DUBAI: At times, the dream of bringing professional baseball to the region must have seemed like a mirage in a desert.
The harder the man behind Dubai-based organization Baseball United tried, the more this vision seemed to fade.
But now, for Kash Shaikh, founder, chairman and CEO of Baseball United, three years of logistical challenges are almost over.
“I’m just really excited for the fans. I’m really proud of our team, grateful for the opportunity that after three years of working and grinding and building and pushing, and falling and failing and picking ourselves up, and still finding a way, that we’ve finally been able to chart a course and a path forward for professional baseball in the region,” said Shaikh.
He announced that Dubai would be the home for baseball with three “signature” events “that we have a vision for conducting every year, and hopefully growing and making bigger each year.”
The first of the three events is the Arab Classic, bringing together the biggest national teams from the region to compete in Dubai from Nov. 7 to 10, 2024.
The Baseball United Cup, with each of the current four franchises featuring professional players, follows from Feb. 22 to March 1, 2025.
Baseball United’s first full season, featuring the Mumbai Cobras, Karachi Monarchs, Arabia Wolves, Mid East Falcons, and a new, yet-to-be-announced Riyadh-based team, will then launch on Oct. 23, 2025.
“Our season, which is something that we’ve dreamed about for a long time and it sometimes didn’t seem possible, but thanks to the partners we have on the ground and just really the resilience of our team, we’ve been able to make it happen.”
In the three, often difficult years, what kept the dream alive for Shaikh was the potential he saw for baseball to grow in the Middle East and Asia.
“No doubt, I really believe that this region for sure is not only the future of sport, but it is the future for baseball. It has all the elements, all the ingredients that are needed to build a sport from the ground up, which is exactly what we’re doing.
“We’re creating the whole ecosystem, from the fields and facilities to the teams and the rosters to the equipment, the seating that’s needed, the broadcast partnerships, the sponsorship channels.”
Baseball United’s first event, the Dubai Showcase last November at the International Cricket Stadium, drew in crowds of almost 5,000 on each of its two days. The response from fans was overwhelmingly positive, said Shaikh.
“A marker of that potential is the response we’ve gotten from fans. You know, 4.7 out of 5 stars out of our showcase last year in terms of fan response.
“Thousands of people here in the UAE and Dubai messaging us saying that they believe in what we’re doing, they want to be a part of what we’re doing.”
The Arab Cup promises to attract even more fans from the Middle East with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Palestine joining India and Pakistan.
“Right now we’ve actually had 12 teams from around the region asking us to participate. We’re planning to focus on eight,” Shaikh said.
“So the hardest cut I’m going to have to make is taking that 12 teams down to eight. You know, there’s a chance we may expand it. But even if we don’t, we’ll have eight teams that truly represent the breadth and depth of this region.”
Shaikh believes that one of the highlights will be the clash between India and Pakistan, as it is often in any sporting field. Others will bring Arab teams under the spotlight.
“You’ve got teams that are representing the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well,” he added. “They’ve never played in a national team format in history. Saudi’s federation is the newest baseball federation, just formed in 2019.
“They’ve never played an official national team match game before. And now they get to here in the region. So it’s going to be a really big deal.”
“We’ve already been getting a lot of messages from embassies from each of these countries wanting to participate, wanting to get their local fans out there.”
The Arab Classic will be adopting World Baseball Classic rules and a format that sees two groups of four competing, with the top two in each advancing to the semifinals.
The Dubai Showcase last season fell on the same weekend as the Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but Shaikh said fans can expect even more this year.
“One thing that was very important to me and our team is that no matter what we do, we know this is a long-term play, but we’ve got to do something for the fans in 2024. That to me was the biggest factor to say, let’s host this in November.”
“(The Arab Classic) will be a little bit less than a year from our last event. It’s a great, almost ceremonial next step for the game. Now we get to do it with national teams representing some of the biggest countries here, so it’s going to be very exciting.”
On the Baseball United Cup with the Mumbai Cobras, Karachi Monarchs, Arabia Wolves and Mid East Falcons, he said: “These teams are full of some of the best professional baseball players in the world, former Yankees and Dodgers and Red Sox.”
“We drafted these teams about a year ago, but nobody has seen them in their full, kitted-out uniforms with their full teams on the field. It’s going to be historic in a lot of ways. It’s going to be a smaller format, a round-robin format, plus playoffs.”
A total of 10 games will be played across eight days in February, in many ways a dress rehearsal for the launch of Baseball United’s inaugural season later in the year.
“This is the big thing from the beginning,” he said. “The season gives me goosebumps, because it’s something we’ve been dreaming about. And trying to figure out, you know, what are the right number of franchises.”
“What we decided on is five franchises. Our first four, Mumbai, Karachi, Arabia, and Mid East, plus a new Riyadh franchise that we’ll announce in early 2025, which I’m very excited about.”
Each team will play 12 games, and then after the regular season, the top two will play in a three-game series, to crown the champions. “Overall, it’s going to be 33 games in 32 days here in Dubai, so it’s a huge sprint,” said Shaikh.
“It’s a crazy, ambitious undertaking for us. It’s funny, on one end, for baseball it’s not a lot of games because 12 games per team for baseball is really just a blink.
“I mean, baseball is typically played every day for eight, nine months out of the year. Major League Baseball teams play 162 games each. So 12 games is small, but we’re a small, growing league.
“We wanted to create the right footprint, and honestly, we wanted to learn how and if and when, and to what extent we can get folks here in Dubai to come out to support.”
The next big challenge according to Shaikh is to create a product that fans will return to repeatedly, as opposed to showing up for a once-a-year marquee event or weekend.
“If we can, there’s a huge, huge potential and a huge trajectory for this league, for the community, for young kids, for development, for the ecosystem,” he said.
“Think about how many jobs something like this creates, how many opportunities. When we talk about baseball, we’re talking about grounds crew, facilities, coaches, umpires, statisticians, scorekeepers, broadcasters, equipment managers.”
“There’s so much medical staff, nutrition staff. We’re really building the whole infrastructure from a whole economic perspective. So it’s much more than the bottom line for us.”
One of things exciting Shaikh most will be the release of the teams’ merchandise, which he calls “iconic” and a part of “Americana culture.”
“When people see the Arabia Wolves gear, Mumbai Cobras, that’s when fans’ passion really starts to come to life. That’s how I fell in love with baseball.”
Shaikh believes Baseball United now has the “highest pedigree of ownership group” in terms of on-field play, in all of professional sports.
“Right now we have 20 of the best baseball players in history who’ve invested in Baseball United, who are co-owners of Baseball United, who’ve not only put their money, but their time, their energy, their resources, their social media accounts behind what we’re doing,” he said.
“I mean, in the early days when we started, it gave us instant credibility. Today, as we continue to grow, it creates instant fanfare for us.”
“There’s no way we’d be where we are without those guys,” he added. “They bring over 300 years of Major League Baseball knowledge and game play into the organization. And it’s just a huge blessing for us to work with them.”
Shaikh highlighted that a big part of Baseball United’s philosophy is the interaction of players with fans. This was shown at the Showcase last November when both rosters took time to sign autographs and pose for photos with young fans.
The former players are also involved in promoting the game at grassroots level. “They threw out the first pitch at Dubai Little League,” said Shaikh.
“It’s incredible, that doesn’t happen. But because of Baseball United and because these legends were able to offer fans that type of experience."
