MLB London Series 2026 officially cancelled as Rob Manfred opens up on possible future for baseball in UK ...Middle East

It has been confirmed – the 2026 MLB London Series is not happening.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred put the decision down to scheduling conflicts with West Ham United and their London Stadium, plus complications surrounding next summer’s FIFA World Cup.

It’s disappointing news for fans looking forward to baseball being back in Europe next year, particularly after an enforced year off as plans to hold a two-game series in Paris in 2025 collapsed.

But fans based in the UK and those in the US looking forward to a British summer holiday have been let down by MLB, who have now taken the decision to bin the planned 2026 return to London.

It had been widely reported MLB hoped to have the New York Yankees back in London for the second time following their inaugural clash against Boston Red Sox in the summer of 2019.

They were set to face the Toronto Blue Jays in a two-game series over the weekend of June 13 and 14, following the completion of the English Premier League season.

But Manfred claimed West Ham’s final home game of the football season being on May 24 left too little time to convert the former London 2012 Olympic Stadium from soccer to a baseball field.

That process took 18 days last year as New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies brought their storied rivalry to the UK – with a game-winning play that made headlines over in the States.

It took 21 days for the inaugural event in 2019, but the process has been refined since then, with changes made to the ballpark dimensions and new permanent baseball locker rooms installed.

The commissioner also explained next summer’s broadcasting schedules are already packed due to commitments to the World Cup in North America.

There were also concerns that fans in New York and Toronto wouldn’t make the trip over to London, given there are World Cup games being held in their cities throughout the tournament – including the final at the Metlife Stadium.

News of the 2026 MLB London Series being cancelled comes just a matter of weeks after fans were given hope the event could go ahead.

And although there are no current plans for baseball to return to the UK beyond 2026, when the existing agreement ends, Manfred insisted the London Series is very much still in their thoughts going forward.

“We remain interested in Europe,” the commissioner said at a Q&A session at Front Office Sports’ ‘Tuned In’ event. “We think London is an important jumping off point for us.

“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.”

MLB’s rebranded ‘World Tour’ expansion plans have been hit-and-miss since they launched in 2023.

Games have been staged outside of the United States since 1996, with Mexico, Japan and Australia all getting a slide of the action before Major League Baseball finally made its way across the pond to London in 2019.

Since that Yankees v Red Sox series, MLB have expanded to hold games in South Korea, with stars like Shohei Ohtani helping the brand break into the Asian market and make those events a huge financial success.

But momentum in London has been a little harder to build having staged just three series over five years.

After the success of 2019, plans to bring Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals back to the English capital for the 2020 edition were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Those teams eventually did make it over in 2023, as part of a new three-year commitment to hold games in Europe, with the Mets and Phillies following in 2024.

These series helped the UK baseball fandom grow from more of a niche following to breakout numbers, with fan groups created and games being screened up and down the country, while official MLB-organised events were also well-attended.

However, that momentum was halted by the collapse of the planned 2025 edition in Paris, and has now been further stalled by the cancellation of the 2026 London Series.

It’s not only fans who will be left disappointed – a number of MLB players and coaches made it clear they saw the London Series as something to circle on the calendar and wanted it to return.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson even said he hoped the London Series ‘lasts forever’ and becomes a permanent fixture of the MLB calendar.

Fans will have to wait for the results of the next collective bargaining agreement to discover if plans to resurrect the London Series are in the works, with the current agreement due to expire in December 2026.

For now, Manfred said MLB remains committed to staging games in Mexico, Japan and South Korea, after the opening games of the last two seasons were held in Asia – with Ohtani’s Los Angeles Dodgers taking centre-stage in both events.

Mexico City hosted MLB regular season games in 2023 and 2024, and it is widely claimed Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres will be the next teams to play in the capital in 2026.

Manfred also said they are working on expanding into the Indian market because of their affinity for cricket.

“We’re really starting from the bottom up,” Manfred said. “We have worked very hard to develop better relationships with the Mexican professional leagues.

“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.

“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.

“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.”

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