Commentary: Is Dodgers' Andrew Friedman a global business icon? In Japan, he is

"The Japanese baseball market is stuck. Ownership belongs to the owner-corporations. They really see the teams as part of their branding and marketing. Their efforts to focus on the team strength seems very different than that of Major League Baseball."

"Remember when Fox owned the Dodgers and Disney owned the Angels? That is baseball in Japan: teams owned by companies that can be more interested in their core business of financial services or transportation or media or whatever than in their team."

"One of the things that we talked about was patience, the ability to wait. I felt that. A lot of people [in Japanese baseball] don't have that same approach to building organizations."

Hideki Kuriyama, who managed Shohei Ohtani in Japan, visited the Dodgers to interview Andrew Friedman for a Japanese television show featuring global corporate executives. Kuriyama sought to understand how Friedman's leadership approach differs from Japanese baseball management. Japanese teams are owned by major corporations like Hitachi, Suzuki, and Sanrio, viewing their baseball franchises primarily as branding and marketing tools rather than competitive entities. This contrasts sharply with MLB's focus on team strength and organizational excellence. Kuriyama identified patience and strategic waiting as key differences in how Friedman builds winning organizations compared to the Japanese baseball market's corporate-driven approach.

Read at Los Angeles Times