The leadup to the Long Beach Coast’s inaugural season has felt like a rapid race to Opening Day.
Since the Pioneer League baseball team was announced in July 2025, things have steadily fallen into place. They were granted a home at Long Beach State’s Blair Field, and quickly assembled a roster of baseball legends to lead the team. There have been missteps too — the name decision and its alter ego, which fans are still complaining about — but as the Coast creeps closer to its June 2 home opening, excitement feels palpable in the city of Long Beach.
Kids donning the black and blue Long Beach Coast hats have been spotted playing in their neighborhood. Long Beach Regulators hats and T-shirts are sold out on the team’s website. A stacked promo calendar has been released, promising nights of both culture and pop-culture. And the roster isn’t even filled out yet.
“I’ve been selling air to some extent,” said Long Beach Coast President Ena Patel. “People have bought in without even experiencing a single thing.”
Corporate buy-in has been a slower rollout: Long Beach rapper Warren G is a minority owner of the team and the Long Beach Airport has been named a founding partner. But community is meant to be the guiding ethos of Long Beach’s new professional sports team, not million dollar investments. When Oakland Ballers co-founder Bryan Carmel first pitched the idea to the Long Beach public at a July council meeting last year, he spoke about a team based on community values.
“Long Beach has a long history, this field has a long history, it’s had quite a few teams come in, but I think that we’re going to be a different brand of baseball that they can be proud of,” Long Beach Coast Manager Troy Percival said.
Part of instilling that identity is acknowledging the sense of pride Long Beach residents already have in their city. From music and art to sports and cultural significance, there is no shortage of the joy residents feel claiming Long Beach. And the bar is high to be included as part of that community.
“I think just given Long Beach, how different of a city it is, how much pride it has, and such a rich sports history and specifically in baseball too, we couldn’t think of a better market to launch a team in,” Patel said. “And I think that the support from the city and the people of Long Beach have kind of validated that for us. They’re very supportive and on board once you’re able to kind of build their trust and they really get a sense of who you are, what you’re trying to do and how you want to actually create something that belongs to the city and the people.”
Patel’s background is one of community-building and culture-defining — not culture creating, an important distinction. She has helped bring two soccer clubs to anticipating fans: Los Angeles’ Angel City FC in the National Women’s Soccer League and Charlotte FC in Major League Soccer. Just like in Los Angeles and Charlotte, her approach is to “create something that is reflective of Long Beach, not redefining it.”
A large part of that is affordability, ensuring no one is priced out of Long Beach Coast games. Prices for the June 2 home opening range from $13 behind first and third bases to $47 field level seats. There’s also seven $2 Tuesday nights on the 2026 calendar, sandwiched between Filipino Heritage Night, Native American Heritage Night, a Sublime celebration and scattered Regulators Nights.
The West Coast rap and G-funk-centered evenings are still in the works, Patel said, but on the table: block parties, live performances and limited edition merchandise. Coast and Regulators games should feel like they’re for everyone, from North Long Beach residents to those living along the shoreline. That means a lot of pivoting.
“It’s like we’re trying to build a plane and fly it at the same time,” Patel said. “That means being able to be flexible, being nimble, and being able to kind of learn about what the community wants and being able to kind of pivot and execute on that.”
Patel knows firsthand the community-building power of sports. She was raised by immigrant parents and bonded with her father over various American pro sports leagues. Her passion led to a scholarship to play soccer at USC. Patel fondly remembers every weekend consumed by collegiate sports, either playing or attending.
She was at USC during the Pete Carroll era, when the now-NFL coach transformed the Trojans into a national powerhouse.
“For a long time it was like, ‘I don’t know what it feels like to lose,’” she recalls.
The winning mindset endures throughout the front office. Since retiring from the Major Baseball League (MLB), Percival has instilled his brand of baseball — which his players have called “fiery” — in the Pioneer League’s Idaho Falls Chukars.
He ended his first season with the Chukars with a 40-56 record, third-worst in the league. Percival admits now he underestimated the talent across the league, but made quick work of learning. With a nearly identical roster the following year, Percival brought the Chukars to a championship showdown against the Oakland Ballers, where they lost 3-2 in the best-of-five series.
Percival aims to be back in championship contention at the end of the Coast’s inaugural season. For the first time, he has a roster made up mostly of players who have experience in the Pioneer League. Many have already been coached by himself or his assistant coaches Jerome Williams and Troy Glaus.
“We didn’t want to be an expansion team that, you know, was scraping the bottom of the barrel for the first year and then trying to fight our way up,” Percival said. “I think we’ve got good enough players in place to contend right out of the gate.”
This feat has been made more difficult by changes in the MLB draft and the affiliate league. With a smaller draft class, and fewer players on the affiliate league rosters, competition has ramped up in the Pioneer League over the last two years. Players can also be called up to various leagues during their season, meaning a deep roster is integral to success.
“You get good enough players, you’re winning enough games — well two or three of your guys might get taken away and now all of a sudden you’re not quite the same team, and you can fall in the standings,” Percival said. “But in my opinion, that’s the goal of the entire league, is to get as many guys seen and have an opportunity to go into affiliate baseball.”
Both Percival and Patel agree, the ultimate win would be for the Coast to act as a pipeline for local baseball talent to thrive.
“My goal, even over the winning a championship, is to get as many of these players an opportunity to move on and move up in baseball,” Percival said.
