Plans for a European Professional League are gathering pace, with the Confederation of European Baseball’s (CEB) latest newsletter<\/a> providing a few more details on the proposed competition.\u00c2\u00a0 There are still many questions left unanswered at this early stage, not least the suggestion that the main league may be complemented by other interleague games, but the news does at least sustain the optimism that the plans will come to fruition.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n The concept behind the European league is to create a competition that brings together the best teams from across the continent after their regular seasons have come to a close.\u00c2\u00a0 Autumn 2010 was originally touted as the potential start date, although this always appeared to be a bit optimistic and it looks like the inaugural staging of the event has now been pushed back by twelve months.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The newsletter states that eight teams “out of different countries” will compete over a period of four to six weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 A literal interpretation would suggest that this means eight teams coming from eight different countries, but the initial rumours were that the intention was to pick teams from the strongest leagues for the first few years and to then expand it if the demand is there.<\/p>\n Going by Mister-Baseball’s current rankings<\/a>, the eight top teams would be the following:<\/p>\n
Ranking<\/strong><\/td>\n| Team<\/strong><\/td>\n | Country<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 1<\/td>\n | Corendon Kinheim<\/td>\n | Netherlands<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 2<\/td>\n | Fortitudo 1953 Bologna<\/td>\n | Italy<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 3<\/td>\n | DOOR Neptunus<\/td>\n | Netherlands<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 4<\/td>\n | FC Barcelona<\/td>\n | Spain<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 5<\/td>\n | Danesi Caffe\\’ Nettuno<\/td>\n | Italy<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 6<\/td>\n | Solingen Alligators<\/td>\n | Germany<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 7<\/td>\n | Marlins Puerto Cruz<\/td>\n | Spain<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | 8<\/td>\n | Heidenheim Heidek\u00c3\u00b6pfe<\/td>\n | Germany<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n | These rankings reflect the strength of the leagues in the four countries involved.\u00c2\u00a0 If they decide to take eight teams from eight different countries instead, teams such as Les Templiers de Senart from France, AVG Draci Brno from the Czech Republic, Stockholms BSK from Sweden and our own London Mets could be in line to participate.\u00c2\u00a0 The exact lineup will of course be dependent on how these teams perform over the next two seasons.<\/p>\n The CEB states that the exact format is still under discussion, so it’s possible that even they don’t yet know where the the league will be staged and whether it will be held every year.\u00c2\u00a0 The most effective way to establish the league would be to run it annually, although there has been no news so far on how the league will be funded and that will clearly have a bearing on this.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n As for its location, you would normally expect an eight-team tournament to be staged in one country and for it to be shared among several countries year-by-year (the Netherlands one year, Italy the next etc).\u00c2\u00a0 However, the plan to have teams playing “daily” over a period of four to six weeks might be an ambitious schedule for any single European country to market and to sell enough tickets to make it financially viable.<\/p>\n The newsletter also mentions the “long time proposal of most of the member federations [of the CEB] in playing inter leagues during or after the particular national season” that will be staged from 2011.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, we only have the barest of details about that idea at the moment, so it’s difficult to speculate on what form these interleagues will take and who they might involve.<\/p>\n |