Major League Baseball Goes Abroad With 2024 MLB London Series

Fans arrive ahead of the MLB London Series match between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs at London Stadium on June 24, 2023 in London, England. (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Starting with last season, Major League Baseball (MLB) branded any regular season games outside of the United States and Canada as being part of the MLB World Tour. And the next stop on that World Tour will be this weekend in London, England.

The New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies will get together for two games in the United Kingdom’s capital on Saturday and Sunday. This set isn’t just part of the Major League Baseball World Tour, but it’s also part of the MLB London Series, which began in 2019.

The MLB London Series was originally planned to take place in just 2019 and 2020, but the pandemic wiped out the latter year and any potential for games in 2021.

In 2022, MLB and London decided to renew the series, which returned last year and will now be back for its third series with the Mets and Phillies.

All three London series games have been divisional affairs between rival teams, with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox playing in 2019, followed by the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals getting together last year.

Judging from previous MLB London Series games, one should expect high-scoring, offense-heavy affairs abroad, thanks to factors affecting the host venue, London Stadium.

The stadium primarily hosts athletics and soccer matches and was specifically designed for minimal wind. Thus, there is very little resistance after a bat contacts the ball, and the scores of previous games have indicated just that.

When the Yankees and Red Sox got together in 2019, their first game had 30 total runs and resembled a football score with a 17–13 result.

The next day, they combined for 20 runs, so the rivals put on a two-day show with 50 combined runs scored.

In the last London series games in 2023, the Cubs and Cardinals didn’t score as much as the centerfield fence was pushed back seven feet, and the outfield alley walls were also pushed back five feet. But both games between the National League Central clubs still had 10-plus total runs scored.

Jake Woodford #44 of the St. Louis Cardinals pitches during the MLB London Series match between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs at London Stadium on June 25, 2023. (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Now, two bitter rivals from two of baseball’s biggest markets will get to showcase in front of the Brits, and MLB certainly accommodated the Phillies and Mets with scheduling.

Both teams had Wednesday afternoon games before getting Thursday and Friday off to both travel and get their body clocks in tune for the five-hour time difference from the Eastern Time Zone to the British Summer Time Zone.

The clubs will alternate being the home and road teams over the two games, and then they’ll both get Monday off before having East Coast MLB games on Tuesday.

These will be the fifth and sixth MLB games this season to take place outside of the United States.

The 2024 MLB season opened in late March with a two-game set between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea, and then the Houston Astros and Colorado Rockies played two games in April in Mexico City, Mexico.

Gavin Lux, #9 of the Los Angeles Dodgers, slides safely into the third base in the 2nd inning during the 2024 Seoul Series game between San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea, on March 21, 2024. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Major League Baseball has not yet announced if the MLB London Series will return in 2025, despite the fact that all four games that have been played in the city have had over 54,000 fans, which is nearly double the 28,000-plus fans MLB averaged in 2019 and 2023.

Commissioner Rob Manfred was asked about MLB returning to the city during a press conference during last year’s MLB World Tour, and he would only go as far as saying the league would return to London in 2024.

“I can’t go beyond the fact that we feel London’s really important. We’re committed this year,” Manfred said in 2023. “We’re going to be back next year.

“I will say this, the players who came in 2019 found the event, the experience to be a really positive one. The key to making London a recurring part of the event is making sure that the players have a great trip, that they enjoy themselves while we’re here. We’re working very hard to make sure that happens this time around.”

Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. talks prior to game 2 of the Wild Card Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Minnesota Twins at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minn., on Oct. 4, 2023. (David Berding/Getty Images)

While the future of the MLB London Series is up in the air, the league is already looking ahead to other potential host cities for regular season games.

Manfred was asked by a reporter from France about reports that Paris could be the next destination for Major League Baseball come 2025.

“We are in the process of working on Paris in 2025,” revealed Manfred. “We’re not at the point where we’re going to make a commitment or make a formal announcement. But it is in the planning stages and was part of the general program that was laid out at the last basic agreement.”

Both the Mets and Phillies will take the field on Saturday, coming off back-to-back victories. Philadelphia (44–19) has the best record in the National League and has a 16.5-game lead over the Mets (27–35) in the NL East. Saturday’s game will have a first pitch at 1:10 p.m. ET (6:10 p.m. local time), with Sunday’s contest at 10 a.m. ET (3 p.m. local time).