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The World Baseball Classic is once again upon us. This year's tournament will mark the first WBC since 2017. Originally scheduled to take place in 2021, the tournament was postponed due to COVID-19 concerns.
The tournament is set to start on March 8 and conclude on March 21. It will feature a total of 20 teams and take place across a variety of venues in Taiwan, Japan and the USA. The teams will be divided into four pools to commence the first round.
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"The 2023 World Baseball Classic schedule has been announced. The finals will be held in Miami and it's been expanded to 20 teams." - JJ Cooper
All of the games in the 2023 WBC will be aired exclusively on Fox Sports and its family of networks, such as Fox Sports 1. Fans will be able to watch the games in Asia on Fox, provided they don't mind waking up early in the morning.
Luckily for fans based in the USA, their team will be playing their first four games of the tournament in Phoenix, Arizona. This means that fans watching in the continental USA will not be subject to odd game times, provided they are not interested in watching the first stage games in East Asia.
Team USA will be captained by Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout, who is making the first WBC appearance of his career. The stacked USA side also boasts talent by way of players like Mookie Betts, Trea Turner and Paul Goldschmidt.
Other contenders include teams like Japan and the Dominican Republic. Japan, who have more WBC championship wins than any other nation, will feature pitcher-hitter star Shohei Ohtani in his first WBC.
In all, there will be 47 total games played in the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The final will take place on March 23 at LoanDepot Park, home of the NL East's Miami Marlins.
"FOX Sports becomes the exclusive home to the 2023 World Baseball Classic! All 47 games during @mlb's premier international tournament are set to air across the FOX Sports family of networks." - FOX Sports: MLB
The World Baseball Classic will give fans their first taste of international baseball in years
The wealth of MLB talent in this tournament may be of the highest caliber ever. It has now been six years since the last such international baseball exposure, and fans will be as ready as ever for it.
