Will MLB ever gain traction in Europe?

MLB hosted two games in England in early June, featuring the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets. This was the third season that baseball featured games in England, and it is part of a concerted effort to build popularity in other parts of the world. Will their efforts ultimately succeed?

American sports leagues have realized the benefit of branding outside of the United States, and MLB is hoping to make their mark in Europe over the next few years. Baseball already has a huge following in places like the Caribbean and in Japan, South Korea, and China. It’ll be interesting to see whether they can establish the same presence elsewhere.

Bryce Harper of the Phillies was excited by the idea that MLB players could expand the sport in a new region of the world, but thought it could be done a little bit more effectively. Harper told TalkSport that traveling to Europe just to play two games seemed to be too little of a commitment for this endeavor.

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Instead, Harper suggested that MLB spend two or three weeks in a foreign country, and invite as many as four teams to compete in that stretch. “It would be fun to rove across the country for a bit, take the trains into different places and see all that.”

In theory, Harper’s contention would give fans in the UK more exposure to MLB players, which is a good thing for the sport. However, it might cause some scheduling difficulties and issues with regards to competitive disadvantages for teams who have to travel far from home.

According to Sports Business Journal, nearly 110,000 fans flocked to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for the two games of the Phillies-Mets series.

The New York Times interviewed fans from the United States and the United Kingdom who went to Phillies-Mets in London. Two fans from Preston and Lake District in the UK said that they liked baseball because the skills needed by the players reminded them of cricket, which they were also huge supporters of.

MLB has also embraced the World Baseball Classic, a tournament played before the regular season once every four years. Teams representing countries from all over the world square off in a tournament meant to showcase national pride. European teams are often put together by players who have family lineage from a certain country.

MLB chief operations and strategy office Chris Marinak told USA Today in 2023, “We want to hit our priority markets but we may rotate to Germany in the long run or if there’s a facility in the Netherlands that we could potentially look at. France we’ve talked about. But for the medium term we’re really focused on the UK as our primary vehicle.”

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Certain metrics appear to indicate that MLB viewership and interest is gaining in the UK. Social media followers of UK-branded MLB pages are growing, and as hinted at by Marinak, the league wants to walk in England before it can run to other places.

Sports economist Victor Matheson told USA Today in 2023 that MLB still has a lot of ground to make up in order to truly establish roots in Europe. “With so few MLB players hailing from the UK or the rest of the EU, it’s my impression that MLB has made almost no inroads into Europe.”

Matheson makes a valid point in that players born and raised in the UK and the EU who play in MLB will be what ultimately drives interest in the sport. However, MLB has only just started playing games in Europe, and more time might be needed for that reality to take place.

In March 2024, the New York Times wrote a piece about the influx of Asian baseball stars, and how that’s helped to grow the sport over the least 30 years or so. While they weren’t the first Asian players to compete in MLB, Chan Ho Park and Hideo Nomo often get mentioned as pioneers who helped change the landscape of the sport in the 1990s.

As previously mentioned, there is some overlap between baseball and cricket. According to SportsPro Media, MLB and English cricket star Harry Brook agreed to an ambassadorship pact in 2023, where he would help to promote baseball in English. It’s a clever way to have recognizable faces in English athletics help promote the cause for MLB.

It’s going to be interesting to see whether MLB invests as much money in lower level development of the sport as it does in bringing famous clubs abroad. At the end of the day, children in Europe who are interested in baseball will need to hone their skills somewhere, and MLB may need to provide a mechanism with which to help them do that.

Is it possible that MLB will host a tournament in Europe in the next 10 years? Let us know by leaving us a comment!

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