photo by: AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson

Fans sit on the outfield lawn to watch a spring training baseball game between the Texas Rangers and the Chicago Cubs, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, in Surprise, Ariz.

As the Big 12 prepares for its baseball tournament on Wednesday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, the conference is already looking ahead to a different host site next season.

The league announced on Monday morning that beginning next year, the event will take place at Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Arizona, which is the Phoenix-area spring training home of the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers.

“We are excited to continue our partnership with REV Entertainment as the Big 12 Baseball Championship moves to a world-class venue in Arizona,” Big 12 Chief Competition Officer Scott Draper said in a press release. “Surprise Stadium is a premier facility that will create a great atmosphere and experience for our student-athletes and fans.”

The westward movement for baseball comes as the league has held firm with its football championship at AT&T Stadium in Arlington and its basketball championships at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, through 2031. Big 12 football media days did briefly shift to Las Vegas last year before returning to the Dallas Cowboys’ practice facility this July.

Globe Life Field, for its part, has hosted the Big 12 tournament since 2022; before that, the event primarily took place at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City. REV Entertainment, which has overseen the tournament at Globe Life, will continue to operate the event when it moves to Surprise.

“Bringing the Big 12 Baseball Championship to Surprise Stadium represents an exciting new chapter in our partnership with the Big 12 Conference and the City of Surprise,” said Jared Schrom, REV’s senior vice president, in a press release. “We look forward to creating a new tradition in Arizona starting in 2026.”

Speaking to reporters later on Monday, KU baseball coach Dan Fitzgerald said he reacted to the news by looking at the weather and noticing it was 103 degrees in Arizona and “pretty nice inside of Globe Life,” but added that he does like the ballpark in Surprise.

“I think the big one for me is which place affords us the opportunity to put forth the best tournament,” he said.

His foremost concern is the continued development of the Big 12 Championship’s format.

Fitzgerald has previously mentioned that he did not support this year’s move from double to single elimination and that the league coaches had advocated for a 12-team pool play format, in line with the former format of the ACC tournament. In the ACC’s old model, four pods would feature three teams apiece playing two games, with the pod winners advancing on to single-elimination semifinals.

“I do think the pod format is the better tournament and hopefully it’s something we can work for in the future,” he said on Monday. “It’s a great format, it’s time-tested, and if you look at RPI and trying to protect five through eight in the standings — those are usually the teams on the bubble — the pod format’s really good.”

Fitzgerald said he thinks that cost savings and the ongoing changes to the world of college athletics were responsible for the ultimate adoption of a single-elimination model.

He did note that in the specific case of the current 2025 season, single elimination isn’t bad for KU “because we don’t have to overtax anyone for a regional.”

The Jayhawks open their Big 12 Championship run on Thursday at 4 p.m.