NEW YORK – One of the new traditions that stopped in Major League Baseball due to the COVID-19 pandemic was the playing of regular season games in Europe.
But in 2023, that’s about to return.
On Monday, the league announced that they have entered a long-term partnership with London to stage games in the city during the 2023, 2024, and 2026 seasons. The new agreement will also include other “major events” over the next five years that will also take place in London.
This comes after the MLB played their first games ever in Europe back in 2019.
“It was clear that sports fans in London had a great appetite for baseball and that passion was shared by (London) Mayor (Sadiq) Khan as well as the business and media community,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in a statement from the league. “We are confident in making a long-term commitment to London and are looking forward to returning to the city with more MLB games, special fan events, and other opportunities to play and watch the game.”
Along with the contests themselves, MLB Europe will also have fan events along with baseball participation programs as the partnership continues.
The Red Sox and Yankees took the field for a pair of games at London Stadium in June of 2019, with the Yankees winning 17-13 on June 29th and 12-8 on June 30th, with over 59,000 fans showing up for each.
In 2020, the Cubs were supposed to play the next two games in London against the rival Cardinals on June 13th and 14th, but both games were called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The participating teams for the 2023 London Series have yet to be announced.
Leave a Reply