The 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), an international professional baseball tournament, is the fifth iteration of the World Baseball Classic. It began on March 8 and will run until March 21. The United States is the defending champion.It was originally scheduled to take place in 2021, four years after the previous event, but was canceled in May 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was later announced that qualifications for the Classic would start in September 2022, as agreed by Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA).