World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic. 16 of the best baseball-playing nations in the world, competing for 3 weeks for the title of "World Champion" for the next 3 years. The tournament has incredible potential, and only gets better every time it rolls around. However, its main purpose isn't to put on a prestigious playoff-style tournament. Its purpose is to promote the game of baseball, and the MLB, to a world wide audience. While choosing to market the tournament more as a regular event every four years, the MLB misses out on the tournament being the key to something way bigger.

See, the MLB has a few issues reaching the younger demographic of North American fans. Since the MLB has existed for such a long time, the tradition of unwritten rules hasn't lent itself to much change. And because of this, most fans of the MLB are 40+. Since the tradition of unwritten rules are so steep in the league, the only time exuberant play and emotion is allowed is during the Postseason and the World Series. And even then, it is still contained.

Now bring in the World Baseball Classic. A new form of baseball allowing exciting cultures (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Japan) to show the excitement of the game at full force. Rowdy crowds with unrivaled excitement fueled by national pride. As the tournament has gone on, even the United States national team has embraced this culture of loose and exciting baseball. This has cemented the WBC's own tradition. But not one of unwritten rules to be enforced, but one of an exciting party of baseball shown by the players on the field and the fans in the stands.

Since the WBC is still relatively young, it should be used as the MLBs channel to capture the 30-and-under market. If successful, attention will certainly translate to more attention to the MLB as well.

Now don't get me wrong, the WBC has more problems to fix in order to get to a higher level. For one, the tournament has to be moved from March to November/December. While the weather is awesome in March, the conflict with Spring Training stops too many players (specifically starting pitchers) from participating. Moving the tournament to the summer would out of the question. As the weather may be peak for baseball, and the players in peak form, the owners would never approve it. And players wouldn't be enthusiastic about playing international playoff baseball right before the stretch run in the MLB season. The entire month of November seems ideal for a tournament, as all almost players would be available AND injury risk would be at an all-time low. However, the best players would likely be physically and mentally exhausted from the MLB Postseason. Enter the mid-November/early December slot. The weather, realistically would be cold. But cold enough to remind fans of the MLB Postseason. Games would conflict with NFL and NBA games on the weekends, but the weekday slots are open for business. Primetime games would be played on the weekends to directly compete with the NFL/NBA. It's also early enough to have a buffer between the start of the season in case of injury.

The tournament format would stay in its regular format, for the most part. A simple 4 groups of 4, playing 3 round robin games within each group. Followed by the top 2 from each group advancing to the knockout round with 7 knockout games in mid-February to finish the tournament.

A huge fix that needs to be made first is hosting. The main tournament needs to be hosted in one or two nations. The hosting of games in Japan to Mexico in the same tournament does not work at all. For an event to get maximum views only works when the games are all taking place during the game day. Since it is baseball, it should be easy to follow MLB's 2017 Postseason schedule as a template, particularly the October 6th game day:

BOS @ HOU (1:07 p.m.) NYY @ CLE (5:09 p.m.) CHC @ WSH (7:33 p.m.) ARZ @ LAD (7:31 p.m.)

This example is perfect for the WBC. Four games a day, not too much to handle for the casual follower. A game for lunch time, a game for getting home, and the two primetime games for when the fans are off work and letting loose more. 8/16 teams would play every day, until the round robin finishes. Plus, the knockout round would start after the Super Bowl, so the semifinals and the final can be on the weekend.

Another big issue for the WBC is the fact that big name players don't participate in the tournament.
In the last WBC, we saw no Mike Trout, no Bryce Harper, no Aaron Judge, and no Clayton Kershaw. Those are just some examples of the problem. Now only the United States team has this issue. As all the stars from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela show up and field the best teams they can. I think the only way to convince Americans to play is by the aforementioned moving of the tournament and the party/playoff atmosphere that the tournament brings.

And finally, the lead up to the main event. As of now, hype leading up to the 2021 World Baseball Classic is non-existent. No marketing for it, no qualifiers, nothing. My change would be a two-year qualification phase before the main tournament. The United States, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela would get automatic spots in the main tournament because the teams are so far ahead of the others. The remaining teams would be organized by the following regions and play round robin within their region to qualify. (with the number of berths per region next to the region name):

Americas: (5)
- Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, Nicaragua, Brazil, Panama, Argentina

Europe Africa: (3)
- Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Czech Republic, France, Russia

Asia Pacific: (4)
- Japan, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, China, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Pakistan

Teams would play 3-4 qualifier games per season. Qualifiers would take place in February and November. Every team should play and equal amount of home and away games, with every team hosting home games in their own country, if possible. Some countries can't host (Brazil, Argentina, Pakistan, China, and 7 European teams), but depending on where they are located, they can host home games in either the U.S. or Japan.

With these changes, the tournament would last for 3-4 weeks in late November, with the semifinal and final games taking place in early December. The playoff-style atmosphere, coupled with less risk of injury, would compel star U.S. players to participate with the United States team. The one nation hosting would unify the games and make them easier to watch for the casual fan, with single game days and close game times. The expansion of qualifying would keep the hype for the tournament relatively high throughout the between years, and allow fans to have time to connect with the teams.