The World Baseball Classic (abbreviated as WBC, or sometimes, The Classic) 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 League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) through the World Baseball Classic Inc. The winning team is awarded the World Baseball Classic Championship Trophy.
It was proposed to the IBAF and other professional baseball leagues and their players associations around the world by Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA). It is one of the two main senior baseball tournaments sanctioned by the WBSC, alongside the Premier 12 but the Classic is the only one which grants to the winner the title of "World Champion".
It previously coexisted with Olympic baseball (until 2008) and the Baseball World Cup (until 2011) as IBAF-sanctioned tournaments. The final men's Baseball World Cup was held in 2011, and it was discontinued in 2013, after an MLB suggestion to reorganize the international baseball calendar; WBSC accepted the suggestion after an executive meeting, giving the "World Champion" title to the WBC winner, on the condition that the Classic should have direct qualifications and follow international anti-doping rules.
It was first held in 2006 as an invitational event to which 16 countries were invited.
The tournament is the first of its kind to have national teams featuring professional players from the major leagues around the world, including Major League Baseball. In addition to providing a format for the best baseball players in the world to compete against one another while representing their home countries, the World Baseball Classic was created in order to further promote the game around the globe.
After a three-year gap between the first two instalments of the tournament, plans were made for the World Baseball Classic to be repeated every four years following the 2009 event. The third instalment of the Classic was held in 2013, and the fourth was held in 2017.
The World Baseball Classic was held five times from 2006 to 2023, with Japan, the Dominican Republic, and the United States winning the championship. Japan, as of the 2023 tournament, is the only team to win the tournament multiple times.
History
Past
The Baseball World Cup is the World Baseball Classic that existed before the classic game was made. This event started in 1988 and lasted until 2011. Between the existence of the World Cup, there used to be the Amateur World Series, which started in 1938 and lasted until 1986
The 1938 Amateur World Series was the inaugural Amateur World Series tournament. It was contested by Great Britain and the United States over a series of five games from August 13 to August 20 in England. It was won by Great Britain.
In the 2011 Baseball World Cup, Netherlands defeated Cuba in the final, winning its first title, and only the second ever for a European team, after Great Britain's win of the inaugural 1938 Amateur World Series.
In 2013, The World Baseball Classic is one of the two main senior baseball tournaments sanctioned by the WBSC, alongside the Premier 12 but the Classic is the only one which grants to the winner the title of "World Champion".
Founding
Modeled after the FIFA World Cup and organized in large part as a response to the International Olympic Committee's decision to remove baseball as an Olympic sport in 2005, the WBC has grown into a major sporting event worldwide. The tournament games often rank among the highest-rated sporting events in television history in various participating countries.
The World Baseball Classic is held during the month of March, coinciding with the spring training pre-season for most professional baseball leagues such as Major League Baseball (MLB), Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) or the KBO League. Venues are located in either indoor baseball domes or at outdoor baseball stadiums which have mild or moderately warm temperatures during early spring. Despite the absence of many elite MLB pitchers due to exposure or conditioning limits set by their club employers and insurance underwriting issues and non-standardization, the tournament continues to attract a star-studded field of elite baseball players, particularly among position players who are potent batters.