Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI), known for sponsorship purposes as Nike RBI is a youth baseball program operated by Major League Baseball. This youth initiative is designed to provide young people from underserved and diverse communities the opportunity to play baseball and softball. The program was created by John Young in 1989 in Los Angeles, and now serves more than 200 communities. In 2023, Nike, Inc. became the presenting sponsor.
Young, with the Professional Baseball Scouts of Southern California, organized 12 teams of 180 13- and 14-year-olds in 1989, the first year of the RBI program.[1]Darryl Strawberry and Eric Davis, African American baseball players from Southern California, devoted time and money to help the program.[2]
In April 2023, MLB announced that Nike had become the presenting sponsor for RBI.[7]
Structure
Teams compete in three divisions: the Junior Boys division (13 to 15 years of age), the Senior Boys division (16 to 18 years of age), and Girls Softball (up to 18 years of age).[8] League schedules run from May through August.[4] Teams compete in regional tournaments in order to compete in the RBI World Series, which began in 1993.[9] The RBI World Series is aired on the MLB Network and can be streamed on MLB.com, starting in 2010.[10]
RBI operates programs in more than 200 cities, with over 100,000 participants annually.[11] Programs run in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and South America.[12] MLB provides college scholarships to RBI participants.[13] A Junior RBI program serves children from the ages of 6 through 12, which was launched in 2009.[14]