2007 has already been a great year for globalizing sport, if you define globalization as importing some of the best talent to the United States. This “brawn drain” particularly concerns Japanese baseball fans:

• Baseball. The trilingual Boston Red Sox advertised its season opener with advertisements saying “Konichiwa! ¡Hola! Hello to the 2007 season.” The Japanese welcome was to Daisuke (”Dice-K”) Matsuzaka, who joins countryman Hideki Okajima in Boston. Matsuzaka will earn US$52 million over 6 seasons plus another US$51.1 million that the Red Sox paid just to negotiate with him. Compare that with the 330 million yen (US$2.8 million) he made last year in Japan. The Red Sox Nation expects a big return on the team’s investment. Matsuzaka and his gyroball pitch dominated the game in his first U.S. outing, but the Sox offense didn’t deliver many runs in his next 2 games. With his win-loss record at 1-2, Dice-K won’t get any “kantoku show” (the extra cash that Japanese baseball managers give to players who deserve a little bonus after winning). Meanwhile, back in Japan, fans are concerned that the country is losing its best talent to U.S. teams.
• Soccer (aka football). In January European soccer icon David Beckham signed a 5-year contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy. At the ripe old age of 31 and on the downward slope of his career, he will earn more than US$250 million during his stay in LA. The California team hopes that Beckham’s presence will excite crowds, as did superstar Pelé when he played in the States in the late 1970s. In a reverse drain, the much younger Clint Dempsey decamped for Fulham in the English Premier League. He was the only American to score a goal for the U.S. team in the 2006 World Cup (the only other U.S. goal in the Cup came from Cristian Zaccardo of the Italian team).
• Racing. Making less money but more of a populist-sports splash than Beckham in the U.S. is Colombian Formula 1 star Juan Pablo Montoya. He turned in his open-wheel McClaren-Mercedes (1,200 pounds) ride for the left-turn-only cockpit of a Dodge NASCAR racer (3,400 pounds). Montoya recently celebrated his first finish in the top 5. Montoya competes against Chevrolets, Fords, and Toyotas. When we called, Montoya wouldn’t tell us what he makes, but top NASCAR drivers earn on average around US$5 million plus another $10 million in endorsements. Driving for McClaren brought him US$14 million annually. NASCAR is hoping to draw more U.S. Latinos to the sport. “Rookie” Montoya stands at 13th (of 54) in the driver ranking.

How do pay packets of these 3 foreigners compare with other sportsmen in the U.S.? According to Forbes magazine data from 2006, the only active American athlete who earned more than US$50 million in salary and endorsements was golf phenom Tiger Woods. Next up were professional golfer Phil Mickelson ($47M), basketball’s Kobe Bryant ($31M) and Shaquille O’Neal ($30 million), and baseball’s Alex Rodriguez ($29M).

Finally, Chinese fans of the American flavor of football will be disappointed by the postponement of a pre-season game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. Scheduled for Beijing’s Workers Stadium on 9 August, the China Bowl will likely be postponed until after the 2008 Olympics. However, the New York Giants are still set to play the Miami Dolphins in London on 28 October. In a testament to the worldwide appeal of large objects knocking into each other with periodic time-outs for beer commercials, we find that tickets are hard to come by.