WBSC confirms qualified teams, Wild Cards for The World Games 2025 in Chengdu, China
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) unveiled the qualified teams and wild cards for The World Games 2025 in Chengdu, China.
A total of eight teams will compete in each discipline, with the top six teams in the WBSC Women's and Men's Softball World Rankings at 31st December 2024 earning an automatic berth to The World Games 2025.
For the women's competition, World No. 1 USA; No. 2 Japan; No. 3 Puerto Rico; No. 4 Chinese Taipei; No. 5 Netherlands and No. 6 Canada have qualified for the multi-sport competition as the top six in the World Ranking, while No. 12 China will participate as host team. To grant continental representation in the global competition, the wild card for the women's softball competition has been awarded to No. 10 Australia, the highest-ranked team from Oceania.
In the men's side, the top six teams in the rankings have made The World Games, with No. 1 Argentina; No. 2 Australia; No. 3 Japan; No. 4 Canada; No. 5 Venezuela and No. 6 USA earning a berth in the tournament.
Since hosts China opted not to participate in the men's softball competition, two wild cards have been awarded to world No. 13 Singapore and No. 7 Czechia to grant continental representation.
Softball is one of two sports starting competition on 6 August - along with Floorball. Men's softball will be played from 6 to 10 August 2025, while the women's competition will be contested from 13 to 17 August. Therefore, softball will feature 10 competition days, more than any other sport in the programme.
Softball proved to be one of the most successful sports at The World Games 2022 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, with the women’s softball competition drawing a record-setting attendance for the entire tournament and a single event/game, while also boasting one of the youngest average ages for athletes at 25 years old.
Men's softball returns to The World Games programme after 44 years. The discipline featured in 1981 in Santa Clara, USA, in the first edition of the multi-sport event. The Chengdu 2025 Games will be the fourth edition for women's softball, having awarded medals in Santa Clara (USA) 1981, London (GBR) 1985 and Birmingham (USA) 2022. It also featured as an invitational sport at the Kaohsiung (TPE) 2009 and Cali (COL) 2013 Games.