PHILADELPHIA Phillies manager Rob Thomson wants MLB’s London Series to “last forever” — but the future of the games is unclear.
Thomson’s Phillies crossed the Atlantic to face their rival New York Mets at London Stadium this weekend.
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Major League Baseball brought a taste of the American summer to London for the third time.
Home runs, two-foot-long hot dogs and beer sticks were just some of the American-themed attractions on offer to fans in east London.
The Premier League home of West Ham United underwent a dramatic 18-day transformation from football to baseball in time for the showcase.
But there are currently no plans for a game in 2025 after attempts to organize a series in Paris failed.
London will next host an MLB series in the summer of 2026.
But a new 2027 labor agreement, not yet signed, is proving to be an obstacle to international plans.
“I hope it lasts forever,” said Thomson, speaking on the eve of the 2024 series.
“I think this is a great experience for everyone, growing the sport around the world.
“If we can have competitive baseball in every country, the sport will only be better.”
New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was also part of London’s first series in 2019.
He was on the New York Yankees coaching staff when they defeated the Boston Red Sox in both games.
London also hosted the Chicago Cubs v St Louis Cardinals last season after a four-year absence due to Covid.
“The players love it,” Mendoza said. “We all do it – this is a big event.
“MLB is doing a good job trying to continually grow the game and that’s part of it, it’s a great show.”
‘A missed opportunity’
By Sunni Upal, Deputy US Sports Editor
The MLB London Series is a spectacular event that leaves no stone unturned by organizers when it comes to fan experience.
The London Stadium genuinely feels like a stadium and the players seem to really enjoy the trip too.
MLB’s problem is that they were already late to the Euro party compared to the NFL and NBA, and now they risk falling further behind.
Baseball did not appear in the regular season in England until 2019.
The NFL began in London in 2007, while the NBA brought regular season games to the UK for the first time in 2011.
Next year, the NBA will take Victor Wembanyama back to Paris for two games in January.
And the NFL will add a game at Real Madrid’s iconic Santiago Bernabéu to an international schedule that already includes games in London and Germany.
Baseball has ambitions to go global and will be included in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
Not having any regular season games in Europe in 2025 seems like a huge missed opportunity.
This weekend’s games will be played in front of a capacity of 60,000 fans per day.
MLB also completed its takeover of Trafalgar Square in central London on Friday night.
The pop-up fan park in the heart of the city also featured British gladiators Apollo and Fire in a challenge against Mets legend Daniel Murphy and Phillies icon Chase Utley.
London remains an attractive venue to host MLB games, but there will be a blank spot on the European baseball calendar next year following the failure of Paris.
Speaking to the Associated Press, MLB’s director of operations and strategy, Chris Marinak, admitted that plans to host games in France never got off the ground.
“This one in particular, I would say, never really got out of the conceptual stage to the point where it was scheduled or officially scheduled,” he said.
“We would have to make many leaps from where we started.
“Ultimately, we felt there were too many moving pieces at the moment to make this happen.
“We have clearly identified the United Kingdom as a priority market and an area we intend to emphasize for Major League Baseball’s international growth.”
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
