Little League World Series 2026: Schedule, Brackets and How to Watch
The 79th Little League Baseball World Series runs August 19-30, 2026 at the Little League International Complex in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Twenty teams (10 from the United States, 10 international) play separate double-elimination brackets before the two survivors meet in the championship game on August 30. Every game airs on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC (littleleague.org, espn.com).
The context
The Little League Baseball World Series returned to South Williamsport, Pennsylvania on August 19, 2026 for its 79th edition, and it runs through the championship game on Sunday, August 30. Twenty teams are in the field: 10 that came through United States regional tournaments and 10 that won their international regions. For 12 days the Little League International Complex becomes one of the most-watched sports venues in the country, with every single game carried live on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC.
The format is the part most casual viewers get wrong. This is not one 20-team bracket. The United States teams and the international teams are kept apart in two separate modified double-elimination brackets, which means an early loss is survivable: a team has to lose twice to go home. Those two brackets run in parallel all week and produce a United States champion and an International champion on Saturday, August 29. Only then do the two sides meet, once, in the championship game on August 30. That structure guarantees the final always pits an American team against an international one.
The two ballparks have distinct jobs. Howard J. Lamade Stadium, the one with the grass berm beyond the outfield fence where thousands of fans watch sprawled on the hill, hosts all of the United States versus United States games, a pair of International versus International matchups, the third-place consolation game and the final itself. Little League Volunteer Stadium, the smaller park next door, takes the rest of the International bracket. Lamade’s listed seating is around 10,000, but the berm routinely pushes the actual crowd several times higher for marquee games.
Because the participants are children, ages 10 to 12 as of August 31, the rulebook looks different from the professional game. Games are six innings, not nine. A 10-run lead after four completed innings ends things early. And pitchers work under hard pitch limits, 75 for 10-year-olds and 85 for 11- and 12-year-olds, with mandatory rest days scaled to workload, plus a rule barring anyone who catches four or more innings from pitching later that day. Managing a rotation through a double-elimination bracket under those constraints is a real strategic puzzle, and it is often what separates the teams that reach the final weekend from the ones that do not.
Opening day set the tone on August 19: Latin America edged the Caribbean 2-1, the Northwest blanked the Southeast 2-0, and Asia-Pacific handled Canada 7-0. With the brackets still wide open in the first week, the schedule builds steadily toward the two bracket finals on August 29 and the title game on August 30. Live brackets, times and scores are published by Little League and ESPN throughout the tournament.