Spring/Summer Unaffiliated Leagues – European Baseball!
Our journey through the spring and summer unaffiliated leagues comes to an end this week with a tour of European baseball. What’s that, they don’t play baseball in Europe you say? That is a common misconception, but the reality is that Europe is home to a host of baseball-playing countries that have thriving professional leagues. Most of these leagues are growing too, which is cool because you can literally see the leagues becoming bigger and more professional with every passing year.
There’s a lot of pro baseball either taking place right now or scheduled to start soon in Europe. Most of it can be streamed. As always I recommend the Streaming Guide I’ve put together as most leagues do not have centralized streaming services but rather stream through team-run Facebook and YouTube pages. I’m not going to list every league here, there are currently about 17 professional-level leagues/tournaments scattered throughout Europe. Below I will list some of the big ones to pay attention to, but the Guide is a good resource for watching all of the leagues throughout Europe.
Baseball Bundesliga Germany
The BBG is well known for being a high-quality league that has seen great growth the past few years. It’s still at a level where there is a great disparity between the playoff level teams and the cellar dwellers, and honestly, games between those two ends of the spectrum can be rough to watch. Still, every weekend through the end of July there are plenty of BBG games to watch and almost all of them are streamed online. I’ve become quite fond of BBG and am looking forward to watching the league grow.
BBG is already in action as their Opening Day was April 1st.
In case you want a first-hand experience of playing baseball in Germany from on Off The Bench founder, we have quite a few of those in the archives.
Campionato Italiano di Baseball Serie A
Italy’s CIBA is a hard league to peg down. They are one of the powerhouses of European baseball. They easily have the highest level of play, along with the Dutch league , and they have a centralized streaming service, FIBS TV, that broadcasts every game. That being said, the structure of the league is hard to follow and changes season-to-season. Due to that, there is a huge gap in talent from the top teams to the bottom teams. I watch some CIBA, but the league has never quite drawn me in as others have.
As of right now, Opening Day is scheduled for May 24th, but that date has been changed numerous times already due to the Coronavirus.
Extraliga
The Czech Republic’s EXL has grown the most out of any European league these past few years. The Czech people have taken fairly easily to baseball and the league has managed to produce a number of international players at the collegiate and professional level already. The EXL makes its mark with lots of games being available to stream (they are rumored to be working on a centralized streaming service at this time) and a generally well-rounded competition. As is a recurring trend, the baseball being played is fun to watch, but it’s clear when watching an EXL game that you are watching a competitive league with great talent spread across every team.
The EXL Opening Day is April 9th.
Honkbal Hoofdklasse
Most people know about Honkbal if for no other reason than that they get a kick out of the name, Honkbal. There are two leagues considered to be at the top of European baseball. Italy’s CIBA is one, while Netharlands Honkbal is the other. It’s a well-run league with two centralized streaming services (odd, I know), Eyecons and HonkbalNU. Every game is available to watch, the games are very competitive, and the higher class of play compared to other leagues is very easy to ferret out. I’ve been watching Honkbal for a couple of years now and I’ve always had a fun time and enjoyed the in-game action immensely.
Honkbal’s Opening Day is scheduled for April 29th.
Confederation Cups
One thing that sets European baseball apart from the rest of the world is its extensive cup system. Modeled after football, or soccer for the less civilized, it’s a way for the best teams from the top leagues to compete against one another. There are three major cups. Challenge de France pits the top French teams from the previous season with the winner advancing to the Confederation of European Baseball Cup. That is a tournament that pits the champion, and sometimes runner up, from the second-tier European professional leagues against one other. Confederation of European Baseball Champions Cup is the highest level club competition for professional baseball in Europe. It features representatives from the top-tier professional leagues.
The baseball played in the cup system is high quality, typically streamed, and the tournaments have more of a national pride spin to them. Each tournament is a week-long and it ends up being a pretty exciting week from all accounts. Challenge de France is scheduled for May 21st, but that is COVID pending. The CEB Cup and Champions Cup are both scheduled to take place starting on July 16th.
