Growth of Baseball5 sees WBSC approve expanded format for future World Cups
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Executive Board has approved the expansion of the WBSC Baseball5 World Cup and the WBSC Youth Baseball World Cup following the extensive growth of the sport globally and outstanding success of the inaugural tournaments.
Ahead of the second WBSC Baseball5 World Cup, held in Hong Kong, China from 7- 12 October, the WBSC has confirmed that future editions of the tournament and the WBSC Youth Baseball5 World Cup will increase from 12 to 16 teams.
The 16-team format will offer more opportunities to athletes globally to participate in the WBSC's premier Baseball5 tournaments with a minimal increase in costs for organisers with the number of spots available increasing from 86 to 128, and the size of the delegations from 120 to 160 people but the overall number of competition days reducing from six to five or four days. In addition to an increase in number of players, there will be 56 games played as opposed to 50 previously.
WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari hailed themove as a sign of the continued growth of Baseball5 and the impact that it hashad globally.
“The inaugural Baseball5 World Cup in Mexico and Youth Baseball5 World Cup in Turkiye were huge successes with participants from across the globe competing against each other in exciting games, played in great spirit," President Fraccari said. "We are delighted to confirm that following the second Baseball5 World Cup in Hong Kong, China next week, we will expand the tournaments to allow more Baseball5 athletes to compete in the biggest events.
“This is just the next step for Baseball5and we are excited to see how it continues to grow globally in the comingyears.”
The new format will see the 16 teams split into four groups with the top two finishers of each group advancing to a second group stage. The top four finishers of this second round will compete in the semifinals and the medal games, while the other teams will play to place from fifth to eighth.
During the meeting, the WBSC Executive Board also announced Mexico and Italy as the next hosts of the WBSC Youth Baseball5 World Cup and WBSC Baseball5 World Cup respectively.