Is the World Baseball Classic (WBC) for the United States and Japan? What looks like bracket reshuffling seemingly designed for a United States and Japan title showdown continues to stir controversy.

The ongoing 2026 WBC features 20 teams divided into four groups, followed by single elimination from the quarterfinals to decide the champion, a straightforward format.

Look closer, however, and there is an unusual condition attached to the quarterfinal bracket. If the United States and Japan both reach the quarterfinals, the two teams are arranged so that they will face each other only in the final.

In the quarterfinal bracket released before the tournament opened, each game is numbered 1 to 4. In the semifinals, the winners of quarterfinals 1 and 2 meet, and the winners of quarterfinals 3 and 4 meet.

Quarterfinals 1 and 4 are designated as matchups between teams advancing from Groups C and D, while 2 and 3 are matchups between teams advancing from Groups A and B. Because the United States played its group stage in Group B and Japan in Group C, the United States should be placed in quarterfinal 2 or 3, and Japan in 1 or 4.

However, this WBC specifies that if the United States reaches the quarterfinals, it will be assigned to quarterfinal 2 regardless of group stage placement, and that Japan will invariably be assigned to quarterfinal 4. Only the United States and Japan are subject to such conditions. As a result, if both teams make the quarterfinals, they can meet only in the final.

It is not that the bracket was altered mid tournament, but attaching such conditions only to the United States and Japan is inevitably unfair to other countries. The WBC operated under the same conditions in 2023, and the United States and Japan ultimately met in the final.

This type of WBC bracket controversy has long been an issue.

The inaugural 2006 tournament and the second edition in 2009 drew attention for a complicated format in which the same teams could face each other multiple times. As a result, even though Korea beat Japan twice in both 2006 and 2009, Japan ended up winning both tournaments, an unusual spectacle. Given that Major League Baseball (MLB) is at the center and many Japanese companies serve as global partners of the WBC, it can be seen as a structure that affords a degree of preferential treatment to the two countries.