NCAA Division I Baseball Championship

The tournament is unique in that it features four tiers of competition, alternating between double-elimination brackets and best-of-three series. In fact, throughout the entire 64-team tournament, a team can lose a total of four games and still be crowned champions.

During team selection, sixteen teams are given "national seeds". The top eight of these teams automatically host a super regional if they advance past the regional round, assuming that they have the facilities to do so. Only 2 times has a national seed not hosted due to lack of proper facilities. As in other NCAA tournaments, conference champions (usually determined by a tournament) receive automatic bids, and the selection committee fills the remaining spots.

The first tier, called Regionals, consists of 16 locations that include four teams, seeded 1 through 4, competing in a double-elimination bracket. The 16 host sites are determined mostly by merit – most No. 1 seeds host – but are also contested by bids from schools guaranteeing the NCAA a certain amount of revenue from that regional. Host teams traditionally have a large advantage, although the home team for each game is determined by rule, so the host school sometimes plays as the visiting team. The winner of each regional moves on to the second tier, the Super Regionals.

Super Regionals are played at eight locations throughout the country and consist of the 16 surviving teams, matched up by predetermined regional pairings. National seeds 1-8 cannot meet each other in the super regional and are guaranteed to host. If the higher national seed in the bracket is eliminated in the regional stage, but the lower national seed advances, the super regional will be played at the national seeded team's field. If the two seeds are not national seeds, the Super Regional will be bid upon by the two competing teams. If the national seed wins the regional but is unable to host, the Super Regional is awarded to the other regional winner in its bracket. This scenario played out in 2015 when national seed Missouri State could not host a Super Regional because the minor league Springfield Cardinals, which have scheduling priority at the stadium where both teams play, were playing a home series at that time. The Super Regional was thus awarded to Arkansas. The two teams play a best-of-three series to determine who moves on to the College World Series. Although one school hosts all three games, the teams split home-team status in the first two games, with the host school batting last in the opening game and first in game 2. If a third game is needed, a coin toss determines home-team status. Florida State has lost five Super Regionals as host, but has also advanced to the College World Series five times under the current format.

The final eight teams meet in Omaha, Nebraska in the College World Series. The CWS mimics the earlier rounds, consisting of two double-elimination brackets of four teams each. Thereafter, the winners of each bracket meet in a best-of-three final. The winner of this final series wins the College World Series and is crowned the national champion.

Teams with at least 35 total appearances, through the ongoing 2019 tournament, are listed.

Since 1999, the NCAA has awarded eight teams with a national seed. These teams automatically host a super regional if they advance past the regional round, unless their facilities are considered inadequate by the NCAA and thus do not bid to host, or their home stadium is unavailable because of scheduling conflicts; in some cases, a team may share a stadium with a minor league professional baseball team, or if their stadium does not meet NCAA requirements, host the event at the professional team's stadium. The former was the case for Cal State Fullerton in 1999, as its ballpark lacked the required seating capacity and media facilities at the time. In 2015, Missouri State was unable to host because of scheduling conflicts with the minor-league team whose off-campus ballpark it used.

In 2018, the NCAA expanded the national seeds to 16 teams, guaranteeing the lower seed the super regional if the higher seed does not advance.

Gray Shade and Italics indicates team made the College World Series. Bold Italics indicates team won the College World Series.
1999–2008

2009–2018

2019–present

The highest single-game attendance for an NCAA Super Regional was at Dudy Noble Field, Polk-Dement Stadium at Mississippi State University. On June 9, 2007, 13,715 watched Mississippi State beat Clemson to send the Bulldogs to the CWS. The second highest was set the day before, 12,620, for a 2-day Super Regional record of 26,381. In 2015, Arkansas hosted Missouri State in a Super Regional to set the 3-day record for total attendance with 35,730. The highest for an off-campus facility was set at Zephyr Field, a minor-league park in New Orleans. In 2001, Tulane and LSU battled for 3 games in front of 34,341 fans.

The highest single-game attendance for an NCAA Regional game was also set at Mississippi State; 11,511 watched Mississippi State vs Central Michigan on June 1, 2019. For total attendance during a Regional series, LSU holds the top 2 spots at 67,938 in 1998 and 66,561 in 1997. Mississippi State holds the next three to round out the top 5--64,723 in 1997, 63,388 in 1989, and 62,191 in 1990. All of those Top 5 regional attendance records were set under the old six-team Regional format.

The longest college baseball game was a 2009 regional game between Boston College and host Texas on May 30 in Austin. Texas won 3–2 in 25 innings, which lasted over seven hours.[2][3]

The third-longest game in tournament history occurred in a 2012 regional game between Kent State and Kentucky at U.S. Steel Yard in Gary, Indiana, where Kent State won 7–6 in 21 innings.[4]

• College World Series
• List of NCAA Division I baseball programs
• NCAA Division I college baseball team statistics
• List of college baseball awards
• List of college baseball career home run leaders
• World University Baseball Championship

• Official website