The Ministry of Baseball | 12/06/2020
MLB Goes Continental
But where exactly will The Show land next?
Taking the show on the road, MLB’s Eurotrip begins
On May 8th 2018, MLB announced that it would be taking America’s game across the pond to London. Jubilation for the baseball community in the UK but eyebrows raised throughout the rest of Europe, where the game is arguably far more popular. The deal was initially for 4 regular season games to be played across two years at London's Olympic stadium, the first year of which can be hailed as nothing but a roaring success.
It was evident that this was not a snap decision by MLB, Live music nights and cultural education programs were introduced in the year leading up to the games in 2019, ensuring there was interest amongst the wider public and not just in the small yet established UK baseball community. It’s fair to say that these tactics worked a treat, both games between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees in 2019 were played in front of near sell out crowds, and throughout the city it was evident to see MLB had certainly made its presence known, with the event hub at Truman Brewery (located in central London) attracting lots of attention outside of the games themselves.
COVID-19 hits, MLB caught out
Now MLB obviously isn’t the only sports organisation to be blindsided by the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, but it’s fair to say the league’s handling of the situation has been particularly catastrophic. Huge numbers of minor leaguers being cut, those that remain doing so on severely reduced pay and then there’s the huge debacle over Major League wages and how to get a season started again. These are major issues that need to be sorted out sooner rather than later, for the good of the league itself and the game of baseball in the United States. Outside of the US, however, there was a question more prominent than many regarding the league's future. That question being, “What’s going to happen to the 2020 London series?”.
Well it appears we received an answer, albeit not a direct one. One can imagine how the announcement would’ve gone under normal circumstances, It’s the final game between the Cubs and the Cardinals, everyone’s having a great time, MLB thanks London for being such wonderful hosts and then announces that next year the league will be playing its European games on the content itself. But we do not live in a time of normal circumstances, on May 29th the MLB London series instagram account, and twitter account shortly after, changed its name and @ to MLBEurope, indicating that despite the fact 4 games weren’t actually played in London, it’s 2 years as host were up and MLB would be turning its attention to the rest of Europe. Which begs another question, where exactly in Europe is MLB going to land next?
On the road again, but to where?
Now it’s time to explore the options. There are plenty of cities across the continent that would love to play host to such a major sporting event, but only a few have the capacity to do so and even fewer have enough cultural history and baseballing pedigree to save MLB from having to spend more money to introduce the sport and culture to a whole new nation from scratch. This does leave us with some options, however, so let’s meet the contenders.
Paris, France
The Stade de France to be exact. Baseball in France has existed as an organised sport for nearly a century, and in that time it’s made multiple appearances on the world stage making the french game recognisable to both french natives and the international baseball community. The stadium itself is a multi purpose venue with an athletics capacity of around 75,000, it’s well connected to the Parisian public transit system and sits in the commune of Saint-Denis in the suburbs of Paris meaning a fan park similar to Truman Brewery could be erected closer to the city centre away from the stadium itself. Of course MLB will need to lay a specialised surface as they did at London Stadium and the shape of the bowl is different to London. The main stands at the Stade de France are straight, making the logistics of seating for the games more difficult compared to London as London Stadium is completely circular and any considerable gaps between the field and seats were filled with temporary stands. The difference in France being that these gaps would be much larger and awkwardly shaped making them harder to fill in a way that's economically efficient and doesn’t hinder fan experience.
Berlin, Germany
An iconic, and historically infamous, venue, The Berlin Olympiastadion. Similar to the Stade de France in many ways, it has a capacity of just under 75,000, is a multi purpose athletics venue meaning it has a large enough field size and is very well connected to public transport. The differences though could be quite significant from an MLB perspective, the location is far more central to the city than the Stade de France meaning an inner city fan hub would possibly act as a draw away from the venue itself as opposed to an addition to it. The bowl shape is also different, the stands form an oval around the field with no straight lines, again presenting different challenges to the London Stadium but much more experience can be drawn from the London planning for this venue. The baseball community in Germany is one of the largest in Europe, the national team has made multiple appearances on the world stage and there have been numerous German born/descended Major league ballplayers. Baseball was first played in Germany during the also infamous 1936 Olympic games as an exhibition match between 2 All-American teams at the Olympiastadion in front of 90,000 spectators, so this venue comes with a lot of history and an interesting narrative.
Munich, Germany
The Olympiastadion in Munich is similar in many ways to that of its Berlin counterpart, great transport links, striking architecture, in a major world renowned city and the stands form an oval shape. The differences being that the stadium is smaller by some 15,000 seats and one side of the stadium is completely uncovered. This may make it feel more like a real MLB game but could cause problems if the weather does decide to literally rain on the parade.
Rome, Italy
Italy has multiple large stadiums that have the field size to accommodate for baseball but the largest by far is the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. It has been standing since 190, has a capacity of 70,000 and like the other potentials has good transport links within the city. The stadium's location makes possible an effective fan hub on the south side of the city as well as the city itself being one of the most historically significant and architecturally stunning cities in the world. The Italian Baseball League (IBL) is highly regarded as the best competition in Europe in terms of quality and the national side is one of the most dominant in Europe and prominent internationally. The strong connection to Italian Americans in areas such as Boston, New York and Chicago also make Italy an extremely attractive host for the next MLB Europe series. The only issues come in the form of the stadium itself, like the Stade de France the main stands are straight and to make matters worse there is permanent protective fencing around all sides of the stadium thus making the installation of temporary stands extremely challenging. Which makes it possible for our next contender to enter the fray…
Naples, Italy
Due to its hosting of the 2019 Summer Universiade (an athletics event), the Stadio San Paolo in Naples had to be refurbished meaning while the capacity was reduced to 55,000, the metal fencing was replaced with much more appealing glass barriers. While these in themselves present some issues, they’re much more spectator friendly. The shape of the stadium is intriguing too, it features only one straight main stand while the other is curved, making the shape of the field look like a somewhat warped MLB ballpark. The city of Naples also differs from Rome as, as well as also being a stunning and historical city in its own right, it is located by the sea, adding days at the beach and boat trips to the list of attractions visiting fans can partake in.
Barcelona, Spain
As we move further down this list of potential hosts the names begin to become less recognisable as baseball hubs, but do not be mistaken, Spain has a solid baseball community and one thing that could make it a major wild card, the Spanish language. Spanish is the key to MLB being played in Spain as it is arguably spoken as equally throughout the baseball world as English. Latin America is a rapidly growing market and most of the countries within it are baseball mad, so hosting a game in a country that speaks the language would be a great way for MLB to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and tap into both the European and Latin American markets at the same time. As for the exact location, Barcelona is the clear favourite. A world renowned city known for its stunning architecture, seaside location and intriguing history, the Catalan capital would be an extremely popular destination for baseball fans across europe and in wealthier areas of Latin America and the US. As for the stadium, the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys fits the bill nicely, it again suffers from the issue of straight sides and without further inspection does appear to be a bit run down in some areas, improvements to the stadium itself would need to be negotiated if the city were to host MLB games. The capacity is just over 60,000 and is located right on the coast of Catalonia, meaning a fan park could be placed further into the city itself.
Honorable Mentions
The further east you go in terms of Europe, the harder it is to find both a fertile environment in which MLB could thrive. These are down to a few factors, mostly involving tense political situations either with its neighbours or the US itself that despite their being a solid baseball community to build on, would endanger both MLB personnel and travelling fans alike. To give you a rough list, countries such as Israel, Greece and Russia all have committed and enthusiastic baseball communities and on paper the cities chosen would be attractive destinations (Jerusalem, Athens, Moscow, St. Petersburg etc) but it's simply not worth the risk, unfortunately.
The strange case of the Netherlands, and where does the road end?
While reading through this list, you may have noticed that there is one prominent baseball-ing name missing. Unfortunately there's a good reason for this. The Netherlands is arguably the biggest and most recognisable name in European baseball, both on the continent and Internationally, the sport has been played in the country since 1911 and its pro league has existed since 1922. On the international stage, the Dutch have played in numerous baseball world cups and the World Baseball Classic, making the country the most recognisable European baseball team in the US. The country has also produced or is linked to numerous Major league stars including the likes of HoFer Bert Blyleven. It is quite possibly the only country in Europe where baseball has been in a position to threaten the dominant power that is football, if only at the grassroots level. It’s needless to say that if MLB were to host a series in the Netherlands, the atmosphere would be beyond electric and tickets would be worth more than oil and gold combined. Alas there’s one very big issue that is currently preventing MLB from hosting a series in the land of the tulips, there simply isn’t a stadium big enough to host a game. Amsterdams Olympisch Stadion was built for the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and remains the country’s largest athletics stadium nearly 100 years later with a capacity of just over 22,000. Simply put the stadium is too small to even be considered for an event that attracted a combined attendance of 119,000 people the first time around. But, and this is a very, very big, highly conditional ‘but’, this opens up a huge opportunity for MLB, if they’re willing to take the risk.
Build Jerusalem
This, in our humble and hopeful opinion, is where the road ends for MLB in Europe. A brand new, state of the art ball park in The Netherlands. It would have to be the largest baseball stadium in the modern era, between 55 to 70 thousand seats, and act not just as a baseball stadium for 2-3 games a year, but as a year round continental hub for baseball in Europe and around the world as well as act as a national and international community hub for everything else. Currently it’s far too early to tell if there’s enough long term interest to undertake such a colossal project, however by the end of MLB’s Eurotrip (at least a decade long one) it could be very feasible. If attendances continue to be in line with London and enough visible growth is made in the popularity of the sport and marketability of the league, we think it would absolutely not be out of the question to give Europe its very own Major league ballpark.
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