Volunteer-run Baseball TV France kicks off its fifth season, boasting 6,536 fans on its app alone. Adding in readers from www.baseballtv.fr and scrollers on Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and LinkedIn, over 1,300 articles and nearly 400 live match broadcasts have been published to date.
The landscape of baseball communication in France is sparsely populated. The only professional sports magazine, « l’équipe, » published just 30 baseball articles in 2024, with only one dedicated to French baseball. Other blogs and podcasts exist but focus primarily on American baseball (À Coup Sûr, The Strike Out). In 2023, The Free Agent, now The Plays Offs, attempted to cover France’s Division 1 baseball championship but abandoned the effort in 2024 due to image rights issues.
Since the rise of social media in the early 2000s, official bodies of the federation, leagues, committees, and clubs have chosen to self-generate their communications. Success varies by community manager, with announcements arriving solely through these channels and duplicated on their websites. Today, these media outlets are losing growth momentum and credibility, compounded by algorithms that don’t always serve the cause of developing a sport like ours in France.
Moreover, a culture of secrecy has taken root within club leadership mentalities, leading to delayed or non-existent communication about player rosters, coaching changes, match cancellations, or postponements.
For us at Baseball TV France, being a volunteer media outlet means we lack the human resources to demand information from every baseball, softball, and baseball5 stakeholder in France. Fortunately, whenever we reach out, kindness and willingness to respond are always present. Occasionally, certain individuals—whom we heartily thank—proactively share leads, information, suggestions, and corrections. However, we rarely receive official press releases from key players.
A media outlet with four publication sources:
- official announcements,
- analysis of these same announcements,
- probable hypotheses expressed in the conditional,
- rumors that later prove true or false.
As an independent media outlet, we aim to focus on the first three. We all know the most « marketable » stories are the rumors that can spark controversy and have one merit: they keep baseball in the conversation. The recent article in « l’équipe » about the federal role in French baseball fields, particularly Savigny, is a perfect example.
So, how can we better communicate about baseball, softball, and baseball5 in France in 2025? First, keep flooding your websites and social media with regular updates.
But most importantly!
We need you, your help, your information, to talk about French baseball, your clubs, your players, your leaders, your volunteers. Don’t hesitate to reach out; we’ll never complain about receiving too much information from all actors in French baseball.
Email us at redaction@baseballtv.fr or through our social media messaging.
THANK YOU in advance!
The Baseball TV France team from left to right: Didier Cannioux, Thomas Houlez, Aline Héry, Sébastien Dondé, Maxence Esteban, François Colombier, and Vincent Picard.
