 Interim logo | |
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| First season | 2026 (planned) |
| Owner(s) |
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| No. of teams | 6 (planned) |
| Country | United States |
The Women's Pro Baseball League (WPBL) is a planned professional women's baseball league in the United States, being developed by co-founders Justine Siegal and Kieth Stein. The league is planned to commence play in 2026, with six teams in the northeastern United States competing.
The Women's Pro Baseball League was co-founded in 2024 by former Major League Baseball (MLB) coach Justine Siegal, and owner of the Intercounty Baseball League's Toronto Maple Leafs, Keith Stein. [1] [2] An advocate for gender equality in sports, Siegal previously founded Baseball for All, a 501(c)(3) organization that promotes girls' participation in baseball. [3] [4] The commercial success and stability of the Women's National Basketball Association and National Women's Soccer League inspired Siegal and Stein to create a professional league for women's baseball, [2] [3] and hired Japan national team pitcher Ayami Sato and former Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston as special advisers to help develop it. [2] [5] The league's primary aim is to increase the visibility and proliferation of women's baseball by establishing a pathway to professionalism – no high school or college in the U.S. offers girls' baseball programs, [6] and while over 1,300 girls played on boys' high school baseball teams in the 2023–24 academic year, only nine women played on men's NCAA college baseball teams in 2024. [7] [8] The league also intends to capitalize on market research conducted by the MLB, which found that 46% of MLB fans were women, and 53% of women considered themselves MLB fans. [9]
The league's establishment was announced to the public via a press release in October 2024. [10] [11] Player registrations opened shortly afterwards, and within 24 hours, over 400 players from the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom registered their interest in playing in the league. [7] [8] After a week, registrations grew to over 700 players. [11] A scouting camp will take place in early 2025, [8] [12] while a draft is planned to be conducted in late 2025. [13]
Competition in the WPBL will consist of a regular season of around forty games, played from May to August, [6] [13] followed by a playoff tournament that will determine the league's champion. [4] [14]
The WPBL is owned by its co-founders Justine Siegal and Kieth Stein. The league has no association with Major League Baseball – a decision made to preserve both its independence and its women-led organizational structure. [11] A seven-member advisory board deliberates with Siegal and Stein on decisions regarding the league. It currently consists of Laura Gentile, Kate Childs Graham, Leslie Heaphy, Nona Lee, Digit Murphy, Ayami Sato, and Kat Williams. Maybelle Blair also serves as its Honorary Chair. [12] [15]
The WPBL aims to commence play with six independently-owned clubs, all based in the northeastern United States. [3] [5] An expansion to eight clubs is expected to occur afterward. [7] College and minor league ballparks with a capacity of 2,500–5,000 are being considered for the clubs' home fields. [6]
The WPBL intends on striking a national broadcasting deal, as opposed to deals with regional sports networks. [4] [14]
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East Division. The club was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings. The Braves are one of two remaining National League charter franchises that debuted in 1876 and are the oldest continuously operating professional sports franchise in North America. The franchise was known by various names until it adopted the Boston Braves name in 1912.
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional baseball league in the world. The league is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball (ALPB) is a professional independent baseball league based in the United States. It is an official MLB Partner League based in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States, and the headquarters are located at Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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The Toronto Maple Leafs are a team of the Intercounty Baseball League, based in Toronto, Ontario. They play their home games on "Dominico Field" at Christie Pits. They are also known colloquially as the Intercounty Maple Leafs or the Intercounty Leafs to disambiguate themselves from the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.
Sports in the United States are an important part of the nation's culture. Historically, the most popular sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular spectator sport based on broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century. These sports comprise the "Big Five".
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Women have a long history in American baseball and many women's teams have existed over the years. Baseball was played at women's colleges in New York and New England as early as the mid-nineteenth century; teams were formed at Vassar College, Smith College, Wellesley College, and Mount Holyoke College. An African American women's team, the Philadelphia Dolly Vardens, was formed in 1867.
In the United States, sports are televised on various broadcast networks, national and specialty sports cable channels, and regional sports networks. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44 percent of the total worldwide sports media market. U.S. networks are willing to pay a significant amount of money for television sports contracts because it attracts large amounts of viewership; live sport broadcasts accounted for 44 of the 50 list of most watched television broadcasts in the United States in 2016.
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Salvador Johan Pérez Díaz, nicknamed "El Niño" and "Salvy", is a Venezuelan-American professional baseball catcher and first baseman for the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He is a nine-time MLB All-Star, five-time Gold Glove Award winner, five-time Silver Slugger Award winner, three-time All-MLB selection, Roberto Clemente Award winner, and received the World Series Most Valuable Player Award when the Royals won the 2015 World Series. He represents the Venezuelan national team on the international level.
Mark Walter is an American businessman and the chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners, a privately held global financial services firm with more than $325 billion in assets under management and headquarters in Chicago and New York. He is also the part-owner and chairman of the Major League Baseball franchise Los Angeles Dodgers and co-owner of Premier League club Chelsea. He also owns the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL).
Justine Siegal is an American baseball coach, sports educator and the founder of Baseball For All. In 2009, she became the first female coach of a professional men's baseball team, when she worked for the Brockton Rox, in the independent Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball. In 2011, she became the first woman to throw batting practice to an MLB team, the Cleveland Indians during spring training. In 2015, hired by the Oakland Athletics for a two-week coaching stint in their instructional league in Arizona, she became the first female coach employed by an MLB team. She has also thrown batting practice to the Tampa Bay Rays, St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros, and New York Mets.
Ayami Sato is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Aichi Dione in the Japan Women’s Baseball League. She is also a starting pitcher for the Japan women’s national baseball team, which she has led to five World Cup medals.
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FanDuel Sports Network is a group of regional sports networks in the United States owned by Main Street Sports Group. The networks carry regional broadcasts of sporting events from various professional, collegiate, and high school sports teams. Through its owned-and-operated networks and several other affiliates, its programming is available to all or part of at least 33 states.
Amazon first acquired sports rights in April 2017, when they signed a $50 million deal for the non-exclusive rights to stream portions of the NFL's Thursday Night Football games during the 2017 NFL season to Prime and Prime Video subscribers, replacing a previous deal with Twitter. Since then Amazon has acquired exclusive sports rights in 10 countries, including Australia, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Premier rights include the Copa do Brasil in Brazil, Ligue 1 and the French Open in France, the UEFA Champions League in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy, the Premier League in the United Kingdom, the NHL's Monday Night Hockey in Canada, and Thursday Night Football in the United States.
According to MLB, 46% of the league's fans are women, and 53% of women consider themselves MLB fans. "Seems like a perfect time to start a women's pro baseball league.
A professional womens baseball league aims to begin competition in the U.S. in 2026, according to a news release issued Tuesday.
It plans on securing a national broadcast deal for its inaugural season, which will consist of a regular season, playoffs and championship throughout the summer of 2026.
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