America’s Baseball Classic: Where Professional Baseball Meets the Future of Sports Entertainment

By Kelly Kleinman, Founder of America’s Baseball Classic

The sports and entertainment landscape is changing. Fans want more than a seat in a stadium. They want an experience, a connection to the event, a reason to bring their families, and something memorable enough to talk about long after the final score.

But there is an important distinction between making a sporting event more entertaining and compromising the sport itself.

At America’s Baseball Classic (ABC), we believe you can do both things exceptionally well: preserve the competitive intensity and professional skill that make baseball great while creating a broader entertainment experience that attracts new audiences.

Our vision is simple:

50 States. 50 Teams. One National Champion.

And our ambition extends beyond building another baseball tournament. We want to create a new American sports and entertainment property that celebrates baseball, state identity, competition, music, comedy, and the people who make each state unique.

The Game Must Always Come First

Professional baseball is the foundation of America’s Baseball Classic. The talent on the field, the strategy in the dugout, the pressure of meaningful at-bats, and the pursuit of a national championship must remain the center of the experience.

We do not need to change the essential nature of baseball to make it more entertaining.

We need to build a more compelling event around it.

The best players should be able to compete at the highest level they can bring to the field. Managers should be focused on winning. Fans should feel the tension of a close game, the excitement of a clutch hit, and the emotion of representing their state.

The entertainment should enhance those moments—not distract from them.

That means preserving the integrity of the game while creating opportunities for music, comedy, personalities, fan participation, and state-based cultural experiences during pregame festivities, planned breaks, and postgame celebrations.

The competition remains serious. The atmosphere becomes bigger.

What If Every State Brought Its Own Entertainment?

Imagine California playing Texas. Now imagine each state bringing more than its baseball team.

What if the stadium experience also featured musicians, comedians, entertainers, digital creators, and other personalities connected to the participating states?

A Texas artist could perform before the game. A California comedian could host a fan segment. Local entertainers could take part in a pregame celebration. Regional personalities could help tell the story of the rivalry, introduce players, and create original content that travels well beyond the stadium.

The possibilities are extensive.

ABC could develop a platform for entertainers from each participating state to be part of the event on game day. The performances would be scheduled around the competition, allowing each state to showcase its own identity without disrupting the action on the field.

And these opportunities would not have to be limited to nationally recognized celebrities.

Emerging musicians, regional performers, comedians, social media creators, and hometown personalities could gain exposure in front of new audiences. The event could become a place where sports and entertainment intersect, providing opportunities for talent that might not otherwise have access to a professional sports platform.

For fans, that creates another reason to attend. For performers, it creates another stage. For ABC, it offers a way to tell a richer story about each state.

Turning a Baseball Game Into a More Valuable Ticket

The economics of live entertainment are increasingly important. Families and fans weigh the total cost of attending an event, including tickets, parking, food, transportation, and merchandise.

A ticket needs to represent value.

ABC is exploring a proposed $30 ticket price, with the broader goal of making the event accessible while providing an experience that feels worth the cost.

Now imagine that ticket includes professional baseball, state-versus-state rivalry, live entertainment, fan activities, and opportunities to see performers associated with the participating states.

The customer is no longer evaluating the purchase solely as nine innings of baseball. The event offers a larger package of sports and entertainment.

That does not mean every game needs a major concert or an expensive headline performer. The model could be built around a thoughtful mix of local talent, selected featured performances, engaging fan experiences, and compelling baseball.

The key is to create additional perceived value without allowing entertainment costs to overwhelm the event's economics.

A well-designed event can give families more to enjoy, create additional reasons for fans to arrive early and stay afterward, and offer sponsors more meaningful opportunities to engage with the audience.

The goal is not simply to sell more tickets. It is to give people more reasons to buy them.

State Pride Is the Differentiator

Many sports properties compete for attention through famous players, established franchises, and championship histories. ABC has an opportunity to build something different around a powerful, widely understood idea: where you are from.

People have a natural connection to their home state. They identify with its culture, traditions, music, communities, and rivalries.

Baseball can provide the competitive centerpiece for that identity.

California versus Texas is more than a matchup on a schedule. It is a story that fans can debate, promote, and make their own. The same is true for Florida, Massachusetts, and eventually states across the country.

Adding entertainers from each state can deepen that connection. The music, humor, and personalities become part of the event's identity, while the players compete for the one thing that ultimately matters: winning.

This creates possibilities for original content, social media campaigns, local partnerships, merchandise, community events, and collaborations with artists and creators who already have audiences of their own.

Each state can become both a baseball team and an entertainment identity.

A Different Opportunity for Sponsors and Media

For potential sponsors, ABC will offer a combination of live sports, local-market engagement, state-based campaigns, and entertainment content.

A sponsor might support a pregame performance, a community baseball activation, a fan zone, or an original video series featuring players and entertainers from participating states. These integrations can create meaningful experiences rather than relying exclusively on traditional in-stadium advertising.

For media and streaming partners, the concept also creates a broader content opportunity. The competition itself provides the stakes, while state rivalries, player stories, entertainer appearances, behind-the-scenes access, and fan reactions provide additional material to tell the story.

The same principle applies across digital platforms. Content can begin well before first pitch and continue after the final out, giving fans multiple ways to connect with ABC even when they are not physically in the stadium.

These are opportunities to develop, not outcomes to assume. They will depend on the right partners, talent relationships, production plan, and commercial agreements. But the underlying idea is compelling: a live baseball event can generate stories and experiences that extend beyond the game.

Building Something That Can Grow

America’s Baseball Classic is targeting an inaugural four-state competition in 2028 featuring California, Texas, Florida, and Massachusetts, with an ambition to expand the field in subsequent years.

That initial footprint offers a chance to test the model, learn what resonates with fans, and develop an event experience that can be repeated and improved.

We want the baseball to be credible, the competition to matter, and the entertainment to be memorable. We want a family to leave saying the game was exciting, the atmosphere was terrific, and the entire experience was worth the price of admission.

Most importantly, we want fans to leave talking about it for months to come.

The opportunity is to create something that respects baseball's competitive roots while recognizing that a modern sportainment event can offer more than the game alone or a Harlem Globetrotters/Chippendales/Broadway version of it.

The future of baseball entertainment does not have to choose between competition and showmanship. It can deliver both.

America’s Baseball Classic intends to prove that professional baseball can remain fiercely competitive while becoming an even bigger gathering place for fans, families, performers, communities, and brands.

The best of each state belongs on the field. And the best of each state's entertainment culture could help make game day an experience all its own.

America’s Baseball Classic