The European Baseball Championship 2016 that’s slated to kick off in September this year and organized by the Confederation of European Baseball will witness millions of fans watching 12 European countries face each other in Netherlands. Baseball is hot and is happening in Europe. Big time.

Moreover, there are unconfirmed reports that MLB may kick off its European series earliest in 2017 considering the growing Baseball fan base in Europe and a declining interest in the US.

How popular are baseball Leagues in Europe?

Did you know that the Italian and Dutch National Teams are No. 9 and No. 10 in the WBSC Baseball World Rankings? A report recently stated that “Over 20 national leagues across Europe have opened their 2016 championships, including the continent’s two premier baseball leagues: the Italian Baseball League and Dutch major league, “Honkbal Hoofdklasse”. In fact, the Dutch league’s Curaçao Neptunus won the CEB European Champions Cup 2015, which featured the top clubs from Belarus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and San Marino.”

But are there any fantasy baseball fans in Europe?

Portals like Fantasy Baseball UK or Mastersfantasybaseballleagues.com are constantly updating their features each year with the growing demands of fantasy players. The Fantasy Baseball UK has recently added improvements and had opened its rosters in March this year. It was launched way back in 2004 in association with BaseballSoftballUK and MLB on Five and has a passionate core fan base. And now with the European Baseball Championship frenzy and MLB’s possible launching, this fan base is going to search for more and more options for playing fantasy baseball. Moreover, there’s a huge fan base of MLB in academies already wanting to get into fantasy baseball. So far Netherlands and Germany have shown the highest interest in baseball but UK is now emerging to be a hub of fantasy baseball players.

The good news remains that there aren’t any major players offering fueling fantasy baseball across Europe. Most of the fantasy baseball options are provided by leading sports channels and they are mostly in Europe.

Scope for enterprises/startups in fantasy baseball
- Most fantasy baseball platforms are in English. Scope for multi-lingual fantasy sports platforms.
- Mobile fantasy baseball options are almost nil.
- Europe is a growing baseball fan market, so is fantasy sports.
- No leading players in fantasy baseball in Europe yet.