Thousands of people descent on Williamsport, Pennsylvania, each summer for the Little League World Series. This international event has grown from a mere tournament to a worldwide spectacle with hundreds of newspapers, television networks and photographers covering the event. Playing for the title on the final Sunday in August is the culmination of a process that begins months before.
District Play
Little League teams form in the spring and play regular schedules through June. Leagues within a specific geographic region are governed by a district. At the end of the regular season, each league assembles an all-star team of players, and it competes in the district tournament. Unpage Publications -- an unofficial Little League Baseball archival website -- reports that in some larger locations, area tournaments are conducted to thin the field down to the best five or six teams. The winner of the district tournament moves on to the next tier of play.
In more populated states, the district winners play in a sectional tournament of a much larger geographic area. The winner of each sectional heads to a statewide tournament, as do the district winners of less-populated states. A handful of states have only one district, which serves as a statewide championship.
State Tournaments
Each state conducts its own statewide tournament of district and/or section winners. According to Unpage, tournament play varies by state, with some playing single-elimination tournaments, while others crown winners of a best-of-three games playoff. As of 2010, two states -- California and Texas -- send a pair of winners from geographic divisions of their states, as they are much too large to be decided by one playoff. On the opposite side of the scale, North and South Dakota share a regional tournament berth. The District of Columbia, while not a state, also receives a berth in a regional tournament.
Regional Tournaments
The next step is the regional tournament. Little League Baseball crowns champions from eight regions at five sites. These tournaments in mid-August pit state champions against one another to determine who will advance to Williamsport. According to the 2010 Little League Baseball World Series Media Guide, most regionals use a double-elimination format to determine winners, while some use pool play followed by a single-elimination tournament.
World Series Tournament
The regional winners advance to the World Series. The double-elimination tournament pits American teams on one half of the bracket with international qualifiers on the other. Teams who lose one game can compete in a loser's bracket to advance. The U.S. champion faces the international winner on the last Sunday in August to crown the tournament champion.
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