Miami’s loanDepot park again ready to be at center of World Baseball Classic
loanDepot park, home of the Miami Marlins, made history during the 2023 World Baseball Classic by being the first ballpark that was involved in every phase of a singular edition of the tournament — from pool play all the way to the championship.
The ballpark is set to do the same this season, with the 2026 World Baseball Classic formally beginning on Thursday and action at loanDepot park opening on Friday with games between the Netherlands and Venezuela (noon, Tubi) and Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic (7 p.m., FS2) to kick off a two-week run of high-end international baseball before the MLB season begins later this month. loanDepot park is one of four sites for pool play, one of two for the quarterfinals and the sole site for the semifinals and final.
loanDepot park had a successful run hosting the majority of the tournament in 2023. During that 2023 tournament, loanDepot park hosted 15 games — 10 in pool play, two quarterfinals, the two semifinals and the championship game — with a combined announced attendance of 475,269 for an average of 31,684.6 fans per game. Nine of the 15 games had more than 35,000 people, including 36,098 for the championship between the United States and Japan — a matchup that could potentially happen again with the two countries on opposite ends of the bracket.
Now that they get to do it again, they want to build on that strong run from three years ago.
“It’s going to be at an all-time high,” Marlins vice president of operations and events Anthony Favata told the Miami Herald. “We’re going to deliver an even more successful tournament than we did in 2023.”
Favata and Marlins president of business operations Caroline O’Connor both stressed the importance of being logistically sound when hosting a multi-round tournament. During pool play, when most days feature doubleheaders, there’s a lot that goes into getting teams in and out of the ballpark and ensuring everyone has what they need to be prepared when the games begin.
“You have to be very coordinated to make sure that the players have a great experience in the venue and a safe experience,” Favata said. “We’ve taken a lot of those learnings and have applied them to the planning right now for 2026. We feel really good about what we’re going to deliver.”
Added O’Connor: “You have to be really nimble in a tournament format, particularly this one with it having four starting places, because you don’t know what the matchups are until the tournament progresses. So it’s just us being ready to say, ‘OK, who are the fans coming for this game? How do we get ahead of that? Be ready.’”
On the fan side of things, Favata and O’Connor said the Marlins have aimed to create “personalized experiences” for each matchup.
“We learned how important the culture-specific experience is for this event,” Favata said. “Whether it’s molding the fan experience toward those cultures, the music, all the elements that make up the game presentation. We saw what was successful and maybe what needed improvement from ‘23, and we’re already having those discussions to make sure that we’re well-equipped for this time.”
The tournament format
The 2026 World Baseball Classic will follow the same format as the 2023 tournament.
The 20 teams will be first be split into four pools of five teams. Those teams will play a round-robin tournament, with every team playing each other once. The top two teams from each pool will advance to the quarterfinals. The tournament is single elimination from that point until the championship.
The pools (with their host location) are as follows:
Pool A (Hiram Bithorn Stadium — San Juan, Puerto Rico): Puerto Rico, Cuba, Canada, Panama, Colombia
Pool B (Daikin Park — Houston): United States, Mexico, Italy, Great Britain, Brazil
Pool C (Tokyo Dome — Tokyo): Japan, Australia, Chinese Taipei, Czechia, Korea
Pool D (loanDepot park — Miami): Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Israel, Netherlands, Nicaragua
Houston and Miami will host the quarterfinals, with Houston the site for the teams advancing from Pools A and B and Miami the site for teams advancing from Pools C and D.
Olympic stakes
In addition to crowning a champion for the tournament, the World Baseball Classic will also have an impact on determining the field for the baseball tournament at the 2028 Summer Olympics, which will be hosted by Los Angeles.
By the time the tournament is over, half the six-team field for the Olympics will be decided.
The United States, as the host country, gets an automatic bid so it is already in. The next two highest-finishing teams from the Americas in the World Baseball Classic will secure spots in the field as well — meaning nine teams (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Nicaragua) are vying for two guaranteed spots.
The next two teams — one from Asia, one from Europe or Oceania — will qualify through the WBSC Premier 12 event in November 2027. The final spot will be granted at a to-be-determined final qualification event held no later than March 2028.
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