Little League World Series - Qualifying Tournaments

Qualifying Tournaments

In the summer months leading up to the Little League World Series, held each year in August, Little Leagues around the world select an All-Star team made up of players from its league. It is these All-Star teams that compete in district, sectional and/or divisional and regional tournaments, hoping to advance to Williamsport for the Little League World Series. How many games a team has to play varies from region to region. In the United States, the tournaments at the lowest (district) level lack nationwide standardization. Some use pool play or double elimination, while others use single elimination.

In the United States, the fate of district winners varies widely from state to state. In some larger states such as Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and California, the district winners advance to one of many sectional tournaments. The winners of each sectional tournament then advance to a state or divisional tournament, the latter only being held in Texas and California and are similar to the state tournaments held in less densely populated states. Most smaller states lack competition at the sectional level and go straight from district to state tournaments. A handful of states are composed of only one district, and the district champion is the automatic state champion.

With 4 exceptions, every state as well as the District of Columbia crowns a state champion, and sends that team to represent it to one of eight regional tournaments. The exceptions involve California, Texas, and the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. Because of their large geographic and population sizes, California and Texas send two representatives to their regional tournament; Northern California and Southern California in the West region tournament and Texas East and Texas West (whose areas encompass more than the geographical areas of East Texas and West Texas, splitting roughly along the I-35/I-37 corridor) compete in the Southwest region tournament. However, North Dakota does not have any towns who play through Little League; the Dakotas have one district spanning the two states, and its winner becomes the joint champion and advances to the Midwest region tournament.

The state champions (as well as the Northern California, Southern California, Texas East, Texas West and Dakotas champions) compete in one of eight different regional tournaments. Each regional tournament winner then advances to the Little League World Series. See for a comprehensive breakdown of current and historical US regional tournament locations, participants and results.

Other countries and regions pick their own way of crowning a champion. Little League Canada holds tournaments at the provincial and regional level to field five champions at the national tournament: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, the Atlantic Provinces, and the Prairie Provinces. The host site of the national tournament varies from year to year, and the host team gets an automatic berth as the sixth team. The tournament is played as a round robin and uses the page playoff format. The winner of the national tournament earns the right to represent Canada at the Little League World Series.

The Little League World Series consists of 16 teams—8 from the United States, and 8 from other countries. Prior to 2001 there were eight teams in the LLWS: four U.S. teams (Central, South, East, and West) and four international (Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Far East). It should be noted that in 1975 there were only four teams in the LLWS, all from the United States. The international teams returned in 1976.

From 2001 to 2009, the 16 teams were divided into two brackets, the United States Bracket and the International Bracket. Each team was then randomly assigned to one of two "pools" in their respective bracket. In the opening days of the tournament, the teams competed round robin within their own pool. The top two teams in each pool advanced to the semifinal of their bracket, where the first place team from one pool competed against the second place team from the other. The respective winners advanced to play in either the United States or International Final. The U.S. champion and the International champion advanced to compete in the Little League World Series Championship Game.

On April 14, 2010, Little League announced that starting in 2010, round robin play would be replaced by a double-elimination bracket in each pool. The winners of each pool would advance to single elimination US and International Championship games, and the winners of those games would advance to the World Championship game. Every team would play a minimum of three games: the four teams that lost their first two games would cross over and play U.S. vs. International games.

On June 16, 2011, it was announced that the double-elimination format had been modified. The pools were eliminated in favor of placing the eight U.S. teams in one bracket, and the eight International teams in another bracket. The tournament remains double-elimination until the U.S. and International Championship games, where it becomes single-elimination. (That is, if the team that advances through the winner's bracket loses the championship game they are eliminated and the teams do not play a rubber game.) Each team still plays a minimum of three games, playing a "crossover" (U.S. vs. International) consolation game if eliminated after their second game.

The eight regional tournament winners which compete in the United States Bracket of the Little League World Series, as well as the states those regional champions could possibly hail from are as follows:

• New England (ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT)
• Mid-Atlantic (PA, NY, NJ, MD, DC, DE)
• Midwest (ND/SD, NE, KS, MN, IA, MO)
• Great Lakes (MI, WI, OH, IN, IL, KY)
• Southeast (VA, WV, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, TN)
• Southwest (MS, LA, AR, TX East, TX West, OK, CO, NM)
• Northwest (AK, WA, OR, ID, MT, WY)
• West (AZ, NV, UT, Northern CA, Southern CA, HI)

The eight divisions which compete in the International Bracket, as of the next LLWS in 2013, are as follows:

• Asia-Pacific and Middle East
• Australia
• Canada
• Caribbean
• Europe and Africa
• Japan
• Latin America
• Mexico

Prior to 2008, instead of two separate geographic regions, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa held two coterminous regions:

• Europe–Middle East–Africa (EMEA)
• Transatlantic

The Transatlantic and EMEA regions were geographically identical. Leagues from the Transatlantic region generally consisted of children and other dependents of American expatriates, typically Armed Forces personnel, international organization members, and oil company workers (such as the team representing the Saudi Aramco Residential Camp in Dhahran, which advanced to the World Series 19 times through 2007, including all the tournaments from 2001 through 2007). The leagues within the "EMEA" region consisted of players native to the league's own country. Representative teams for the Trans-Atlantic region had to have at least 51% nationals of Canada, the U.S. or Japan, while teams for the EMEA region could have no more than three players from those three countries.

Teams in the reorganized Europe and MEA regions did not have nationality restrictions, as evidenced by the 2009 series. In that year, both regions were won by teams made up primarily of children of American expatriates. Europe was represented by a team from Ramstein Air Base, a United States Air Force base in Germany, while MEA was represented for the second time in its two-year existence by the team from the Saudi Aramco camp.

On August 29, 2012, Little League announced a major realignment of the international regions:

• Australia will leave the former Asia-Pacific Region and receive an automatic berth in the LLWS. Australia has now become the fourth-largest country, and the largest outside North America, in Little League participation.
• The former MEA (Middle East–Africa) Region will be disbanded.
• Middle Eastern countries, except for Israel and Turkey (see below), will be placed in the former Asia-Pacific Region, which will be renamed the Asia-Pacific and Middle East Region.
• African countries will be placed in the former Europe Region, which will be renamed the Europe and Africa Region. Israel and Turkey will remain in the renamed Europe and Africa region; they had been in the former Europe Region as members of the European zone of the International Baseball Federation.