Horacio de la Vega, the new President of the Mexican Baseball League (LMB, Liga Mexicana de Beisbol) is a former Olympic athlete. He participated in the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Games in the sport of modern pentathlon.
According to Forbes Mexico, de la Vega has a vision to increase the league's income "at least three times" by 2022.
"His recipe is as follows," writes Forbes' Ivan Perez: Centralize the broadcasting rights of all the teams and services in the league (such as hotels or airlines); put together a television production manual; work on new Statutes that govern the LMB and get it ready after the summer; boost the business of trading players; reduce the time of games and the game schedule; reserve some advertising spaces for the LMB in ballparks; renegotiate (and rebuild) the relationship with Major League Baseball (MLB); make the game of baseball a mass sport in Mexico, improve relations and promote common projects with PROBEIS (the governmental body that, together with the Mexico Baseball Federation, promotes and develops baseball in Mexico), CONADE (Comisión Nacional de Cultura Física y Deporte-the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sports), the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) and the Mexican Pacific League (LMP, Liga Mexicana del Pacifico), the professional winter league.
"I don't need five or ten years, I need three," said de la Vega. "We need to sit together with the 16 clubs and set common goals. Then we need a three-year plan."
Mexico is currently ranked fifth in the WBSC Baseball World Rankings, a historical high for the nation, where baseball is commonly called "The King of Sports". The nation also qualified for baseball at the Olympics for the first time, earning a bronze medal at the WBSC Premier12 2019 in November to claim a spot at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which could work out to be perfect timing for LMB's new vision for massive growth.
LMB and LMP are proud Associate Members of the WBSC.
