Pac-12 Creates Baseball Championship Event in Arizona
George Kliavkoff doesn't waste any time.
A day following the announcement of a football and basketball alliance with the Big Ten and ACC, the two-month Pac-12 commissioner revealed a new conference baseball championship event to be held in Arizona.
The first Pac-12 Baseball Tournament, which will involve the league's top eight teams in a double-elimination format, will be held on May 25-29 at Scottsdale Stadium. The winner will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
However, the University of Washington has some serious work to do if it intends to qualify for this new tourney, after finishing 12th and last in the league standings with a 6-21 record, 20-30 overall.
“The Pac-12 Baseball Tournament is a marquee event that will serve to enhance the exposure of the conference’s baseball programs with competitive, late-season match-ups prior to NCAA Tournament selections,” Kliavkoff said in a statement.
Scottsdale Stadium is the spring-training home for the San Francisco Giants. The agreement to run the Pac-12 baseball event lasts through 2024.
Pac-12 baseball programs have combined to win 29 of the 74 College World Series championships, 15 more than the next closest conference. Six Pac-12 teams this past season earned NCAA Tournament bids, tied for the second-highest total in league history, including three regional hosts for the sixth time since national seeding began in 1999.
The conference has had a representative in all but seven College World Series fields since the championship began in 1947 and, in 39 of those championships, a Pac-12 team has finished either first or second.
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