The Japanese certainly love their sport – especially baseball, and it must be quite an interesting thing to note that DeNA, a mobile social gaming company, actually coughed up the dough to purchase a controlling stake in a national baseball team in the Land of the Rising Sun. Recently, DeNA who took the international version of its social gaming service out of beta, just announced that they picked up a 66.92% stake in the Yokohama BayStars Baseball Club for $83.2 million.
Of course, since rumors tend to precede the truth, it goes without saying that there had been plenty of speculation across the continent of Asia over the past month concerning DeNA making such a purchase, and I guess the cat’s out of the bag right now. Ever wondered what a mobile gaming company is going to do with a baseball club? Perhaps they are not too happy with the current shirt sponsorship deal, and want to do a whole lot more?
It does seem as though among the first few changes would be to rename the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, although to what we do not know yet.