Branding the Return of Women's Professional Baseball

Women's sports continue to gain momentum, and with that comes the opportunity to build brands that carry real cultural weight.

As the Women's Professional Baseball League prepares for its inaugural season, Toronto independent agency Arrivals + Departures was brought on to create the names, logos and uniforms for all four founding franchises. Drawing inspiration from trailblazing women connected to each city's history, the identities celebrate baseball's overlooked past while helping define its next chapter.

This month, the Women's Professional Baseball League (WPBL) unveiled the names, uniforms and visual identities of its four inaugural teams—marking the return of professional women's baseball to the United States for the first time since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League folded in 1954. More than the debut of a new league, it creates a professional pathway that generations of female players have never had. By building each franchise around a woman of impact, the league gives the sport deeper meaning beyond the field.

"Launching a league from the ground up requires more than strong visual design. It demands thoughtful and original concepts that can carry meaning, build community, and endure over time."
— Mike Bevacqua, Partner & President, Arrivals + Departures

Few agencies have the opportunity to create the identity of an entire professional sports league from the ground up. For Arrivals + Departures, the assignment extended beyond logos and uniforms—it required developing a cohesive design philosophy that could honour the history of women's baseball while helping shape its future.

"Most sports branding projects ask you to design for one team. We were asked to brand an entire league from scratch," said Jeff MacEachern, Chief Creative Officer at Arrivals + Departures. "That meant creating four distinct identities that feel like they've always belonged while also signalling a new era for women's baseball."

The four inaugural teams:

• New York Heights: Named after civil rights icon Dorothy Irene Height (1912-2010).
• San Francisco Firebells: Named after the city's first female firefighter, Lillie Hitchcock Coit, "Firebelle Lil" (1843-1929).
• Boston Hunters: Named after physician and women's rights activist Harriot K. Hunt (1805-1875).
• Los Angeles Queens: Named after baseball pioneer Lizzie Murphy, known as the "Queen of the Diamond" and the first woman to play professional baseball against Major League players (1894-1964).

The identities were developed by a three-person design team—including two female designers and a designer with firsthand baseball experience—in close collaboration with the Women's Professional Baseball League and members of the women's baseball community to ensure the brands honoured both the sport's history and its future.

"The first four cities had been chosen, but we needed team names, uniforms and brands. We brought on Arrivals + Departures to bring these teams to life. We posed the challenge to the agency for meaningful design concepts, to not just launch a league, but to give the next generation of women the history they deserved. They knocked it out of the park."
— Kelly Gianopoulos, Chief Marketing Officer, Women's Professional Baseball League

The response has been immediate. Since the identities were unveiled, demand for merchandise has exceeded expectations, with several items selling out as fans embraced the league's inaugural brands ahead of the first pitch this August.

By grounding each team's identity in the stories of women who helped shape history, Arrivals + Departures has given the league more than a memorable visual system—it has built a foundation for a new generation of fans and players. As the Women's Professional Baseball League prepares for its first season, the work demonstrates how thoughtful branding can honour the past while helping shape the future of the game.

Credits:

Client: Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL)
Chief Marketing Officer: Kelly Gianopoulos
Strategy & Operations: Jeremy Berman
Project Coordinator: Paige Thompson

Agency: Arrivals + Departures
Chief Creative Officer: Jeff MacEachern
Creative Director: Jeff Collins
Designers: Stephen Tasker, Kimberley Pereira, Ashley O’Driscoll
Illustrator: Geoff Mack
Partner & President: Mike Bevacqua
Chief Strategy Officer: Dustin Rideout
Group Account Director: Alli Zakoor
Account Coordinator: Alessia Price
Agency Producer: Claire McRae

About Arrivals + Departures  
Arrivals + Departures is a creative agency with offices in Toronto and Halifax that helps brands navigate a changing world. A national, independently owned Canadian agency, it harnesses the collective passion and perspective of our people to help clients see their brands differently.  |  w: arrivalsdepartures.com 

About the WPBL 
The Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) is the only professional women’s baseball league in the United States. Its inaugural season begins August 1 and runs through September, featuring a regular season and playoffs. The league’s four founding teams—New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—will compete at historic Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois. The WPBL was co-founded by baseball pioneer Justine Siegal, the first woman to coach a professional men’s baseball team and to throw batting practice to a Major League Baseball team.  | w. womensprobaseballleague.com.