Baseball fans in Japan and four other countries have reason to celebrate today.  A record-breaking deal involving YouTube and Major League Baseball has been struck, and as a result, said fans will gain access to lots and lots of footage.

In an email to WebProNews, a YouTube representative provided some more details in the form of bullet points.  One highlight is that "[f]ull-length, catch-up MLB games [will be] available in Japan 36 hours after they air."  Historic game footage will be offered, too, along with profiles of Japanese players.

That’s almost bound to go over well, since baseball is quite popular in Japan.

Furthermore, according to the representative, "Baseball fans in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, and Russia [will get] access to the full range of MLB’s highlight clips and archives on YouTube," and both organizations hope this will increase local interest in the sport.

Anyway, regardless of what occurs next or how baseball’s perceived in any particular area, this arrangement is supposed to represent "the largest partnership for premium sports content in YouTube history," making it quite significant.

Other large, sports-related deals YouTube’s managed to complete involved cricket and wrestling of the not-quite-real variety.