Rather than relying on traditional sports-naming tropes, Arrivals + Departures looked to history to build the founding brands for the Women’s Professional Baseball League’s first four franchises.
Teams will compete in a regular season and playoffs starting August 1st through mid-September at Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield, Illinois.
The four clubs each draw their identities from trailblazing women tied to their cities or to the history of women’s baseball.
The New York Heights honour civil rights leader Dorothy Irene Height; the San Francisco Firebells reference the city’s first female firefighter, Lillie Hitchcock Coit (who was known as “Firebelle”); the Boston Hunters are named for physician and women’s rights advocate Harriot K. Hunt; and the Los Angeles Queens pay tribute to Lizzie Murphy, the first woman to play against Major Leaguers, who was known as the “Queen of the Diamond.”
Images courtesy of Arrivals + Departures
“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,” says Mike Bevacqua, partner and president of Arrivals + Departures. “We developed names, uniforms, and visual identities directly inspired by four historic, trailblazing women who have had a great impact on each team’s city or women’s baseball itself.”
Bevacqua tells strategy that the goal was to avoid typical team-name tropes while focusing on the league’s foundational values of resilience, excellence and progress.
“Pro leagues don’t usually launch with a fully unified approach to their branding, so both WPBL and A+D wanted to break that mould,” he says. “Once we landed on the names, the challenge was honouring the legacy of each city and the history of baseball, while still giving every single team its own original, modern take.”
Beyond the debut of a new league, the agency says the launch marks a cultural moment that reconnects the game to a legacy of women who have always played, often without recognition.
“The undeniable momentum and fan passion for women’s pro sports isn’t just a moment, it’s a movement that deserves to be deeply honoured,” Bevacqua says. “We knew the energy was there, so we challenged ourselves to build something far beyond the status quo.”
The WPBL’s PR team is promoting the new team brands on the league’s owned channels and A+D’s PR and owned channels.
The WPBL was founded by Justine Siegal, the first female coach in MLB, hired by the Oakland Athletics as an instructional coach in 2015 and Keith Stein, owner of the Intercounty Baseball League’s Toronto Maple Leafs.
