Little League Region Expansion (Full News Article)


SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT — Little League International has realigned its regions in the United States in line with its decision to expand the world series in South Williamsport from 16 to 20 teams beginning in August 2022.

The world’s largest youth sports organization Friday also announced the rotation among Cuba, Panama and Puerto for two annual automatic international berths in the series.

Cuba, which has never had a team in the series, will get the automatic berth in 2023 and 2024. Next year, Panama and Puerto Rico will get direct entries.

Under the new alignment, Pennsylvania remains in the Mid-Atlantic region with Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

New York and New Jersey have been moved into the new Metro Region along with Connecticut and Rhode Island from the New England Region.
Also new is the Mountain Region that is comprised of Montana and Nevada from the Northwest Region and Utah and Nevada from the West.

The 75th world series will be played next Aug. 17-28. It will be the first time in three years international teams will participate.

The series was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and only U.S. teams participated this year.

The rotation of the three direct-berth international teams was done by random draw, Little League said.

Cuba, Panama and Puerto Rico have the largest number of leagues outside those countries that already receive direct entry.

Cuba in 2019 sent its first team to the Caribbean Region Tournament, advancing to the championship game before falling to the eventual world series LBWS International Champion, Curaçao.

The world series expansion was scheduled to occur this year but it was postponed because of the pandemic. However, the upgrade of facilities continued.