About the World Baseball Classic

Giant ball with WBC logo outside Marlins stadium. (Photo Latino Sports)

Globe’s Got Game: The fifth installment of the biggest international baseball tournament in the world brings many of the best players on the planet together to compete for their home countries and territories. Japan won the first two versions of the tournament, taking home trophies in 2006 and 2009. In 2013, a dominant Dominican Republic squad did not lose a game, going 8-0, in winning the title. Then, in 2017, the United States won it all. Almost 3.3 million fans from all over the world attended WBC games over the first four installments. This one-of-a-kind tournament was created to serve as a platform for increasing baseball’s worldwide exposure, attracting new fans and players to the universal game of baseball.

Since its debut, the World Baseball Classic has shown continued growth across the international stage, showcasing 16 different countries and territories in both 2006 and 2009. In 2013, a new Qualifier round was introduced. A total of 12 new countries were invited to participate in the Fall 2012 event along with four teams from the 2009 tournament that were required to re-qualify for the 2013 Classic, to fill another 16-federation field. The Qualifying Round returned for the 2017 edition of the WBC, leading to the first-ever WBC berths for the national teams of Colombia and Israel. For the 2023 edition, the field expanded to 20 – with all 16 countries that participated in the ‘17 WBC returning, along with four additional teams from the Qualifying Round. National teams of Great Britain, Nicaragua and the Czech Republic each received a first-ever WBC berth, and Panama qualified to return for the first time since 2009.

There are more Latin American teams in the World Baseball Classic than there were in the most recent World Cup, even with 12 fewer teams overall in the WBC.

The competitive format of the 2023 World Baseball Classic will feature 10 Round Robin games per pool during the First Round, with the top two teams from each pool advancing to the single-elimination bracket, consisting of four quarterfinal games in the Second Round followed by three single-elimination games in the Championship Round.