Yankees-Red Sox rivalry could follow NFL to London

The teams are close to an agreement to play a two-game series at London Stadium in June 2019, according to a baseball official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans had not yet been finished.

The series, first reported by Bloomberg, is part of Major League Baseball’s push to play more games outside its traditional home cities in the United States and Canada. The Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins will play a two-game series in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on April 17-18, and the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers will play a three-game series in Monterrey, Mexico, on May 4-6.

“It’s a shorter trip than to California, right?” Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who has never been to London, said on Monday. “Let’s get the royal family out there. Maybe the queen can make an appearance.”

Baseball’s international ventures have mainly been limited to countries where the sport is imbued in the culture, particularly Japan and Mexico. In that vein, there are also developing plans to play games in the Dominican Republic and Japan.

England is a market where the NFL has tried to build a foothold — the league played four games there this season — and where the NBA has tried to bank on its increasing international flavor. But English fans’ familiarity with baseball is likely to come through the prism of cricket, a distant relative to baseball. MLB staged a home run derby-like event in London last year to showcase the sport for a new audience.

“It’s following the leader — the NFL,” said Allen Adamson, a branding expert and an adjunct professor at NYU. “It’s good for the Yankees, it’s good for Boston, and an attempt to inject some topspin into the sport, but I don’t think it mitigates the need to revitalize baseball in the United States.”

Adamson added: “It would be more interesting to play in Havana.”

(At least, MLB officials would not have to worry about pace-of-play problems with the often interminably long Red Sox-Yankees games — English fans are used to sitting through five-day cricket test matches.)

Though the series would take place next year, the Yankees and Red Sox look to be in position to send the best versions of themselves. Both are rife with young, dynamic talent — from the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton to Boston’s Chris Sale and Mookie Betts — who have helped establish this year’s teams as World Series contenders.

And there is also some vibrancy to the old rivalry after last season, when the Red Sox were punished after being caught using an Apple watch to improperly transmit the Yankees’ signs to their own hitters.

Then again, this may not be a marketing expedition or even much about baseball, but a play for world domination. The Yankees are in a business partnership with Manchester City FC, the soccer club that sits atop the English Premier League. It is a perch from where it can look down upon the third-place club, Liverpool FC, whose owner, John Henry, is better known on American shores for owning the Red Sox.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.