Showpiece is just the first pitch in baseball’s plan to win over Britain
Red Sox versus Yankees launches an ambitious push by the American sport, says Tom Morgan
The American addiction to baseball was so intense in the 1920s that the New York Daily News hired a correspondent to write only about Babe Ruth morning, noon and night. Almost 100 years on, as “America’s Pastime” is rebooted in Stratford, the Yankees’ most in-form player, DJ Lemahieu, will barely be recognised in the streets around the Hilton hotel where he is staying in east London.
Major League Baseball has grand plans for Britain, however, and the two-day sold-out spectacular at the London Stadium is just the beginning. Tens of millions have been spent landing the Red Sox versus Yankees juggernaut in the UK, and, while the players will return to more familiar surroundings on Monday, the organisers have no plans to go home.
“We are just at the start line now and the work starts on July 1 as we work out how we sustain the interest, and maintain it,” says Charlie Hill, MLB’S vice-president
of international strategy. “In Asia, we have an established business. In Mexico the same. This is part of that, but this is a bit different because we are not under any illusions: This is a new sport for the majority of people here.”
As the London Stadium sparkles under blue skies today, fans will get the cream: America’s oldest and best-known rivals doing battle in the most glamorous tie the sport can offer. It has occurred to organisers that they may have set a tough act to follow, but amid the apparent start of an arms race with the NFL in the UK, this weekend’s game is part of a much wider strategy for the summer sport.
Attempts to win hearts and minds extend well beyond training up the east London ground staff in the art of “hawking” hot dogs in the stands.
Organisers have held coaching sessions to introduce new players during the London Series weekend. Softball60, a simplified version of softball taking place in urban London areas, and a Play Ball Park initiative introducing children to baseball, have been launched.
Work already done at the grass roots has convinced MLB it can stay here for the long-term. Baseballsoftballuk, the development agency, has seen year-on-year increases in participation, with around 25,000 players across the nation. Participation has trebled since the millennium and some experts predict it could double again, with BT Sport set to broadcast packages of this weekend’s matches.
One of the aims of GB Baseball, meanwhile, is to have a “born and raised” British player sign for an MLB club. Germany’s Max Kepler has made a major impact on the popularity of his sport in his home country after making his MLB debut in 2015 and signing a five-year contract extension worth £35 million.
Like the Premier League, MLB has cash to burn in its plans for global domination. For the 16th consecutive year, MLB saw record gross revenues in 2018, up to £8.1 billion, according to Forbes.
Its global appeal has been helped in part by the league now offering a one-stop subscription service to watch any of the 162 games that each MLB side play, on demand via phone, tablet and computer apps. Devoted fans in the UK can pay around £100 to watch every minute of every game via an
annual subscription to MLB TV. Another money-spinner for the game is the liberalisation of the betting markets in the United States. A deal worth tens of millions has been signed recently between MLB and European-based data agency Sportradar, amid the likely increase in demand for live betting on both sides of the Atlantic.
However, Kenny Gersh, executive vice-president of gaming for MLB, insisted the London launch was “not driven by betting”. “London was a natural place for a variety of reasons,” he said. “You have rabid sports fans here and for our East Coast teams it’s probably nearer than Seattle.”
With grand plans for European domination, Hill, the chief architect of the launch, is already thinking ahead of this weekend’s action. He said: “We are excited about what is going on here, but success for us is that we’ve actually galvanised within our organisation and partners, to say this is only the start. Success is the shot in the arm to push the sport forward.”
This is not the first crack that baseball has had at Britain. In 1993, a Red Sox and Mets exhibition series was played at the Oval. However, it is the faster-paced American exports of the NFL and NBA which have so far been welcomed most widely. Hill insisted there was room for MLB’S UK growth to dovetail with the other US brands.
“It’s inevitable that you look at other sports,” he said. “Not just the NFL, NBA, but all sports that are trying to globalise and internationalise their following. It’s certainly not a matter of envy, because we don’t think about competing with other American sports. We are all US sports, we are all looking to grow.
“What it’s about now is to make sure we are part of the conversation in the UK, which is discussing the Women’s World Cup and the cricket. The sporting community has a huge appetite for sport and it’s a really intelligent community.”
This time next season, the St Louis Cardinals will take on the Chicago Cubs – not quite Yankees v Red Sox, but still an appealing match – again at West Ham’s home.
Wembley has hosted some unglamorous NFL teams in recent years, but organisers of the summer game are promising quality over quantity. Like the slow-burning spectacle itself, MLB does not like to move too quickly.