been for the past decade and a half. I would love to see a league form here.
Football isn’t coming to taiwan anytime soon. Not much interest in it. Baseball is the most popular sport by far, and even more so down south. I think almost all MLBers are from Tainan or pingtung. I think people underestimate how popular baseball is if they live in taipei. Middle school teams down south would come to Taipei to destroy high school teams here. Basketball is on the rise but the competition sucks, mostly due to height.
I guess as long there’s interests in baseball, the professional league will be there one way or another. For market like Taiwan, maybe should aim at reaching 8000 to 9,000 average per game. Is it achievable? I don’t know, but what I know is, at one stage KBO (Korean baseball league) their average attendance was down to 4300 per game (2004) but they’re managed to turn it around, they’re now sitting at 11,000 per game last year.
For baseball fans that moved on, there are some truth to it too, that’s why a lot of teams these days are targeting the “next generation”. Let’s use Lamigo Monkeys as an example, their overall strategy is capture the family market, making the stadium as a place where you want to take your family there to relax and have fun, rather than “just going to another ball game” So far in really seems to work for them. Uni-Lions is sort of doing that too in their home base at Tainan as well.
As for the LLWS, I’m pretty Taiwan has been back since the late 90s? These days there are plenty of those little league international tournament anyway (PONY, WBSC)
There’s also a major shift in general public attitude towards those little league games. Back in the day, due to Taiwan’s political status, little league team is being used as a “political tool” for the KMT regime, but these day people treat it more and more as a summer camp for kids being kids and making friends while playing baseball.
Localisation that’s one thing CPBL needs to do better in my opinion. Right now, only Lamigo Monkeys and Uni-Lions are fully localised. (Monkeys @ Taoyuan and Lions @ Tainan) The other two basically still travel all over Taiwan.