Major League Baseball didn’t go to London this weekend as a one-off. Tim Kurkjian says that the league is very serious about the potential it sees for the game to find a fanbase in Europe.
“Granted, there were a lot of Cubs fans and a lot of Cardinal fans there,” he told Dan Patrick of the 54,000 fans that came out to the games. “But there were a lot of people in Great Britain that are starting to be interested in this.”
Kurkjian says that the league has seen what the NFL and NBA have done with their international games. The NFL, in particular, has had success with an annual presence in London.
The ESPN analyst says Major League Baseball is being realistic with its timetable for creating British fans.
“It’s going to take some time. It’s a soccer country, obviously, but whenever you can put on a game with that much energy to it, and both teams were like that, it’s good for the game.”
The NFL’s success has led to speculation that the league would like to have a team playing their full-time. Kurkjian says those conversations are far off and probably even entirely unlikely for baseball.
“It doesn’t mean that we’re going to have a team in London within five years or that the Brits are going to love baseball within the next ten years. But it’s always good to take the game somewhere else.”
