Perfect Game organizes the annual WWBA World Championship tournament. It brings together the top high school baseball talent in the country, which provides for the highest level of competition within the amateur baseball ranks. Perfect Game operates hundreds of tournaments on a yearly basis, and the WWBA World Championship is the most prestigious of them all.
When there’s a high concentration of talent, you’ll often find scouts. Every year the tournament attracts over 700 college baseball coaches and MLB scouts. This event offers the highest exposure levels in all of amateur baseball. Not every team can join this tournament though. While it’s mostly an invite-only event, there are 7 spots available for teams to qualify through preliminary Perfect Game tournaments. In total, there is a maximum of 85 teams, with well over 200 teams hoping for an invite.
Here are a few additional details about the WWBA World Championship:
- The 2020 tournament runs from October 8th through the 12th.
- Weather permitting, every team in attendance is guaranteed to play at least four games
- Players must be 2021 graduates or younger
- Wood bat only (WWBA stands for World Wood Bat Association)
- All hotel reservations must be made through Perfect Game
- The entry fee per team is $3,000
WWBA World Championship Facilities
The Roger Dean Complex in Jupiter, Florida hosts the WWBA World Championship. The Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals share Roger Dean for Spring training. The multi-purpose facility serves as a spring training complex, minor league stadium for the Grapefruit league, and finally the host of the WWBA World Championship in early October.
The complex contains 13 baseball fields on site which makes it suitable for a large tournament. The fields are located in one central location, making things easier from a coordination and travel standpoint. While Roger Dean Stadium seats around 7,000 fans, the other 12 fields have more of a full practice field look to them. As you would expect from an MLB training facility, the fields are top of the line with fantastic playing surfaces.
Some coaches and scouts in attendance rent golf carts for the duration of the tournament, so they can quickly navigate around the complex The games typically start at 8 am and continue throughout the day until about 10 pm. With the top baseball talent all in one place for four to five days, coaches and scouts try to utilize their time wisely. With there being 13 fields to navigate between, you’ll likely see hundreds of golf carts within the complex.
The Results
The upcoming WWBA World Championship will be the 22nd year that Perfect Game has organized and operated the tournament. Over the past 21 years, it has had a rich history of champions and individual participants. There have been 16,751 college commits, 5,392 drafted players, and 822 MLB players that have attended this event.
Those numbers are pretty astounding, and is further proof that this tournament provides a display of the top high school talent. Breaking those figures down further, it means that every year, of the 1,500 players in attendance, on average, 798 will be college commits, 257 will be selected in the MLB draft, and 39 will go on to play in the MLB.
With the amount of exposure players will get through this tournament, it’s easy to lose site of the championship that is at stake. The players and coaches don’t seem to forget that though. Their main purpose in attending this event is to leave as the top travel baseball team in the world. The hundreds of college coaches in attendance are an added benefit.