NEW YORK — Major League Baseball has abandoned plans to play two games in London next season because of scheduling issues with West Ham’s London Stadium and the sport’s television partner.
MLB had hoped to have the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays meet in London on June 13 and 14, but West Ham is home for its Premier League finale against Leeds on May 24. That left too little time to convert the field to baseball, and MLB was unable to schedule games there for later in June because Fox lacked available broadcast slots due to men’s World Cup commitments.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said the London games were off during a question and answer session after Front Office Sports’ “Tuned In” event.
MLB played in London for the first time in 2019, when the Yankees swept two games from the Boston Red Sox. A planned two-game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs in 2020 was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and series were split there by the Cardinals and Cubs in 2023 and the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies in 2024.
MLB’s labor contract included games in Paris for 2025, but they were called off because MLB and the players’ association couldn’t find a promoter.
“We remain interested in Europe. We think London is an important jumping off point for us,” Manfred said. “We have a facility that has come a long way since the first Yankee-Red Sox game. It’s a much better ballpark now than it was due to their willingness to make investments in that. We continue to believe that there’s an opportunity there and that we can get at the developed economies in Europe through that London entree.”
Manfred said MLB is working on grassroots initiatives in India because of that nation’s affinity for cricket.
“We’re really starting from the bottom up,” he said.
Manfred said Mexico is also a priority. MLB played regular-season games in Monterrey in 1996, 1999, 2018 and 2019, and in Mexico City in 2023 and 2024. Arizona and San Diego are likely to play at Mexico City next April 25 and 26.
“We have worked very hard to develop better relationships with the Mexican professional leagues,” Manfred said. “We think we can ultimately build those relationships in a way that they look like Japan and Korea: The domestic professional league thrives, but we have enough players coming to the U.S. to play that it drives our business here in the U.S.”
MLB has gained in the Asian market, especially in recent years because of Shohei Ohtani‘s following. MLB opened the season in Tokyo, Japan, in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2019 and this year, and in Seoul, South Korea, in 2024.
“Our approach to international has always been country by country, largely because we find the places we’re interested in to be in different stages of development,” Manfred said. “With respect to Japan and Korea, we made investments there. We monetarily, and players, in terms of the sweat equity involved, of making the trip to Tokyo to open the season, making the trip to Seoul to open the season, that we have started to see return on those investments.
“I think that the opportunity to monetize the great fan base that we have in Japan and Korea will show up in terms of purely international revenue, but it will also show up in our national media. My prediction is there will be some of the more media companies — the streamers will be really interested in the ability to get access to well-developed economies where they don’t have as much penetration as they do in countries like the United States and Canada. So, it’s going to show up in different places out of those developed economies.”
