Inaugural season will take place this year from November 14th to December 14th in
Dubai, UAE
DUBAI, UAE (March 25, 2025) – Baseball United, the first professional baseball league focused on the
Middle East and Indian Subcontinent, announced today the official dates and schedule for its debut
season. The league’s first season will run from November 14th to December 14th, with all games played
at Baseball United Ballpark in Dubai. After making history with three signature baseball events over the
last three years, Baseball United will now commence the first professional baseball season in the history
of the region.
The season will feature the league’s founding four franchises, the Mumbai Cobras, Karachi Monarchs,
Arabia Wolves, and Mid East Falcons. The teams will each play nine regular season games – facing each
other three times each – followed by a best of three United Series beginning December 12th to
determine the league champion. Overall, 21 games will be played over 30 days at Baseball United’s new
ballpark in Dubai.
“Our team has worked so hard, for so long, to make this news official,” said Kash Shaikh, Baseball United
Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder. “We are so grateful for the support of our Dubai and UAE partners, our
investors, and all the fans around the world who’ve helped make BU the most well-known
internationally-based professional baseball league in the world. We’ve received all that support through
several special events and big milestones since our launch in November of 2022. And now, we get to
reward our fans with a full season. Everything starts small, but we believe this will be the beginning of a
new chapter in baseball history.”
The season will begin with the Subcontinent Series, November 14th to 16th, between the Mumbai
Cobras and Karachi Monarchs. This historic series will mark the first time Indian and Pakistani franchises
have ever faced each other in baseball. The two large countries – with 1.8 billion people between them –
enjoy one of the most passionate rivalries in all of sport. The highly anticipated India vs Pakistan cricket
match in the ICC Champions Trophy event last month garnered a record 600 million viewers – that is 5
times more viewers than the Super Bowl.
The league will announce its official broadcaster partners this summer, including television and digital
streaming reaching all 193 countries.
Baseball United’s recent UAE Series event between the Arabia Wolves and Mid East Falcons was
watched by 12 million unique viewers, including 3.3M unique viewers per game in Pakistan A Sports.
The viewership numbers are more than any MLB regular season game played in the United States last
year. With two billion people in the Middle East and South Asia – one billion of which are cricket fans –
Baseball United has a massive market to introduce America’s Pastime. Baseball United has also garnered
strong viewership in baseball hotbeds globally, including the United States, Japan, and Latin America.
Full rosters for the season will be announced later this spring. To date, 65% of Baseball United’s players
were originally drafted by Major League Baseball teams, including 8x MLB All-Star, Robinson Cano, 4x
MLB Gold Glover, Andrelton Simmons, and 3x MLB World Series Champion, Pablo Sandoval. Karan Patel
- the first player of Indian descent ever drafted by an MLB team and the #1 overall pick by the Mumbai
Cobras in the league’s 2023 draft – will pitch for the Cobras, while former Atlanta Braves All-Star, Jair
Jurrjens will pitch for the Wolves. Each team will have 26 players.
Baseball United built its new ballpark at The Sevens sports and entertainment complex in Dubai in just
38 days last fall, and since then has hosted the largest international amateur baseball tournament in the
history of the region, the Arab Classic, along with last month’s UAE Series. The ballpark is the first
professional baseball field in the history of the region.
