The WBSC Premier12 is the international

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

tournament organized by the

World Baseball Softball Confederation World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC; french: Confédération internationale de baseball et softball) is the world governing body for the sports of baseball, softball, and Baseball5. It was established in 2013 by the merger of the Inter ...

(WBSC), featuring the 12 highest-ranked national baseball teams in the world. The first tournament was held by

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in November 2015. The second tournament,

2019 WBSC Premier12 The 2019 WBSC Premier12 was an international baseball championship featuring the 12 highest-ranked national teams in the world, held by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC). It was the second WBSC Premier12 event. The championship ...

, was held in November 2019, and served as a

qualifier In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...

for two teams for

baseball at the 2020 Summer Olympics Baseball was featured at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, for the first time since the 2008 Summer Olympics. Six national teams competed in the tournament: Israel, Japan (host), Mexico, South Korea, the United States, and the Dominican Republ ...

Overview

From 1938 to 2011, the

International Baseball Federation The International Baseball Federation (IBAF; Spanish: ''Federación Internacional de Béisbol'', French: ''Fédération internationale de baseball'') is the former worldwide governing body recognized by the International Olympic Committee as ove ...

(IBAF), then the

governing body A governing body is a group of people that has the authority to exercise governance over an organization or political entity. The most formal is a government, a body whose sole responsibility and authority is to make binding decisions in a taken ge ...

of baseball, considered the

Baseball World Cup The Baseball World Cup was an international tournament where national baseball teams from around the world competed. It was sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF). Along with the World Baseball Classic, it was one of two activ ...

to be the sport's major world championship. Following the 2011 version of the event, the IBAF chose to discontinue the tournament in favor of the

World Baseball Classic The World Baseball Classic (WBC) is an international baseball tournament sanctioned from 2006 to 2013 by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and after 2013 by World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) in partnership with Major Leagu ...

. In 2005 the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

(IOC) announced that baseball and

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

would be removed from the

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

beginning in 2012. Thereafter, the IOC also officially reclassified baseball and softball as two different disciplines of the same sport. In 2013, the IBAF merged with the

International Softball Federation Map of member states., 400px, right The International Softball Federation (ISF) is the international governing body for the sport of softball with its world headquarters and training centre at Plant City, Florida. The ISF is a non-profit corporat ...

to create the

(WBSC). On 27 November 2014, the WBSC announced the creation of the Premier12 tournament, calling it "the new flagship pro baseball nations championship," which would be held every four years. It was viewed as a event to fill-in the calendar in place of the Baseball World Cup, since the

took its place and an attempt to boost baseball's bid for inclusion in the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. The WBSC proposed that, if baseball did return to the Olympics for 2020, the 2019 WBSC Premier12 be used as a qualifying tournament.

Participants

The field of the tournament consists of the 12 best national teams in the world according to the most recent

WBSC World Rankings The WBSC World Rankings is a ranking system for national teams in baseball and softball. The teams of the member nations of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), baseball's world governing body, are ranked based on their tournament re ...

Results

Medal table

Theme music

* Heroic Charge (

Bryce Jacobs Bryce Jacobs (born Bryson Kenneth Jacobs) is an Australian composer, producer and musician, most famous in the composing world for his style that uses classical orchestral techniques and electronica elements, but highly infused with guitar and vo ...

)

References

External links

IBAF Congress approves new Format of International Tournaments
Official IBAF Website
‘Premier12’ Elite Baseball World Championship to be Launched in 2015
Official IBAF Website
Mundial de Béisbol Premier 12
Resultado de los juegos y estadísticas. {{Main world championships Premier 12 Quadrennial sporting events Recurring sporting events established in 2015

Premier12 The WBSC Premier12 is the international baseball tournament organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), featuring the 12 highest-ranked national baseball teams in the world. The first tournament was held by Taiwan and Japan i ...