Sport Baseball No. of teams 10 Number of teams 10 | Founded 1961 Country International | |
Instances 2016 Senior League World Series | ||
The Senior League World Series is a baseball tournament for children aged 13 to 16 years old that began in 1961. Since 2002, the tournament has been held annually in Bangor, Maine. It is patterned after the Little League World Series, which was named for the World Series in Major League Baseball since 2002.
The Senior League World Series is one of nine tournaments sponsored by Little League International. Each of them brings baseball or softball teams from around the world together in one of four age divisions. The tournament structure for each division's World Series is similar to that used for the Little League Baseball World Series.
The Senior League World Series has been held at four different sites.
Tournament format
Unlike the Little League World Series — which has sixteen regions (eight in the U.S. and eight international) — the Senior League World Series has only ten regions.
The Senior League World Series is the only Little League division that places its nine regional champions (plus the host team) into two mixed pools that combine U.S. and international regions. A host team was re–introduced in 1990 in an effort to boost attendance. Because of the mixed pools, it does not have international and United States champions.
The six United States regions are:
The four International regions are:
The two best teams from each pool advance to the semi-finals. The semi-final winners play for the championship, televised on a network of ESPN. All semi-final and championship matches are single-elimination games.
From 2002-2014, a pool play format was used. Beginning in 2015, each pool will play a modified double-elimination format until only 2 teams remain in each pool. The two remaining teams in their respective pools will play in a single elimination semi-final match, with the two winning teams playing in the championship. Prior to 2002 the tournament was straight double-elimination. From 1990-2001 a placement bracket was used to determine third place.