MLB will be returning once again to the United Kingdom during the 2023 season to put on some exciting baseball action. It will be the second time in four years that teams will be playing there.
Over the past several decades, a number of games have been held in international destinations to help bolster fan engagement in the MLB. The first ever game to be held outside of the USA and Canada was in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1996 and featured the New York Mets and San Diego Padres.
Since then, interest in baseball has grown. It has even reached some parts of the world where baseball was virtually unheard of a relatively short time ago.
After putting on a plethora of action-packed series in Japan between 2000 and 2012, the league knew that international outreach was the future. In 2018, it was announced that the New York Yankees would play against the Boston Red Sox in June 2019.
“The 2019 MLB London Series between the Yankees and Red Sox was awesome” – @ ZT
The games were played on June 24th and 25th, 2019 at the London Stadium. The stadium was completed in 2008 and is seen primarily as the home pitch of West Ham United, who play in the English Premier League.
The London Stadium was used extensively during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It has a capacity of around 65,000 for baseball, making it suitable for accommodating the 59,000 fans who showed up to watch the Yankees and Red Sox in 2019.
“It’s official. The @Cardinals & @Cubs are heading to London for a two-game series June 24-25! @LondonStadium will host this epic rivalry as part of MLB World Tour: London Series 2023. Who will we see there?” – @ MLB Europe
In 2022, the league announced that two more teams would be playing at the London Stadium in the 2023 season. The two fierce NL Central division rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs, will play a two-game series.
The MLB knows international outreach is a great way to grow the game
Although the UK is not a traditional baseball market, centuries of close cultural contact with the USA have led to the growing popularity of the sport. Through international outreach, the league knows that it can gain a foothold among fans in the United Kingdom if the necessary resources are committed to doing so.
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