The Little League World Series Doesn’t Need to Expand
Incoming: structural difficulties and inevitable corruption.
On August 24, Little League Baseball announced that the Little League World Series (LLWS) will be expanding from 16 to 20 teams beginning in 2021.
Now, as someone who has written that the World Cup shouldn’t grow to 48 teams, argued that North American sports leagues might be too big, and even published an entire short story warning against March Madness expansion, I predictably don’t think that a 20-team LLWS is the greatest idea.
But before I make my case, let’s go through the changes coming to everyone’s favorite youth sports tournament.
These four new spots come in the form of two new United States regions and two international spots, meaning 10 U.S. and 10 international teams will now compete for the championship in Williamsport.
On the U.S. side, the Mountain region will include Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming, while the Metro region will feature teams from Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island.
Both new international slots will feature teams from the Caribbean. While currently just one spot in the tournament is allocated to the Caribbean, starting in 2021, two automatic spots will rotate between Cuba, Panama, and Puerto Rico, with the third team still getting a chance to qualify through the existing Caribbean tournament.
At first thought, the expansion to 20 teams might seem like a good idea, and a way to allow more kids to enjoy the amazing atmosphere that is the LLWS. This is the classic argument for expansion — the increase in opportunity to join in on the fun. Whether it’s for the FIFA World Cup, March Madness, or even just giving a city a new team, growth allows more people to take part.
It’s a legitimate point, and if things ended there, I wouldn’t have any problems with growing the LLWS. However, we would be foolish to think that the LLWS will stop at 20 teams. If they can pull that off, they’ll move to 24, and 28, and 32.
When you’re expanding, things get politicized quickly. Who will get the new regions? More teams mean more games — games that will be televised and bring in revenue. Injecting money into anything leads to a natural diminishing of moral values. I don’t want to see the LLWS become more focused on profit than the kids.
Little League has committed $15 million to renovate its campuses, which should enhance the experience and ensure a smooth transition. Still, I worry about the consequences of growing the tournament, especially with the already notable cheating scandals, such as with Danny Almonte or the Jackie Robinson West Little League.
If things are going to expand, I question the choices for the new regions. We should want the most diverse field possible. However, by creating even narrower American regions and feeding both new international spots to the Caribbean, we fail to do that.
Some of the new regions look incredibly weak. We now have a Northwest region consisting of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington and a Mountain region of Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. Somehow, these are two distinct regions, while all of Europe and Africa have to share one spot. Can’t we at least get a team from each continent?
From a strict gameplay perspective, having 20 teams doesn’t make any sense, either. The LLWS employs a double-elimination format with winners and losers brackets on both the U.S. and international sides of the bracket.
The current format works because the total number of teams — 16 — is a power of two. After the first game, winners can play winners, and losers can play losers. 2–0 teams can play each other, as can 1–1 teams. Everything makes sense.
With 10 teams on each side of the field, after the initial games, an 0–1 team will be forced to face a 1–0 team. Then, should the 1–0 team win, there will only be seven teams in that pool from the original 10, which leads to all kinds of matchmaking issues.
It remains to be seen what the solution to this will be. All we know is that Little League says the tournament will retain its modified double-elimination format while adding an extra day onto the schedule to accommodate the increased number of teams.
A 20-team Little League World Series causes structural difficulties for the tournament and only paves the way for increased expansion which goes against the values of Little League baseball.
We don’t need a larger tournament, and we don’t need to expose our children to such a high-stress, televised environment focused on wins and losses. That’s for the love of money, not the game.
Connor Groel is a writer who studies sport management at the University of Texas at Austin. He also serves as editor of the Top Level Sports publication on Medium, and the host of the Connor Groel Sports podcast. You can follow Connor on Medium, Facebook, and Twitter, and view his archives at toplevelsports.net
