WBSC Premier12 presented by RAXUS: 200 days to go
The Premier12 2024 presented by RAXUS is the most important international baseball tournament of the year and will highlight the World Baseball Softball Confederation season. The tournament will open on Sunday, 10 November, 200 days from today.
World No. 2 Mexico, No. 3 USA, No. 6 Venezuela, No. 7 Netherlands, No. 10 Panama and No. 12 Puerto Rico will compete in Group A from 10 to 14 November at the Charros de Jalisco Pan American Stadium in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and the Santa Teresita Stadium in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico.
No. 1 Japan, No. 4 Korea, No. 5 Chinese Taipei, No. 8 Cuba, No. 9 Dominican Republic and No. 11 Australia will play in Group B.
Group B will open on 13 November with Japan playing Australia at the Vantelin Dome Nagoya, along with games at the Taipei Dome and the Tianmu Stadium in Taipei City. The Taipei Dome and Tianmu Stadium will host the remaining 12 games through to 18 November.
The 12 participants qualified through the WBSC/KONAMI World Rankings.
Korea (champions in 2015, silver medallists in 2019) and Japan (bronze medallists in 2015 and champions in 2019) are the only teams to medal in both previous editions of the Premier12. The United States (silver medal in 2015) and Mexico (bronze in 2019) also have podium finishes to their names.
Record Media Coverage in 2019
With over 300,000 fans in attendance over 32 games, the second edition of the major international baseball tournament in 2019 saw Japan cement their status as the top-ranked baseball nation in the world.
Samurai Japan, a National Team powered by Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) stars and MVP Seiya Suzuki, topped rivals and defending champions Korea in the final at the Tokyo Dome before a crowd of 44,960. The star-power of the NPB players and viral moments on the field helped to generate record coverage, including 45,000 news articles in Super Round host nation Japan (almost double of the inaugural 2015 Premier12).
The announcement of Japan as the new Premier12 champions smashed the record at the time for WBSC’s most viral tweet, surpassing the previous record set in 2016 when WBSC tweeted that Olympic baseball and softball would make a history return at the Tokyo 2020 Games (approximately 10k retweets).
Several front-page headlines and thousands of news articles were also generated in Korea, as the Korean National Team and Korea Baseball Organization's (KBO) biggest players secured a silver medal and a spot in the Tokyo 2020 Games.
The WBSC Premier12 2019 also gave birth to the biggest win in Mexican baseball history, as described by media and officials in the country. Mexico’s 10th-inning bronze medal walk-off win against the USA booked the nation’s first-ever ticket to the Olympic Games in baseball.