Major League Baseball Aims for Europe With a London Series
Via ESPN
The Story
Major League Baseball is using a two game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs in London as the launching point for a broader push into Europe, with Paris seen as a likely next destination.
Chris Marinak, MLB's chief operations and strategy officer, described the United Kingdom as the jumping off point for reaching the continent, and the league has already confirmed London series for 2024 and 2026.
Interest is rising, as the share of British sports fans following baseball grew from 4 percent in 2019 to 5.9 percent by 2022, and MLB Europe's social media following tripled to 452,000 since the Yankees and Red Sox drew nearly 119,000 fans to London Stadium in 2019.
Britain ranks as MLB's largest European market by broadcast revenue and merchandise sales, though it still trails Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China, and Australia globally.
Potential future markets include France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, and the Yankees are lobbying to play in Paris in 2025.
The strategy builds on baseball's first regular season game outside North America, a 1996 Mets and Padres matchup in Mexico, as the league treats international growth as central to its long term commercial future.
Chris Marinak, MLB's chief operations and strategy officer, described the United Kingdom as the jumping off point for reaching the continent, and the league has already confirmed London series for 2024 and 2026.
Interest is rising, as the share of British sports fans following baseball grew from 4 percent in 2019 to 5.9 percent by 2022, and MLB Europe's social media following tripled to 452,000 since the Yankees and Red Sox drew nearly 119,000 fans to London Stadium in 2019.
Britain ranks as MLB's largest European market by broadcast revenue and merchandise sales, though it still trails Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China, and Australia globally.
Potential future markets include France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, and the Yankees are lobbying to play in Paris in 2025.
The strategy builds on baseball's first regular season game outside North America, a 1996 Mets and Padres matchup in Mexico, as the league treats international growth as central to its long term commercial future.
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