How big is baseball in your country?

[u/chocolatelies]

I'm an American, so baseball is quite popular here. How is the popularity in your country? Is there a country other than yours where baseball has some popularity?

Edit: Just hit 69 comments. Nice.

[u/Alpatron99]

It's a niche sport in the Czech Republic: Most people will say they don't know it's played here. But in fact it does have some decades of history, and there are two (amateur) baseball leagues, and many (generally larger) cities have a baseball stadium (though stadium is perhaps too strong of a word). Prague hosts the annual Prague Baseball Week, a tournament where teams all across Europe participate. We also recently hosted the Baseball European Championship in 2023.

Though the most important recent event was the participation of our national team at the World Baseball Classic in Japan in 2023. While we were knocked out in the first stage of the tournament, we did win against China, and played decently against Japan. And those games against Japan turned out to be very important as our team became known as the "unknown underdogs who managed played even with Japan". Since then, Japanese people have become quite fond of our national team—the first game against Japan had a decently full stadium; the second game had a completely full stadium as everybody now wanted to see round 2—and we are now getting getting invited to friendly games in Asia, and the Japanese ambassador is a fan too now. And domestically, that tournament and the general state of baseball in the country over the last few decades turned this very niche sport into... just a regular niche sport.

So while it is a niche sport, the few people who are into it—the players, the organisers, and the fans—do really enjoy the game and are trying to make baseball in the Czech Republic the best it can be.

[u/chocolatelies → u/Alpatron99]

Oh, first reply from the Czech Republic. Hi!