Tucson’s Kino Stadium set to host World Baseball Classic qualifier in March 2025

Kino Veteran’s Memorial Stadium will play host to a World Baseball Classic qualifier March 2-6, 2025, city officials announced Tuesday afternoon.

The participating teams are Brazil, China, Colombia and Germany. Minnesota Twins outfielder Max Kepler has committed to play for his native Germany. Other current MLB players are expected to participate.

“Baseball is back in a major way,” said Blake Eager, a Tucson native who’s now the executive director of the Southern Arizona Sports, Tourism & Film Authority (SASTFA). “We want to make sure that we shine a spotlight on that, especially in March.

“We don’t want to take away from the Mexican Baseball Fiesta. They do a phenomenal job in the fall. We wouldn’t be here without them. But having meaningful games played here in March is something we haven’t had for a very long time.

“It’s pretty incredible to bring professional baseball players back, Major League Baseball players back, and to play for countries that are actually playing for something every single game.”

The four teams will play a round-robin format March 2-4 with doubleheaders each day at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. The winner of pool play will advance to the World Baseball Classic. The second- and third-place teams will square off March 6 to determine the second qualifier.

Eight cities bid for the WBC qualifiers. They were awarded to Tucson and Taipei, Taiwan, which will host Chinese Taipei, Nicaragua, South Africa and Spain.

What helped put Tucson over the top?

“Tucson has such a deep, rich history in baseball, from the great players who’ve played Major League Baseball to all those guys from the University of Arizona – almost 100 that have played in the major leagues – to the history of spring training here,” said Jim Small, president of the WBC. “All of those elements went into this. But mainly, this is a world-class facility here at Kino. It takes care of all of our needs.

“And the partnership we have, public and private sector, was beyond compare. So when we had eight cities around the world raise their hands to host the WBC qualifier(s), it became very clear that Tucson was elite. And we wanted to associate our tournament with the people here in Tucson.”

Tucson used to be a hub for professional baseball, including spring training for MLB clubs. The last spring-training games were played here in 2010. The last holdouts, the Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, moved to the Phoenix area the following year.

“When I was growing up here,” Eager said, “you had spring-training baseball with the Guardians (Indians at the time). You had triple-A at Hi Corbett. We had the Arizona Fall League. ... And then we also were the home for USA Baseball. So you could throw a rock and run into a professional athlete, a professional baseball player. All that went away. So it means a great deal that it’s back in some form.”

Tucson was supposed to host WBC qualifiers in 2020, but just before they were set to begin, the pandemic hit. The tournament was canceled.

Having sown up a hosting bid previously didn’t guarantee Tucson would land one again.

“It’s a different time,” SASTFA chair Edgar Soto said. “What was required of the cities in 2020 is much different in 2024. It wasn’t as easy as just saying, ‘Hey, we’ll just do everything we did in 2020.’ There are a lot of changes and a lot of things that needed to happen. (It was) a much bigger challenge.

“This is going to bring economic impact to a community. So whether it’s in California, Florida, Colombia, whatever it is, it’s important. So everybody’s bidding and getting after it because they know this is going to bring jobs, livable wages and all that good stuff.”

The 2026 WBC begins March 6, 2026, in Houston, Miami, Tokyo and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The WBC news comes on the heels of Tucson becoming the host of the Indoor Football League championship game from 2025-27.