CPBL welcomes its 36th season with 40,000 fans in Taipei Dome

The Taipei Dome welcomed its first full-house event of 2025 as a capacity crowd of 40,000 fans showed up at the opening game of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) season as the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions beat defending champions CTBC Brothers 8-0, as the two teams renewed their rivalry from the Taiwan Series 2024.

Hosts CTBC Brothers sent their ace Jose De Paula (10-5, ERA 3.05 in 2024; 23-8, ERA 2.57 vs. Lions in career) to the mound to open the season for the third time since De Paula made his debut with the Brothers in 2020.

Entering his sixth season with the Brothers, De Paula has been dominating and was named MVP of the Year twice (2020, 2021) and led the league in wins (2020, 2022), strikeouts (2020-2022), and ERA (2020, 2021) in addition to being named the Outstanding Player in the Taiwan Series in 2021 and 2024.

Meanwhile, Brock Dykxhoorn (8-4, ERA 2.58 in 2024, 10-8, ERA 2.94 vs. Brothers in career), also entering his 6th season with the Lions, got the nod from Lions manager Yueh-Ping “Daddy Pie” Lin to start the season for the first time in his CPBL career. Dykxhoorn previously was named Taiwan Series’ Outstanding Player in 2020, when the Lions defeated the Brothers in seven games.

The Lions struck first by scoring the first run of the game in the fourth on An-Ko Lin’s single in the first. Lions bats started another wave of offence in the sixth and eventually forced De Paula to exit the game in the sixth when the Lions added six runs on the scoreboard. An-Ko Lin’s solo homerun, first of the season, made him the most productive player on the offensive side with three hits and two RBI. Dykxhoorn pitched five and two-thirds shutoff innings en route to collect his first win of the season and was name MVP of the game.

After the opening night, all six teams in CPBL will see action on the second day of the season as the Brothers take on the Fubon Guardians at the Taipei Dome, the Rakuten Monkeys host the Weichuan Dragons at Taoyuan Rakuten Stadium, and the Lions face the TSG Hawks at Lions homefield in Tainan Stadium on Sunday.

Schedule & Broadcast

In 2024, the CPBL enjoyed a 53.6% total attendance growth with a record breaking 2.7 million plus fans, while the average attendance also saw a 28.07% increase to an all-time high at 7,684 per game. With the completion of the 40,000-seat Taipei Dome, the CPBL also saw 16 games with more than 20,000 fans, setting the record for the 35-year-old league.

A total of 360 games will be played among the six CPBL teams from March to October, followed by the post-season, which comprises of a playoff series and the Taiwan Series. All CPBL games can be watched through CPBL’s streaming service CPBL.TV while VideoLand Sports, DAZN, MOMO TV, ELTA TV and Sportcast will carry games for the 2025 season.

The CPBL, an associate member of the World Baseball Softball Confederation, was established in 1989 and inaugurated in 1990. The CTBC Brothers (formally known as the Brother Elephants) and the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions, both with 10 Taiwan Series titles, are the most successful clubs in CPBL history.