Connect with us

Sports

Column: How Gawr Gura and VTubers could help Dodgers further tap into Japanese fan base

Published

on

Column: How Gawr Gura and VTubers could help Dodgers further tap into Japanese fan base

In the service of digging into what the Dodgers might be doing to entrench themselves as Japan’s favorite major league team, I am interviewing an animated character.

“I’m a shark-girl from the lost city of Atlantis,” Gawr Gura tells me. “I swam to the surface to hang out with you guys on land about 9,000 years ago.”

Tell me more.

“I’ve been told I have a heart of gold and a head of bone,” she says. “I have a long history of saying and doing ridiculous things on the internet.”

This is the part where I tell you that Gura — she said I could just call her Gura — will be shouting out the traditional “It’s Time for Dodger Baseball!” exclamation at Dodger Stadium on Friday.

Advertisement

Except, of course, that she won’t be there.

She can’t be there. She’ll be displayed on a screen, where younger generations spend most of their lives. She is what is called a virtual YouTuber, or VTuber.

“You stream online, but you don’t stream with your actual face. You stream with virtual avatars,” said Max Kim, the U.S. sales and licensing director for Cover, the Japanese company that controls 85 such avatars, including Gura, that combine for more than 82 million worldwide subscribers on YouTube.

Gura is the most popular VTuber in the world. Her YouTube channel has 4.5 million subscribers. That is more followers than the Dodgers have on YouTube and Instagram, combined. (On the social media platform X, the Dodgers outscore her, 2.8 million to 1.9 million.)

Just the announcement of Friday’s promotion, featuring Gura and two of her fellow avatars, generated 3.4 million views on X.

Advertisement

The trading card sets that will be distributed Friday already are on sale for as much as $125 on eBay. The promotional T-shirt with Gura in a Dodgers uniform — with her shark tail sticking out — are on sale there for as much as $195.

For Cover — and its signature Hololive brand — the Dodgers’ promotion is one step in a campaign to broaden the appeal of VTubers beyond the fervent core of Japanese young men. Of the viewers of Gura’s YouTube Channel, half are 24 or younger, and nine in 10 are male.

A set of trading cards featuring VTubers will be part of a promotion at Dodger Stadium on Friday.

(Courtesy Hololive Production)

Advertisement

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is 25. The Hololive avatars have appeared in promotions for Japan’s Pacific League, in which Yamamoto played from 2017-2023.

I showed him a picture of Gura and asked if he recognized her. He said he did not.

“Our goal is to make sure that people know what VTubing is,” Kim said.

“Ten years ago, the whole concept of streaming was pretty strange. It was not really existing. Now we accept that as a normal means of communication and entertainment. We want the same for VTubing as well.”

That makes Cover no different than dozens of other companies signing up as a Dodgers sponsor to get their message out to a large, mainstream audience. Cover is opening an office in Los Angeles this month, its avatars are virtually appearing at an anime expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend, and it hopes its collaboration with the Dodgers can be just as useful as previous ones with Taco Bell and Red Bull.

Advertisement

Kim said his company would have pursued the collaboration with the Dodgers even if the team had not signed Shohei Ohtani.

“We have our interest: to expand in the U.S. market,” Kim said. “They have their interests. I’m pretty sure the Dodgers will have their own thoughts behind this collaboration.”

They declined to share them. Jon Weisman, the team’s vice president of communications, said the Dodgers did not wish to participate in this story.

In December, when the Dodgers introduced Ohtani, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said this: “One of our goals is to have baseball fans in Japan convert to Dodger blue.”

Is it possible the Dodgers could win new fans in Japan by tapping into an activity which is wildly popular among Japanese teens who just might be looking for a team to follow, even if they might not know it yet?

Advertisement

“The Dodgers and Hololive have distinct fan bases,” said the chief executive of Cover, Motoaki Tanigo. “It’s the diversity of our fan bases that allows us to blend and connect our followers into a unified community, which is the essence of this collaboration.”

For one night, anyway, that collaboration will involve a virtual girl with shark teeth. I asked Gura if she could play baseball.

“I can play ball,” she said. “I got bad hand-eye coordination, I’m not very fast, and my joints might give out by the third inning, but I can cheer and scream for my team like no other!”

So, virtually, it’s time for Dodger baseball!

Advertisement

Sports

Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam is a ‘generational matchup,’ WWE legend JBL says

Published

on

Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam is a ‘generational matchup,’ WWE legend JBL says

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar’s feud will come to a head at SummerSlam in August, and the showdown has the potential to be WWE’s match of the year.

Femi beat Lesnar at WrestleMania 42 and led to “The Beast Incarnate” deciding to retire – at least for a moment – at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Lesnar made a dramatic return a few weeks later, challenging and beating Femi at Clash in Italy.

COMPLETE PRO WRESTLING COVERAGE ON FOX NEWS DIGITAL

Oba Femi looks on during Monday Night RAW at Allstate Arena on July 6, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois. (Melina Pizano/WWE via Getty Images)

Advertisement

At SummerSlam, Femi and Lesnar will do battle inside a Hell in a Cell.

WWE Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield called the next meeting between Femi and Lesnar a “generational matchup.”

“I’ve never seen anything like Oba – well, I have. I’ve seen Brock,” he told Fox News Digital. “It’s very much the carbon copy of Brock coming in. Brock coming in was like, oh my God, who is this guy? The guy can even talk, and he’s gonna be one of the biggest stars in wrestling. Not only could he talk, he’s a really smart guy. Brock became one of the biggest draws in professional wrestling. He came one of the biggest draws in UFC. It’s an unbelievable story, and now you got somebody who can rival that character.

Brock Lesnar in action against Oba Femi during “Monday Night Raw” at TD Garden on March 23, 2026, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Owens/WWE via Getty Images)

Advertisement

“This Oba Femi comes out with the silly little walk he does. Everyone kinda does it, it’s like The Bushwackers. But the whole arena does it. I was in Vegas and I didn’t want to go to the matches and deal with the traffic and deal with the backstage area, and so I kinda just watched it in a sports bar. I stood in the back where nobody could recognize me, and as soon as Oba came out, the entire sports bar was sitting there doing that Oba Femi dance. The guy is just unbelievably over.

“I really think that somewhere in the NFL this year, you’re going to see an entire NFL arena doing this dance. You’re gonna have somebody like Saquon Barkley or ‘King’ (Derrick Henry) or some of these guys do this dance, and it’s infectious. Once one of them does, one of these great running backs or wide receivers, or somebody scores a touchdown, that’s when I think you’re gonna see entire arenas doing it. I just think Oba Femi is lightning in a bottle and Brock has always been that way. This is, to me, a generational matchup.”

Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi face off during WrestleMania 42: Night 2 at Allegiant Stadium on April 19, 2026, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE via Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

SummerSlam will take place on Aug. 1 and 2 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Advertisement

Continue Reading

Sports

Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout

Published

on

Commentary: ‘I don’t want any handouts.’ Amid the Angels’ drought, a starry homecoming for Mike Trout

Mike Trout last played in an All-Star Game seven years ago. It’s crazy, really. The best player of the previous decade, the link that ties Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols to Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, has not taken an All-Star at-bat this decade.

Injuries, mostly. And he turns 35 next month.

Next week’s All-Star Game takes place in Philadelphia, about 40 miles north of Trout’s hometown of Millville, N.J. Major League Baseball reserves a potential All-Star roster spot or two each summer for distinguished players: Bryce Harper and Justin Verlander this year, Clayton Kershaw last year, Pujols and Miguel Cabrera in past years.

That could have been Trout’s spot this summer: a worthy honor for a three-time most valuable player, a local hero feted on the national stage the Angels have failed to provide him.

Advertisement

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Trout said.

Not even at home?

“It’s an honor to get voted in and represent the American League,” he said. “For me, I don’t want any handouts.”

Trout is an All-Star for the 12th time, the old-fashioned way: He earned it.

Fans voted him into the starting lineup, with the most final-round votes of any AL outfielder. His peers voted him as one of the top three outfielders in the AL.

Advertisement

“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of hurdles, a lot of adversity. I put some hard work in, and I did not let up. I could have easily got down on myself and not pushed through it and not come back.

“I know what I am capable of. I know I have the confidence to get back to the player I used to be.”

His .874 OPS entering play Thursday ranks second among AL outfielders, a career season for many players. In 11 of his 14 full seasons — all but the previous three — he has posted a higher OPS.

In April, in a four-game series against the New York Yankees, Trout hit five home runs and drove in nine runs.

“Everything was clicking,” he said. “When I first came up, that’s how I felt the whole season.

Advertisement

“Just to be able to get that feeling back, that little spark, to know it’s still in there, it makes you feel pretty good.”

For him, so does playing in Philadelphia. The first time he played there with the Angels, Millville basically closed down for the night, and just about everyone in town boarded a bus to the game. Then Trout had an exceptionally rare experience, a visiting player cheered at the home of the boo.

Mark Gubicza can testify to that. Gubicza, the two-time All-Star pitcher and now the Angels’ television analyst, grew up in Philadelphia.

“I don’t care if you were God himself, if you were wearing a different color uniform, I was still booing you,” Gubicza said. “But he was cheered.”

Still is. Trout is a diehard Philadelphia Eagles fan, with his season tickets not in some climate-controlled luxury suite but along the sideline.

Advertisement

“The players all walk by him and say ‘Trouty!’ ” Gubicza said. “Before they all go out to get their heads beat in, they’re all saying hi.

“He’s not one of those guys that comes there to be seen. He’s going there to root. That’s why they love him: He’s one of us.”

Said Trout: “I know how passionate I am about the Eagles. From my experience as an Eagles fan, it’s just different.

“It’s like win or die.”

It’s not like that in Southern California, where almost no one listens to sports-talk radio, and where a nice day is always a day away.

Advertisement

No one would begrudge Trout for living year-round along the Orange County coast. (OK, maybe Philadelphia fans would.)

Roy Hallenbeck, Trout’s high school coach, remembered visiting years ago on what he called “a perfect day” and asking Trout how he could ever get tired of all that sunshine.

“Yeah, coach, I couldn’t live here,” Trout told him. “‘I need my seasons.”

Trout built a family home near his boyhood home. He built his Trout National golf resort, with a course designed by Tiger Woods, in Millville.

He is as loyal to the Angels as he is to Millville. He appreciates the team that “took a chance on a kid from a little town in southern New Jersey” and signed him to two nine-figure contract extensions.

Advertisement

Trout was the last Angels player to take a postseason at-bat, in 2014. Even amid baseball’s longest playoff drought, he still considers Anaheim a special place, and always will.

“It’s where it all began,” Trout said. “I think the fuel of people doubting us kind of makes it more of a fire for me to try to get back to the playoffs. I think that’s the biggest key for me.

“Could I take the easy way out and just leave? Yeah. But I think — I said this last year around this time, but it’s the same feeling I’ve been having — I really haven’t sat down and talked to anybody about it specifically, but I know there’s a time where, if things change, who knows? I don’t know. But, for me, right now, my focus is on trying to get this club back in the playoffs.”

At the All-Star Game, Trout might well hear Phillies fans beseech him to come play for the home team. However, Hallenbeck said, the hometown folks no longer are as strident in that long-held wish.

“I think the overriding sentiment of most people I talk with, even Phillies fans, is we would all — as people that know him, love him and care for him — love to watch him play relevant baseball in August and September,” Hallenbeck said. “It doesn’t matter where. It doesn’t matter who. Just being relevant late in the season would be something we would all love to see.

Advertisement

“Hopefully, it’s with the Angels. They’ve been so good to him. We’d love to see it there.”

So would we. In the meantime, in the absence of a World Series, Trout deserves to enjoy his homecoming game.

Continue Reading

Sports

London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France

Published

on

London descends into disorder as Morocco fans flood streets after World Cup elimination by France

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Public unrest began in parts of London late Thursday night, and it appears Morocco’s exit from the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the hands of France is the reason.

France took down Morocco 2-0, eliminating the African country for the second consecutive tournament, this time in a quarterfinal match.

As a result, many feared Paris would erupt into riots, especially after the chaos that followed Paris Saint-Germain’s UEFA Champions League victory over Arsenal in May. 

Instead, images and videos from Edgware Road in northwest London showed police clashing with large crowds as smoke billowed through the streets and debris littered the roadway.

Advertisement

A police vehicle is parked in a road as people from pro-Palestinian activist groups gather near the Edgware United Synagogue during a demonstration against the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” organized by real-estate agency My Home in Israel, which markets property in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in London, Britain, June 14, 2026. (Toby Shepheard)

Riot police, equipped with shields and body armor, tried to contain the crowds as they clashed with people launching fireworks and throwing debris. One video also appeared to show an officer down.

KYLIAN MBAPPÉ, OUSMANE DEMBÉLÉ FIRE FRANCE INTO WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS WITH WIN OVER MOROCCO

It’s unknown what happened to the officer who was down on the asphalt or how he was injured.

Advertisement

Fans waved Moroccan flags in the middle of the streets, which held up traffic. Some even jumped on top of vehicles trying to get through the area.

Moroccan fans in the stands before a FIFA World Cup 2026 quarterfinal match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium July 9, 2026, in Foxborough, Mass. (Richard Sellers/SportsphotoAllstar)

Similar scenes unfolded after Egypt’s World Cup exit, when Argentina rallied for a controversial 3-2 victory that featured several disputed officiating decisions.

Paris, on the other hand, looked more like a city celebrating than one on the brink of a riot. Supporters of both France and Morocco flooded the streets, slowing traffic in several parts of the city.

One video showed horns blasting from cars with French and Moroccan flags out the windows on the L’avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Supporters on the side of the road, waving their own flags, joined in on the celebration.

Advertisement

France’s Kylian Mbappé scored his eighth goal of this World Cup, which ties him for the most with Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Ousmane Dembélé also scored in the second half for France in the 2-0 win over Morocco.

It’s the third straight semifinal appearance for France, while Morocco still made World Cup history despite the loss. After becoming the first African country to reach the quarterfinals and semifinals in World Cup history in 2022, Morocco added to that by becoming the first-ever African nation to reach more than one quarterfinal.

Moroccan fans react while attending a watch party for the World Cup round of 8 match between France and Morocco in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 2026. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Morocco’s exit means there are no more African nations alive in the World Cup. France will be taking on the winner of Spain and Belgium, while England and Norway and Argentina and Switzerland face off in the quarterfinals.

Advertisement

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending