Rangers' Globe Life Field Will Host Future Big 12 Baseball Championships
ARLINGTON – The Texas Rangers and the Big 12 Conference have reached an agreement for Globe Life Field to host the conference's championship tournament from 2022 through 2024. To announce the agreement, Texas Rangers and Big 12 officials gathered together Wednesday morning for a press conference on the future playing surface of Globe Life Field.
"This is a thrill to be in this building and have a chance to see what it's going to become," said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. "We are so excited to have this in the DFW metroplex, but more excited to be a part of it in bringing our baseball championship here."
The Big 12 Conference currently holds their baseball championships at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City. The ballpark is the home of the Oklahoma City Dodgers, the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark will continue to host the tournament in 2020 and 2021 before it moves to Arlington.
"To have an opportunity to use a Major League ballpark that will be the best in class when it is completed, to have the thrill of young people participating in a Major League stadium, our coaches and student athletes are going to be over the moon with enthusiasm about this," Bowlsby said.
To help announce this occasion, Sean Decker, Texas Rangers Executive Vice President of Sports & Entertainment, was in attendance. Also in attendance were former Texas Ranger and Baylor University alum David Murphy and newly acquired Texas Rangers prospect and University of Oklahoma alum Steele Walker.
"While the World Series is and will always be the preeminent major event we're chasing at Globe Life Field, it's been our intent since the design of the building to bring world class sporting events to Globe Life Field outside of Rangers games," Decker said. "We couldn't be more thrilled to make our first announcement around sports to be the Big 12 baseball championship."
"We obviously play baseball at a very high level," Bowlsby said. "We've had more than 1,000 guys drafted since 1996 when the league started, including 43 in the first round. We've produced a lot of great baseball talent."
Included in that crop of talent is Texas Tech alum Josh Jung, who the Texas Rangers drafted in the first round of the 2019 MLB Draft last June.
Arlington previously hosted the Big 12 championships in 2002 and most recently in 2004. 20 of the past 23 baseball championships have been played in Oklahoma City. Tulsa hosted the event in 2015.
"We'd like to thank the commissioner and the Big 12 for all the work they put into this and their confidence in bringing the championship back to Arlington," Decker said. "We'd also like to thank the Dallas Sports Commission and the Arlington Sports Commission for bringing this event back to Arlington. We look forward to starting in 2022 and running through 2024 and beyond."
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