The French Baseball Challenge is traditionally a celebration of French baseball where all French players come together. The 2022 edition lived up to the tradition: players, coaches, federation officials, umpires, scorers, vendors, authors… all gathered over four days across two stadiums (Montigny and Chartres).
The sporting results brought a few surprises. Sénart and Montpellier failed to raise their game. The smaller teams left early, and the mid-table teams, as always, came close. The other surprise came from Savigny, who, despite lacking a home field, have maintained a high level for some time. However, the Rouen winning machine has found its form again after missing the 2021 appointment against a Montpellier side in fine form.
As for the media, it’s still all quiet. Neither the federation nor the clubs know how to communicate about the event, player news, coach updates, goals… We were the only ones with Baseball TV France and its special correspondent Benjamin Witte. We covered the entire challenge but received no information from the federation or any club. Other media outlets like A coup sur, The strike out might do something this week, but during the challenge, nothing.
On the broadcasting side, we were lucky to have coverage on both fields, and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, the choice to use Facebook as a broadcasting platform has proven difficult every time. Many matches were cut off in their stream, forcing viewers to search for the new stream link. That’s why, at Baseball TV France, we developed an app and a website www.baseballtv.fr to avoid such mishaps. This service is free and available to all clubs in France.
We published a daily competition report and shared all the broadcast links, triggering over 2,700 interactions.
On the statistics and website side, for the first time, we moved away from the usual stats-ffbs web page and had the chance to have a link on the WBSC Europe site, which is much more practical, ergonomic, and aesthetically pleasing.
Over a weekend where sports news is intense, we measure in France the financial disparity of our sports. Real Madrid in football wins the Champions League and pockets 20 million €, Stade Rochelais in rugby wins the European Cup and wins 600,000 €, the winner of the next European Baseball Cup in June will win 0 €. What symbols, you might say?
Our sport does not exist in France, neither socially nor mediatically, and given the closed-minded attitudes of each club and the federation, the media space is not about to expand… We await your press releases: redaction@baseballtv.fr. Let’s communicate together!
Congratulations to Rouen for this success and congratulations to the two organizing clubs (Montigny and Chartres)
Didier CANNIOUX
