MIAMI – The World Baseball Classic will return in 2023 and on Thursday the dates, venues and pools for the tournament were revealed.
South Florida will be right in the middle of all the fun.
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The fifth WBC will be played from March 8 to March 21 at several venues across the globe.
They will be loanDepot park in Miami, the home of the Miami Marlins, Chase Field in Phoenix, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Intercontinental Stadium in Taichung, Taiwan and the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan.
The field of teams will be expanding, with the 16 teams that participated in the 2017 WBC being joined by four teams yet to be determined.
Those four teams will have advanced from qualifying games that will be played from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5 at Armin-Wolf-Arena in Regensburg, Germany.
Once the WBC gets going, loanDepot park will become the first venue in tournament history to host games in all three rounds in the same year.
According to a press release from the WBC:
Pool D of the first round, which features 2017 Finalist Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Israel, the Dominican Republic and a winner from the 2022 Qualifier, will run from March 11th-15th. The North American quarterfinals, including the teams advancing from Pool C and D, will take place on March 17th-March 18th, while the Semi-Finals and Finals will be played from March 19st-21st.
“Along with our fans, partners and the entire South Florida community, we are honored Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have selected loanDepot park to host all three rounds of the 2023 World Baseball Classic,” said Marlins Chairman and Principal Owner Bruce Sherman in the release. “We look forward to welcoming fans from across the globe to loanDepot park to cheer on many of the top players in the game taking part in this prestigious event.”
The first round of the 2023 WBC will feature four different five-team pools in round-robin play.
The top two teams in each pool after round-robin play is complete will advance to the quarterfinals.
The top two teams from each quarterfinal pool will then move on to the championship round.
One of the quarterfinal pools and both the semi-final and final rounds will be played at loanDepot park.