Frontier League
| Current season, competition or edition: 2025 Frontier League season | |
| Classification | Independent baseball |
|---|---|
| Sport | Baseball |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Commissioner | Steve Tahsler |
| No. of teams | 18 |
| Countries |
|
| Headquarters | Grizzlies Ballpark 2301 Grizzlie Bear Blvd. Sauget, Illinois, United States |
| Continent | North America |
| Most recent champion(s) | Québec Capitales (3rd title) (2024) |
| Most titles | Schaumburg Boomers (4 titles) |
| Broadcaster(s) | TSN RDS TVA Sports |
| Streaming partner(s) | HomeTeam Network |
| Official website | https://www.frontierleague.com/ |
The Frontier League (FL; French: Ligue Frontière, LF) is a professional baseball league in North America composed of 18 teams – 15 in the United States and 3 in Canada. The FL is one of the eight independent baseball leagues in North America and is considered the oldest currently running independent baseball league in the world. The Frontier Cup, the oldest independent baseball trophy in North America, is awarded annually to the league playoff champion at the end of each season. The league is an official MLB Partner League since 2020, and the level of play is comparable to Minor League Baseball's Single-A level. The FL is headquartered in Sauget, Illinois.
The Frontier League was organized by several men who got together in the winter of 1992–1993 and decided to start an independent professional baseball league to serve the West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southeast Ohio areas. They believed they could bring professional baseball to areas that would never have a chance of affiliated professional baseball coming to their communities. The seed was planted and they named their project The Frontier League.
At its inception, the FL had eight teams, all in the United States. The league expanded to Canada in 1999, when the London Werewolves joined, and has since consisted of both American and Canadian teams. From 2008 to 2019, the league operated with 10 teams. The league added five new teams as a result of the Can-Am and Frontier Leagues merger, then increased to 16 teams by 2022, and to 18 teams due to the 2025 expansion. Jackson, Mississippi and Kinston, North Carolina were awarded an expansion franchise in 2025; it acquired the baseball assets of the Mississippi Braves and the Down East Wood Ducks, which folded, and established the Mississippi Mud Monsters and the Down East Bird Dawgs that increased the total number of teams to 18.
The FL is the fifth-highest grossing professional minor sports league in the United States by revenue, after the American Hockey League (AHL), International League (IL), the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball (ALPB). The league's headquarters have been in Sauget, Illinois since 2001, when the Gateway Grizzlies were formed. As of the 2024 season, the FL had players from 17 different countries.
The league's regular season is typically held from May to September, with each team playing 96 games. Following the conclusion of the regular season, 8 teams advance to the Frontier League playoffs, a three-round tournament that runs into late-September to determine the league champion. Since the league's founding in 1993, the Schaumburg Boomers have won the most combined FL titles with four, and the reigning league champions are the Québec Capitales, who defeated the Washington Wild Things in the 2024 Frontier League Championship Series.