The long wait is over—America is finally welcoming back a women’s professional baseball league. After seven decades without one, the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) is set to change history. With tryouts scheduled for August 2025 and its inaugural season starting in 2026, the WPBL is reigniting opportunities for female baseball players across the globe. This groundbreaking launch marks the first women’s professional baseball league since the iconic AAGPBL, famously portrayed in A League of Their Own.
Breaking Ground: The Return of a Women’s Professional Baseball League
The WPBL was co-founded by Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach in Major League Baseball, and entrepreneur Keith Stein. Tryouts will be held at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., with over 600 women competing for just 150 roster spots across six teams. Once finalized, teams will draft players in October 2025 and begin the official season in spring 2026. This historic step marks a major breakthrough for women who’ve long been sidelined in the baseball world.
Siegal, who has faced gender-based barriers her entire career, believes this league is the start of a global shift. “When girls see women playing baseball professionally, it opens doors everywhere,” she says. The WPBL isn’t just creating a league—it’s building a movement.
Why the Women’s Baseball Gap Lasted So Long
Despite growing interest, girls in baseball have historically been steered toward softball. After aging out of Little League, many face limited options: try out for boys’ teams, play club ball, or leave the sport entirely. In 2023, only 1,462 girls played high school baseball compared to 471,701 boys. And in college? Just nine women played on baseball teams.
Yet progress is happening. Trailblazers like Kelsey Whitmore, who joined the Atlantic League in 2022, and Olivia Pichardo, the first woman to play Division I baseball, are proving that women can—and do—belong on the field. Internationally, the U.S. Women’s National Baseball Team even brought home a silver medal in the last Women’s Baseball World Cup.
What the WPBL Means for the Future of Women’s Sports
The WPBL is entering the scene at a pivotal time. Women’s professional sports leagues—from the WNBA to the NWSL—are gaining traction, investment, and fan bases. Even though the WPBL’s salary cap is modest ($95,000 per team), players will receive housing, sponsorship revenue shares, and the chance to play on a global stage. Stein says that launching the league took far less money than expected—raising questions as to why it hadn’t been done before.
The timing is perfect. In 2025, women are excelling in every sport from rugby to ice hockey—many of which are more physically aggressive than baseball. The WPBL fills a long-overdue gap in the professional sports world and signals a powerful cultural shift. As Siegal puts it: “The more they tried to take baseball away from me, the more I loved it.” That love is now reshaping the future of baseball—for everyone.
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