Response to Ryan's post about the Red Sox brand

(I also posted this as a comment under Ryan's post, but comments don't show up on the main page.)

I was in Sydney last semester and also noticed Yankee paraphernalia everywhere. I asked a few people about the hats and shirts they were wearing, and most of them had absolutely no clue what the Yankee logo represented. As a big Yankee fan, I'll have to disagree with your point about it being "obnoxious," but I agree that the global brand extension can be attributed to the Yankees signing Asian players. However, the Yankees are not the only team that has signed Asian players.

As discussed in an article (http://www.athomeplate.com/asian.shtml), Chan Ho Park was the first Asian player to be signed in over 30 years in 1994. Since then, lots of Asian players have been signed by Major League Baseball teams with many of the more popular and successful players playing for teams other than the Yankees. So, why are people in the Far East wearing Yankee caps? The reason could be that the Yankees won a bunch of world championships during the heat of this Asian player signing phenemenon. While the Yankees have not won a world championship in the past 6 years, if the team continues to put together competitive teams with the Asian players currently on their roster, I think it would be difficult for another team to overtake the Yankees as the top global brand in Major League Baseball. In other words, you would probably see Red Sox hats in the Far East if they sign Matsuzaka, but I think the Yankee brand will continue to dominate, at least for now, regardless of which team signs him.

-Robert Cusumano