The Little League World Series is an annual baseball tournament for children (primarily boys) aged 10 to 12 years old, held in the Eastern United States.

It is these All-Star teams that compete in district,[5] sectional and/or divisional, and regional tournaments,[citation needed] hoping to advance to Williamsport for the Little League World Series.

In the United States, the tournaments at the lowest (district) level lack nationwide standardization.

In some larger states such as Pennsylvania, New York, and California, the district winners advance to one of many sectional tournaments.

[5] Up through 2018, the Dakotas had one district spanning the two states, and its winner became the joint champion when advancing to the Midwest region tournament.

A comprehensive breakdown of current and historical US regional tournament locations, participants and results is available online.

[5] Little League Canada holds tournaments at the provincial and divisional level to field six champions (four provincial and two divisional) at the national tournament: Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, the Prairie Provinces (Saskatchewan and Manitoba), and the Atlantic Provinces.

The winner of the national tournament earns the right to represent Canada at the Little League World Series.

There are 53 total U.S. entrants that compete in the 10 regional tournaments: two from Texas, two from California, one each from the remaining 48 U.S. states, and one from the District of Columbia.

[citation needed] Currently, the Little League World Series consists of 20 teams: 10 from the United States, and 10 from other countries.

Teams competed round-robin within their own pool, with the top two teams of each pool advancing to single-elimination play for a spot in the U.S. final or international final, followed by the U.S champion and international champion meeting in the World Championship game.

As a consequence of this expansion, crossover consolations games that had previously been played between 0–2 teams have been eliminated.

[16] Both fields have symmetrical fences, with a distance of 68.6 m (225 feet) from home plate to each of the outfield positions.

However, stadium seats for the championship game are distributed in a random drawing of all interested parties due to high demand.

However, this caused outrage by parents because the players born between May 1 and August 31, 2005 would have lost their 12-year-old season because they would be considered to be 13 years old even though they have not reached their 13th birthday.

The championship games in all other divisions, as well as the semifinals and finals of the Little League Softball World Series, was scheduled for either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.

The aforementioned Southwest regional games are aired in full on the Longhorn Network (itself owned by ESPN).

The increased level of participation, competition, and publicity of the Little League World Series in recent years has established a trend in the opposite direction of many other preteen sports.

Most LLWS games are broadcast live on local radio station WRAK 1400AM, which is owned by iHeartMedia.

ESPN will continue to air the Little League Baseball World Series as well as other events through 2030 as part of an eight-year extension.

[34] After discontinuing their big league divisions in 2017 due to low participation levels over the previous 15 years,[35] seven of the remaining eleven divisions of Little League Baseball has its own World Series format (including three in girls' softball).