Women's Pro Baseball League
The Women's Pro Baseball League is a future professional women's baseball league in the United States. It will be the fifth American professional women's baseball league, after the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, National Girls Baseball League, International Girls Baseball League, and Ladies League Baseball. Co-founded by Justine Siegal and Keith Stein, the league is planned to commence play in 2026, with four initial teams representing four cities across the United States: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois, will serve as a neutral venue for all games played during the inaugural season.
The league was founded in 2024 with an aim to elevate the visibility and proliferation of women's baseball, by establishing a path to professionalism for college and amateur players. It has no association with Major League Baseball. Maybelle Blair, Cito Gaston, Digit Murphy, and Ayami Sato assisted in the league's initial development. The league's competitions, played during summer, will consist of a four-week regular season and two-week postseason, partitioned by an all-star game. Games will last seven innings, and be played with aluminium bats. Teams will consist of 15–25 players, and be restricted to a total salary cap of US $95,000. The league intends to broadcast its games on a national network, instead of on regional sports networks.
History
The Women's Pro Baseball League was co-founded in 2024 by former Major League Baseball coach Justine Siegal, and owner of the Intercounty Baseball League's Toronto Maple Leafs, Keith Stein. An advocate for gender equality in sports, Siegal previously founded Baseball for All, a 501(c)(3) organization that promotes girls' participation in baseball. 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, and hired Japan national team pitcher Ayami Sato and former Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston as special advisers to help develop it. 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, and while over 1,300 girls played on high school baseball teams in the 2023–24 academic year, only nine women played on NCAA college baseball teams in 2024. 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. The league's startup cost was reportedly between $5–30 million.The WPBL's establishment was announced to the public via a press release in October 2024. 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. After a week, registrations grew to over 700 players. The league's launch also cultivated significant public interest – a Hart Research poll conducted in April 2025 found interest in the WPBL to be on par with the WNBA and NCAA women's college basketball.
In August 2025, the league held tryouts at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy and Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. to determine 130 eligible draftees. Over 600 players registered to take part in the tryouts, including Mo'ne Davis, whose return to baseball after five years attracted notable media attention. The inaugural four teams of the WPBL were announced in late October, and the first draft was conducted virtually in November 2025. Kelsie Whitmore was the first draft pick; she was selected by the San Francisco team. Mo'ne Davis was the tenth pick, selected by the Los Angeles team.