World Baseball Classic Announces 2023 Return, Schedule, Venues, Pools

The World Baseball Classic will be returning in March 2023.

Per David Adler of MLB.com, the tournament will begin with pool play on March 8 and end on March 21 with a championship game in Miami.

This year's format was also revealed:

Twenty teams are in this year's competition: the 16 teams from the 2017 iteration of the tournament plus four to-be-determined qualifiers. The original 16 are already split into four pools.

The United States, which is the reigning WBC champion, is in a pool with Mexico, Colombia and Canada. They will play in Phoenix from March 11-15.

The top two teams from each pool will advance to the quarterfinals, which will go down from March 15-18. The semifinals will take place on March 19-20. Miami and Tokyo will host the semis.

The WBC has taken place four times in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2017. Japan won the first two events, followed by the Dominican Republic and then the United States.