Fans of baseball and women’s sports rejoiced in October 2024 with the announcement of the Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL), the first professional baseball league for women since the 1943-1954 All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The WPBL will debut in 2026 and feature a regular season, postseason and all-star competition. A training camp will precede the regular season.
On Oct. 21, 2025, the WPBL announced its four inaugural teams located in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco. According to the league’s website, “Each of the inaugural cities carries deep baseball roots and a passionate fanbase. Together, they form the backbone of a league designed to honor the sport’s heritage while pushing it forward.” Each of these four cities have deep histories with baseball, as their MLB franchises are some of the oldest and most storied in the league. Inaugural cities were chosen for fan interest, large markets, heavy media presence and their roots in baseball. In four of the largest media markets across the country, the WPBL hopes to grab the attention of four storied baseball cities to develop new fanbases.
In August, summer tryouts for the league were held at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. Over 600 players from more than 10 countries took part, with the top 100 players automatically advancing to the WPBL Draft. The draft will be held this month in a virtual setting, with 130 players total eligible to participate. Each of the four teams will start out with 15 players on their rosters. Among the women who tried out were Mo’ne Davis, who became a phenomenon during the 2014 Little League World Series for pitching 70 mph fastballs and becoming the first girl to throw a shutout, and Kelsie Whitmore, the first woman to start an Atlantic League game, who most recently played for the Savannah Bananas.
The WPBL is coming along at an incredibly important time for women’s sports. The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) is coming off its most-watched regular season ever, thanks to major stars bringing renewed attention to the league. The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) was established in 2023 and recently expanded to six teams for its upcoming season, and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) will expand to 16 teams in 2026.
The AAGPBL was immortalized with the mostly fictional movie “A League of Their Own,” and fans should hope the WPBL can meet and surpass that level of attention. As the league itself puts it, they are looking to be “a long-overdue expansion of baseball’s story–one where women finally have their place on the field.” Women have been involved in baseball for years, in many capacities including playing, commentating, coaching and reporting. Baseball fans might be familiar with names such as Kim Ng, who was the first woman to serve as a General Manager in the major leagues when hired by the Miami Marlins in 2020, or Jenny Cavnar, who became the first woman in major league history to serve as a team’s regular play-by-play broadcaster when hired by the Oakland Athletics in 2024. The founding of the WPBL will bring even more opportunities for women in baseball, something that should be celebrated across the baseball and sports communities.
