Out with the old and in with the new and reimagined.

As Major League Baseball continues to expand its reach and influence across the globe, its foray into Europe has begun to bring America’s pastime into the future, offering new traditions to the most classic of all the major sports.

While baseball is built on decades of history, traditions and rivalries that continue to persist today, its launch in Europe three years ago and drive to recruit younger fans personified a collision of cultures, something that is often a spectacle not to be missed. MLB’s Battlegrounds Home Run Derby competition in London became a rivalry reimagined for a brand new audience, and it did not disappoint.

The event took place in the summer of 2017 and hosted more than 30,000 attendees, with 80 percent of its audience under the age of 34 years old. More than one million viewers tuned into the Home Run Derby live on Twitter. It was a battle between the Red Sox and Dodgers like never before, in a sporting mashup with cricket and rugby stars choosing sides and suiting up to face off in the home run challenge.

“MLB gets a new stream of fans to pledge their allegiances to one of the two dynasties,” Forbes Magazine boasted.

Added the New York Times: “An American baseball invasion of London.”

MLB’s Battlegrounds series took over Pop Brixton, bringing Boston and Los Angeles culture to Europe, along with a virtual reality batting cage that saw more than 1,324 virtual home runs hit. It set the stage for Europe’s first-ever Home Run Derby, taking place on the mainstage of the British Summer Time Festival in Hyde Park.