The 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), an international

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professiona ...

tournament, is set to be the fifth iteration of the

World Baseball Classic The World Baseball Classic (WBC) is an international baseball tournament sanctioned from 2006 to 2013 by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and after 2013 by World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) in partnership with Major Leagu ...

. It was originally set for 2021 (as per tradition to hold the event every four years), but was canceled in May 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. It was later announced that

qualifications Qualification is either the process of qualifying for an achievement, or a credential attesting to that achievement, and may refer to: * Professional qualification, attributes developed by obtaining academic degrees or through professional exper ...

for the Classic would start in September 2022, as agreed by

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL) ...

(MLB) and the

Major League Baseball Players Association The Major League Baseball Players Association (or MLBPA) is the union representing all current Major League Baseball players. All players, managers, coaches, and athletic trainers who hold or have held a signed contract with a Major League c ...

(MLBPA). The tournament is being expanded from 16 to 20 national teams, with all teams that participated in the 2017 edition automatically qualifying, plus four additional spots.

Qualification

In January 2020, the WBC announced the 16 national teams which participated at the

2017 World Baseball Classic The 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) was an international professional baseball competition, composed of 16 competing nations, held from March 6 to March 22, 2017. It was the fourth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. The first-round hosts ...

will automatically qualify for the tournament. A qualifying tournament was scheduled for March 2020 in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive ...

, United States to determine the last four teams. Twelve teams were split into two pools, and the top two teams in each pool would qualify. On March 12, 2020, Major League Baseball announced that the qualifying tournaments were postponed due to the

. The three debutantes—the Czech Republic, Great Britain and Nicaragua—make their very first appearance while Panama returns after missing out two World Baseball Classic appearances. Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the

WBSC World Rankings The WBSC World Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in baseball and softball. The teams of the member nations of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), baseball's world governing body, are ranked based on their tournament re ...

2023 World Baseball Classic qualification

Rosters

Venues

Four stadiums are planned to be used during the main tournament.

Pools composition

Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate positions in the

First round

Scheduled locations and dates are as follows.

Pool A

Pool A will be contested in Taichung during March 8–12.

Pool B

Pool B will be contested in Tokyo during March 9–13.

Pool C

Pool C will be contested in Phoenix during March 11–15.

Pool D

Pool D will be contested in Miami during March 11–15.

Second round

The top two teams from each first-round pool will advance to the second round, also known as the quarterfinals. These games will be contested in Tokyo and Miami during March 15–18. The eight teams will play in a single-elimination game.

Championship round

The championship round will be contested in Miami during March 19–21. The winners from each second-round game will advance to the championship round. The four teams will be placed into a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

Semifinals

Final

Television

In the

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, through the

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Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports ...

Fox Sports 2 Fox Sports 2 (FS2) is an American sports-oriented pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. The channel is based at the Fox Sports division's headquarters on the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City ...

Fox Deportes Fox Deportes (formerly Fox Sports en Español and stylized in all caps as FOX Deportes) is an American pay television network dedicated to broadcasting sports-related programming in Spanish, aimed at the Hispanic population in the United State ...

, Tubi and the Fox Sports App, holds the exclusive rights to the tournament.

References

External links

Official website
{{World championships in 2023 World Baseball Classic

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

Events in 2023