How to Watch the WPBL: TV, Streaming and Full Schedule

Women’s professional baseball returned to the United States on Saturday night for the first time since 1954. Here is how to watch the rest of it.

Where to watch the WPBL

• United States: ESPN. The league announced ESPN as its U.S. distributor for every regular season and playoff game. Saturday’s opener streamed on ESPN+.
• International: YouTube
• Additional coverage: Scripps Sports
• Venue: Every game is at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois — a 5,200-seat neutral site. There are no home cities in year one.
• Tickets: Single-game seats start at $22. Season memberships, 7- and 15-game flex packs, team packs and group rates for 10 or more are available through the league.

Tonight: San Francisco at Boston

• Matchup: San Francisco Firebells at Boston Hunters
• First pitch: 6:30 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 2
• Venue: Robin Roberts Stadium, Springfield, Illinois
• Watch: ESPN

Season openers for both clubs. Games are seven innings.

Full WPBL schedule

Every game is at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. Dates, times and opponents are subject to change.

August

• Sun, Aug 2 — San Francisco at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Wed, Aug 5 — Boston at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Thu, Aug 6 — New York at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.
• Fri, Aug 7 — San Francisco at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 8 — Boston at New York, 1:00 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 8 — Los Angeles at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.
• Sun, Aug 9 — New York at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Wed, Aug 12 — Los Angeles at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.
• Thu, Aug 13 — Boston at New York, 6:30 p.m.
• Fri, Aug 14 — Los Angeles at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 15 — San Francisco at New York, 1:00 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 15 — Los Angeles at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Sun, Aug 16 — Boston at New York, 6:30 p.m.
• Wed, Aug 19 — New York at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.
• Thu, Aug 20 — New York at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Fri, Aug 21 — San Francisco at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 22 — San Francisco at Boston, 1:00 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 22 — New York at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Sun, Aug 23 — Los Angeles at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Wed, Aug 26 — Boston at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Thu, Aug 27 — Los Angeles at New York, 6:30 p.m.
• Fri, Aug 28 — Boston at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat, Aug 29 — New York at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Sun, Aug 30 — New York at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.

September

• Wed, Sep 2 — San Francisco at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Thu, Sep 3 — New York at Los Angeles, 6:30 p.m.
• Fri, Sep 4 — San Francisco at New York, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat, Sep 5 — Los Angeles at Boston, 6:30 p.m.
• Sun, Sep 6 — Boston at San Francisco, 6:30 p.m.

Each club plays 15 regular season games. The regular season ends Sept. 6, followed by the playoffs. Three Saturdays are doubleheaders — Aug. 8, Aug. 15 and Aug. 22 — with a 1 p.m. game and a 6:30 p.m. game at the same ballpark.

What happened in the opener

The Los Angeles Queens beat the New York Heights 10-8 in front of a sellout.

New York led 8-4 through five. Los Angeles scored two in the sixth and four in the seventh to take it.

Denae Benites, the Heights catcher, hit the first home run in league history — to dead center in the fourth — and finished 4-for-4 with three runs and two RBI. Mo’ne Davis, who 12 years ago became the first girl to win a game and throw a shutout in the Little League World Series, scored the league’s first run in the top of the first, driven in by Maggie Fox. Amira Hondras drove in four for Los Angeles. Kylee Lahners went 2-for-2 with three RBI for New York.

Maybelle Blair, 99, who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, threw a ceremonial first pitch.

Tony La Russa threw one as well.

He is not new to queens.

Thirteen years after that handshake in Baltimore, he was hugging a rookie catcher at Busch Stadium.

Molina never played for anyone else. He spent his entire career in St. Louis and has since gone into managing, working in Venezuela and Puerto Rico and turning up around the Cardinals dugout.

On Saturday, La Russa walked to the mound in Springfield for a league that did not exist a year ago.

Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas sang the national anthem, to mixed reviews. It rained through most of it.

The four teams

• Los Angeles Queens — Ayami Sato, Mo’ne Davis, Ashton Lansdell, Amira Hondras, Michelle Roche, Meggie Meidlinger, Maggie Fox, Sarah Edwards, Jamie Mackay, Samaria Benitez, Thaima Maximiliana, Isabella Villareal, Brittany Apgar
• New York Heights — Denae Benites, Kylee Lahners, Natsuki Yonetani, Rakyung Kim, Jaida Lee, Madison Willan, London Studer, Keira Izumi, Val Perez, Diana Ibarra, Claire Eccles, Katherine Murphy, Jacqui Reynolds, Alyssa Zettlemoyer, Elodie Ciamarro
• Boston Hunters — Beth Greenwood serves as both catcher and coach.
• San Francisco Firebells — Season opener is tonight.

Baseball without borders

Sixty players from 11 countries, ages 19 to 37, make up the inaugural WPBL.

A slim majority are American. Japan, Australia and Canada are next, and all three send players who also compete for their national teams at the Women’s Baseball World Cup, where Japan has won seven straight titles.

The Queens’ rotation is headlined by Ayami Sato, the 36-year-old Japanese pitcher whose fastball sits at 80 mph and who came up through Japan’s Venus League, founded in 2009 and now the largest amateur women’s baseball organization in the world.

Baseball Australia reports 6,000 girls and women playing this year, 17.5 percent of the country’s total baseball population. Australia is the only nation with a dedicated Little League girls baseball national championship. Canada has roughly 200 girls-only teams, and several of its WPBL players came from elite hockey backgrounds — Heights infielder Madison Willan was weighing a professional hockey career in Europe when she heard about the league on social media.

In the United States, an estimated 100,000 girls and women play organized baseball. About a thousand compete on boys high school teams and a dozen on men’s college teams. Roughly 25 percent of WPBL players came through Baseball For All, the nonprofit founded in 2015 by league co-founder and commissioner Justine Siegal.

What the players gave up to be here

Teams operate under a $95,000 salary cap. Players are paid per game, with living expenses covered for the six-week stay in Springfield and a share of sponsorship money.

Most of them took leave from something. Firefighting and youth coaching are the most common occupations in the league. Meggie Meidlinger, one of the oldest players, is an architect who designs sports venues. London Studer, 20, took a month and a half off from the cadet program with the Columbus Division of Police.

“Honestly, if this league really takes off and gets off the ground — like a WNBA-level — they’d never see me again,” Studer told Front Office Sports. “My dream is for my whole life to be dedicated to this.”

The league drew roughly 600,000 social media followers before its first pitch. Opening day sold out.

How to follow the WPBL

The league is active across every major platform, and in year one that is where most of the highlights, lineups and scheduling updates land first.

• Instagram: @wpbl_official
• X: @wpbl_official
• TikTok: @wpbl_official
• YouTube: @wpbl_official — international game streams and highlights
• Facebook: thewpblofficial
• LinkedIn: thewpblofficial
• Website: womensprobaseballleague.com — schedule, tickets, rosters and news
• Team pages: Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York
• Shop: shop.womensprobaseballleague.com

There is also a trading card program, a Fan Zone, and a First Pitch Club email list for schedule and ticket announcements.