Pioneer Baseball League adding team in Irvine, California | News, Sports, Jobs

Photo supplied, City of Irvine

The ‘championship baseball field’ at the Great Park Sports Complex, foreground, is seen in this undated photo. (Photo supplied, City of Irvine)

The ownership group behind the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds and Long Beach Coast has been granted a Pioneer Baseball League expansion team as the league’s footprint continues its shift toward California.

The City of Irvine announced Wednesday that it will field a PBL team beginning in 2027 after Innovation Baseball Partners reached a five-year agreement with the City Council to play at the city’s Great Park Sports Complex.

The multi-field complex includes a “Championship Baseball Stadium” that the city says has a fixed, 1,200 capacity grandstand with options to expand configurations around the grandstand up to 5,500 people.

Irvine would be the fifth California club in the league; IBP would own three while Main Street Baseball holds the Modesto Roadsters, who joined the PBL this season after MLB pulled an affiliated club out of the city. The Oakland Ballers have a large group of community and celebrity owners.

The yet-to-be-named Irvine club would likely replace the RedPocket Mobiles, which is the PBL’s road-only barnstorming team meant to fill a 12-team schedule after all Colorado teams left or closed shop following the 2025 season.

Adding a 12th team with a stadium is more tenable than having one barnstorming team. But, while more established clubs like Ogden (3,384 fans per game entering Thursday), Boise (2,926) and Billings (2,312) continue to draw fans to games in the independent era, results are mixed for others.

Oakland is averaging a solid 2,169 (though in a city of 440,000 people, a population dwarfing traditional PBL cities) while Long Beach is at 1,214 in its first year. Modesto is averaging 1,222 (only slightly down from 1,318 in affiliated status last year) while Yuba-Sutter is averaging only 560 fans per game.

Glacier (Kalispell, Montana) and its privately funded, new stadium continue to look like a solid investment; the Range Riders are averaging 1,925 fans in a right-sized, 2,500-capacity layout at Glacier Bank Park.

For longtime PBL cities, Idaho Falls (1,341) is down significantly from 2,059 per game in 2025. Missoula (1,476) is down about 200 fans per game, and Great Falls (1,321) is holding steady from last season.