The Premier12

The WBSC (World Baseball Softball Confederation) officially announced the inaugural Premier 12 Baseball Tournament earlier this week, a tournament that will see the top 12 national teams in the world face off against each other during a two week long event that will run from the 8th through the 21st of November. During the WBSC’s announcement, Taiwan and Japan were reviled as the co-hosts for this inaugural Premier 12, with the round robin phase as well as the quarterfinals to take place in Taiwan, and the semifinals, bronze medal and championship games to be held at the Tokyo Dome in Japan

Premier 12 Tournament Format: The Premier12 will consist of the top 12 Baseball Nations in the World according to the WBSC rankings. The Premier 12 National Teams will be split into two groups of six and begin the competition with a round-robin that will see each nation play five games (30 games in total). 

The top four nations from each group will advance to the next round, which begins the single-elimination knockout stages (quarterfinals, semifinals and gold-medal final). A bronze medal match will also be organized.

The Premier 12 will always be scheduled in the year preceding the Summer Olympic Games and could potentially serve as an Olympic qualifier, if included in the Olympics.

The four-year cycle will also allow National Federations to map out their activity, develop their National Team brands, and formulate strategies to climb up the World Rankings ladder by competing in WBSC sanctioned competitions.

“The idea for the Premier 12 after the World’s top baseball nations requested on a number of different occasions to be able to play on a world stage more than just once every four years,” Fraccari (President of the WBSC) said, “and thanks to the strong cooperation with these two Asian Nations we have been able to realize these requests.”