27/11/2023 2 Minute Read

Asia Winter Baseball League returns with record-setting attendance

After a three-year hiatus, the Asia Winter Baseball League, organised by the Chinese Professional Baseball League, made a comeback and set an attendance record on the opening night.

TAICHUNG, Taiwan | The eighth edition of the Asia Winter Baseball League (AWBL) opened on 25 November. The three-week tournament features six teams representing the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL), the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CPBL), Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the Japan Amateur Baseball Association (JABA).

The NPB again sent two teams (NPB Red and White) for the 2023 edition. JABA also sent one team. Both CPBL and Chinese Taipei Reserve are back in the picture as the league welcomes another CPBL expansion team, TSG Hawks, as the Hawks are preparing for their first major league-level season.

On the first day of the AWBL 2023, NPB Red defeated the Chinese Taipei Reserve in the first game, 8-1, while TSG Hawks fell to JABA, 4-9. On the opening night, 4,025 fans attended the match between CPBL and NPB White, surpassing the attendance record of 2,143 set in 2017 during the game between CPBL and NPB East. The CPBL and NPB White game ended in a 3-3 tie.

The AWBL games are played in the Tainan Municipal Stadium, Doulio Baseball Stadium and Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium while all the finals will be played in Doulio.

Each team will play 17 games during the regular season, and the top four teams will advance to the semifinals from which the winners will play for the title.

The AWBL 2023 championship and third-place games are scheduled for Sunday, 17 December.

Seen as a cradle of the future professional baseball stars in Asia since its inauguration in 2012, the AWBL has showcased the early development of many of the game's top stars including Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games MVP Tetsuto Yamada, WBC 2023 Champion Yuhei Nakamura and NPB three-time home run leader Kazuma Okamoto, all of Samurai Japan.

The AWBL was inaugurated in 2012 after the initial proposal was made in 2006. The first edition consisted of four teams: CPBL Red and White, NPB, and the Dominican Republic, with team NPB winning the inaugural title.

In 2013, CPBL fielded only one team but welcomed the addition of the team sent from title-winning KBO, while NPB and the Dominican Republic continued to send a team.

The league was cancelled in 2014 but returned in 2015 with the addition of the Chinese Taipei reserve team and a team fielded by the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB), without the participation of the Dominican Republic. Chinese Taipei defeated NPB in the final to become the first non-professional team to win the AWBL title.

In 2016, a record-setting six teams joined the league as NPB sent two teams for the first time in the league's history. In 2017, the JABA sent their squad to replace the Chinese Taipei reserve team and maintain the six-team format. In 2018, the Asia Winter League returned to a five-team format without the participation of the European team, and CPBL expansion team Weichuan Dragons came into the picture of the 2019 edition as the sixth team in the league.

AWBL Year-by-Year: Number of Teams and Winner