The All-Star Game appears to finally be on its way back to Baltimore. USA Today insider Bob Nightengale reported Friday that while the Cubs are set to host the 2027 game and the Blue Jays are expected to land 2029, the Orioles are next in line for 2030.
It would be Baltimore's first All-Star Game since 1993, when Camden Yards hosted in just its second season. The Orioles' only other turn came in 1958 at Memorial Stadium.
Baltimore's timeline was never entirely in its own hands. Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters last month, ahead of this year's All-Star Game in Philadelphia, that the league's plans for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics had disrupted his usual approach to awarding the game.
Baltimore, Boston, and Toronto have all been viewed as favorites for a game soon, since none of the three has hosted since the 1990s — but if MLB and the players' union reach a deal to send major leaguers to the Olympics, the league intends to fold the All-Star break and the Olympic tournament into one roughly 11-day stretch of a crowded 2028 schedule.
That's part of why San Francisco's Oracle Park emerged as the expected 2028 host: keeping the game on the West Coast cuts down on travel for players participating in the All-Star Game to also play in the Olympics at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. On Friday, MLB officially awarded the 2028 All-Star Game to San Francisco.
"There's a lot of uncertainty about what we're going to do with '28," Manfred said last month.
With San Francisco taking 2028 for Olympics-related reasons, Baltimore's turn simply moved a year down the list behind Toronto.
The timing lines up with a stadium transformation years in the making. Camden Yards is in the middle of its largest renovation ever, financed in part by roughly $600 million in state-backed bonds tied to a new 15- to 30-year lease the Orioles signed with Maryland. Owner David Rubenstein has said he expects the work to wrap up around 2027, which would leave the ballpark freshly upgraded well ahead of a 2030 game.
Rubenstein has been pushing for this since his very first day owning the team. At his introductory event on Opening Day 2024, he said hosting the All-Star Game was something the new ownership group was "obviously interested in." The Orioles have since taken concrete steps toward that goal, including hiring business executive Catie Griggs away from Seattle, where she had helped organize that city's own All-Star Game.
Local officials have echoed the push. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has said the city is "fully supportive" of hosting the game again, and Maryland's "Moonshots" economic initiative has specifically listed landing the All-Star Game as one of its goals for attracting major sporting events to the state.
Nothing is official yet — MLB has not confirmed a 2030 host, and teams don't formally apply for a specific year. But with the Orioles among a shrinking group of franchises that haven't hosted the game in decades, and a newly renovated ballpark to show off, Baltimore's turn looks close at hand.