World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic(WBC), also referred to as the World Classic is a quadrennial international baseball tournament sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the sport's global governing body, and organized by World Baseball Classic Inc., a partnership of the WBSC and Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), also in the U.S. The winning team is awarded the World Baseball Classic Championship Trophy. It is one of the two main adult baseball tournaments sanctioned by the WBSC, alongside the WBSC Premier12, but the only one to grant the winner the title of "world champion".

The tournament, proposed in 2005 by MLB and its players association, was first held in 2006 as an invitational event. It previously coexisted with Olympic baseball (until 2008) and the Baseball World Cup (until 2011) as tournaments sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation, the predecessor to the WBSC. The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after the 2011 edition, when the WBSC accepted MLB's suggestion to make the WBC the officially-sanctioned world championship, on the condition that the Classic should have direct qualifications and follow international anti-doping rules.

After a three-year gap between the first two installments of the tournament, plans were made for the WBC to be repeated every four years following the 2009 event. The 2021 event was delayed to 2023 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; the 2026 event proceeded as originally scheduled. Japan is the only team to win the tournament multiple times, with back-to-back wins in 2006 and 2009, and a third win at the 2023 tournament.

The tournament is the first of its kind to have national teams featuring their best professional players from the top-level major leagues around the world, including MLB in the U.S. and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan. In addition to providing a format for the best baseball players in the world to compete against one another while representing their home countries, the WBC was created in order to further promote the game around the globe. The 2023 WBC was one of the most viewed baseball events in the world.