The 2024 MLB London Series was the most entertaining yet. After Saturday’s routine win for the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Mets staged a dramatic comeback and ultimately clung on for the win on Sunday. Two dysfunctional bullpens treated us to some thrilling baseball at London Stadium.
There weren’t many notable changes to the fan experience from 2023. Jess Glynne’s performance was well-received by the crowds on Sunday, and the atmosphere was generally good in and around the stadium.
Fan experience
Vendors wandering around the concourse and stands is a great idea, and certainly helps to Americanize the environment. More could be done to make food accessible from your seat, however, and it would be great if you could order to the stands if MLB returns to the London Stadium.
Part of the reason this would be appreciated is because of just how bad the queues are. Sure, this is the norm at big events, but it’s a real problem. Even venturing out in the mid-innings, some food stalls still had sizeable, slow-moving queues. Before first pitch, waiting for food or a drink is a painful process.
On a more positive note, the quality of the food is excellent. Cheesecakes, pretzels, and the hot dogs were standouts for us, and the quality of the pulled pork was appreciated, even if the size of the portion was not.
Prices need to be dropped
This takes us onto the long-running gripe with the London Series: value.
It is a one-off event. MLB spent a huge amount putting the event on. Yes, these things are true, but ticket prices have increased each year. Food prices have done the same.
It’s standard for any food item to be £15 at the London Stadium – a small mac and cheese or a corndog and a few chips shouldn’t be anywhere near that price, even accounting for the mark ups with a captive market in an event space and being in London.
MLB does an excellent job at delivering different, high-quality food options. Our group would’ve liked the beer range to stretch beyond Heineken, Moretti, and Amstel, but it’s hardly a deal-breaker.
The challenge is as an introductory weekend for potential new baseball fans, it must feel an awful lot like a money-maker. Queues of that size shouldn’t be the norm when they are so heavily impacting the point of the day out (watching baseball).
Activities around the stadium are good fun. Could they have more pitching tunnels and batting cages? Maybe a proper setup like we saw in 2019? Unless you rushed straight to them like we did when the gates opened on Sunday, you were stuck in a slow-moving queue.
Great weekend overall
The general ideas are excellent. Most of the execution is pretty good. There are just parts of the 2024 MLB London Series experience which should be better given the wince-inducing ticket prices. This was their third try at this, after all.
Anecdotally, I remain intrigued about how many people this has actually brought to the game.
People sat around us on both days were predominantly American, either living here or making a holiday of it. Having fans travel over from New York and Philadelphia helped with an ‘authentic’ atmosphere, but it doesn’t exactly indicate that MLB has broken into a new market in the UK just yet.
To beat the same drum, I think the prices across the board need to be much lower to attract people who are going to take a chance on a day at the temporary ballpark.
Sunday’s game was an epic by the standards of the pitch-clock era. The late innings couldn’t have been much tenser, and the game was ended on an historic double play. If this is the last regular-season game in London, the Mets and Phillies took us out on a high.
Harper, Nimmo weigh in on future of London Series
There are areas for improvement, of course, and it feels like MLB needs to make a more consistent effort to win people over on this side of the Atlantic.
A proposed series in Paris in 2025 was cancelled late last year, though, and there are currently no plans for MLB to return to the London Stadium.
Perhaps Rob Manfred should consider Bryce Harper’s suggestions.
Before this weekend’s games, Harper said, “Obviously they love their football over here and being able to go into a different country and play in front of a new fanbase is going to be a really fun time for us, and fun time for them.
“I wish that Major League Baseball would bring four teams over here, make it a round-robin and stay for a week and a half or two weeks, just so UK baseball fans can rally around it.
“It’s so in and out and so quick, it would be fun to rove across the country a bit, take the trains into different places and see all that. I think it would be a lot of fun.”
Speaking to TalkSport, Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo was in favour of Harper’s suggestion.
“Once you get acclimated to the time change, you might as well spend a couple of weeks over here and play in some different cities and go ahead and make a round-robin out of it.
“That would be fantastic. I think the biggest part is that initial 24 hours and once you get past that then you’re sitting in a lot better space physically and mentally.
“So I’d love to see that, I think it would be good for the game and I think it would grow in a positive way. So I think it’s a great idea.”
What next?
We are hoping an announcement is on the way later this year about MLB coming back to Europe. Six big-name teams have been sent over already, though, and there aren’t any obvious matchups if they do decide to head over in 2025 or 2026.
Whether this is the start of a longer venture into Europe for Major League Baseball or not, existing fans have been treated to six games across six seasons (thanks to the pandemic). That’s something to be grateful for – fingers crossed we aren’t left waiting too long for MLB action.
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