Marlins want to bring 'year-round programming' to Miami with Choque de Gigantes, more events

[Kevin Barral]

Miami Marlins president of business operations Caroline O'Connor reacts to the tournament and previews what's next for loanDepot park.

MIAMI—In the midst of Sunday's Choque de Gigantes championship game, Miami Marlins president of business Caroline O'Connor spoke to the media about her takeaways from the inaugural year of the international winter ball tournament.

"We're very excited with the first year of the tournament to have such a turnout," said O'Connor. "We've had a lot of fun, a lot of new fans through the ballpark and we're really excited about connecting people with teams from their countries and bringing the communities."

Choque de Gigantes included six games over the last three days. Friday night's matchup between Navegantes de Magallanes and Leones del Caracas had an announced crowd of 31,508, larger than any 2024 Marlins home game with the exception of Opening Day. However, attendance dropped dramatically from there to 7,356 on Saturday night and 5,576 on Sunday night despite Magallanes advancing to the championship and ultimately winning it.

"We want to build this into something special," O'Connor said. "We saw the success of the World Baseball Classic and the Caribbean Series...We just love bringing the community into the ballpark and giving them reasons to celebrate the wonderful game of baseball."

In addition to Magallanes and Caracas (both from Venezuela), the participating teams included Estrellas Orientales (Dominican Republic), Criollos de Caguas (Puerto Rico), Cardenales de Lara (Venezuela) and Cangrejeros de Santurce (Puerto Rico).

In future Choque de Gigantes tournaments, O'Connor would be open to having new teams come play if possible.

"We have a wonderful relationship with the Caribbean Baseball Confederation," said O'Connor. "They're great partners to us and we sat down, had conversations about what teams would be available, what would a tournament look like and we plan to continue those discussions and continue to have strong partnerships...We really want to bring Caribbean baseball into this ballpark and really bring a year-round programming—including baseball—to loanDepot park."

O'Connor announced that the 2025 edition of Marlins FanFest will take place on Saturday, February 8. FanFest has typically been held on Saturdays, but last year, it was moved to a Friday instead and attendance suffered as a result.

In terms of non-Marlins events, Monster Jam makes its annual visit on January 25-26. O'Connor shared that the Savannah Bananas will be back on March 1-2. Their visit to Miami last month attracted a sellout crowd.

Regular season baseball returns—and the Clayton McCullough era begins—when the Marlins host the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday, March 27 at 4:10 pm.

View full article