Is MLB seriously considering a European expansion?

While it’s been America’s Pastime for close to 200 years now, baseball has never really looked like a likely candidate for overseas expansion but that could all be about to change in the coming years as Major League Baseball gets serious about a European expansion.

MLB re-introduced the game to British audiences over the weekend with the two-game London Series between the  St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, which proved to be a raging success.

Played at a converted London Stadium – West Ham United’s home ground – the teams played at a baseball ground bigger than any currently in the US, with over 110,000 people turning out over the two days.

In fact, Cardinals pitcher Jake Woodford even told the BBC that "it's the biggest crowd I've ever played in front of" after the match.

As baseball fans in the US know all too well, the gameday experience is about more than the actual play itself, and MLB pulled out all the stops to impress the curious UK spectators, including a diverse range of food trucks, sing-a-longs, batting cages and pitching tunnels for fans to try out – creating a real festival style event.

And MLB has been vocal about its intentions to enter the UK market. They first started playing games in London in 2019 and had planned to make it a regular occurrence but it was de-railed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It seems MLB is finally getting back on track with its expansion plans with London games locked in for 2024 and 2026.

"The UK has really been identified for us, London in particular, as the jumping-off point for us to get into Europe," Chris Marinak, MLB's chief operations and strategy officer, told The Associated Press as reported by ESPN. "We feel like we proved that out in 2019. By coming back and having a really strong showing ... we're going to have the opportunity to really make some headway for growth both in the U.K. and throughout Europe."

This, of course, is not a new tactic. In fact, MLB is far behind the NFL and NBA who have been doing this every year since 2007, but better late than never. And just like the NFL, the MLB really wants to make a go of it in Europe…and so far it seems like it’s working for them.

ESPN recently revealed data, collected by Audience research company GWI, that showed that interest in baseball among British sports fans increased from 4% in 2019 to 5.9% last year. It added that MLB Europe's social media channels since the 2019 series have more than tripled their followers to 452,000.

Britain is MLB's biggest market in Europe in terms of broadcast revenue, merchandise sales and subscribers to digital products, though it trails the likes of Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China and Australia.

MLB is clearly making the UK and Europe a priority market with games in France, The Netherlands and Germany all on the cards in the coming years.

"We've really focused on looking into Europe as once a year, maybe max twice a year ... just because it's such an effort to get over there and it doesn't really fit into the normal cadence of the major league schedule, but we really do think it's important to bring live game content to the market," Marinak said.

If the ultimate goal for expansion is a European league, then MLB are clearly playing the long game with the focus at this point seemingly on setting up pathways for potential overseas talent above all else.

Jim Small, MLB’s senior vice president of international development told Front Office Sport that developing a breakout star for each country was a crucial step that needed to happen before any expansion could be considered. MLB is hoping that playing regular season games in Europe will pay off and more kids follow the path of German-born Minnesota outfielder Max Kepler.

“When you’re having a big event like this, we know we’re going to touch some kid, boy or girl, in a way that we wouldn’t if we didn’t have these games,” he said. “So it’s going to hopefully bring more kids into the game. And then allow them to follow the path that Max Kepler did.”

So while the NFL may be seriously talking about having a London team by 2025, it seems MLB are a fair way off any serious expansion plans in Europe or the UK. Let’s not forget they are over 10 years behind the NFL’s European development to, so it could be a prospect on the table in just a number of years.

But with a saturated sporting landscape, with association football still proving to be the king of all in Europe, and the NFL and NBA already strides ahead in their own expansion, has MLB left it too late? The next couple of years will be crucial – but if the weekend's results are anything to go by, there's certainly an appetite for baseball in the UK.