Baseball, like softball, is making a return at the Tokyo Olympics after having been benched as an official Olympic sport since 2008. The lineup of countries participating in the six team tournament will include the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Israel.
Unlike basketball, which will have just finished its season, and other sports that often take a break for the Olympics, don’t expect to be seeing any big leaguers vying for gold. MLB is not stopping its season for the games, but rather team USA is pooling from the minor leagues and free agents. So we won’t be seeing Mike Trout play, but recognizable names like Todd Fraizer, Edwin Jackson, Scott Kazmir and David Robertson are on the team, along with up-and-comers.
The tournament will start off with group play. Japan, Mexico and the Dominican Republic are in Group A, while the U.S., South Korea and Israel are in Group B. Then we move into a knockout stage that is a little complicated and long to write out here, so here’s a link to a visual layout of the knockout stage.
Here is everything else you need to know about the Tokyo Olympics baseball tournament.
Tokyo Olympics baseball tournament schedule
July 27
Japan 4, Dominican Republic 3
July 29
Korea 6, Israel 5
Dominican Republic 1, Mexico 0
July 30
U.S. 8, Israel 1
Japan vs. Mexico, 11 p.m. ET, TBD
July 31
U.S. 4, Korea 2
Knockout Stage: Israel 12, Mexico 5
Aug. 1
Knockout Stage: South Korea 4, Dominican Republic 3
Knockout Stage: South Korea 11, Israel 1
Aug. 2
Knockout Stage: Japan 7, U.S. 6
Aug. 3
Knockout Stage: Israel 7, Dominican Republic 6
Aug. 4
Knockout Stage: U.S. 3, Dominican Republic 1
Semifinals: Japan 5, South Korea 2
Aug. 5
Semifinal: U.S. 7, South Korea 2
Aug. 6
Bronze Medal Game: Dominican Republic vs. South Korea, 11 p.m. ET, CNBC
Aug. 7
Gold Medal Game: Japan vs. U.S., 6 a.m. ET, TBD (replay at 9:30 a.m. ET on USA)
How to watch the Tokyo Olympics baseball tournament in the U.S.
The broadcast schedule for the Tokyo Olympics baseball tournament as of this post’s publication leaves a good portion of the schedule up in the air. The group stage games do not have a network assigned to watch live, save for the U.S. vs. Korea on July 31 at 6 a.m. on NBCSN. However, we do know that Peacock will be offering replays of events throughout the games and that the semifinals will air on NBCSN and a replay of the gold medal game will air on USA.
To be able to watch the games that are on broadcast TV, fans are going to need either a traditional cable subscription that includes NBCSN and USA as part of its channel lineup or a subscription to one of the major vMVPD streaming platforms — Fubo TV, Sling TV, Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV. Anyone that subscribes to any of these platforms can also access Olympics coverage through the NBC Sports app or NBCSports.com.
Watching replays of the games on Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, is pretty simple, as Peacock will be featuring nearly all of its Olympics sports coverage on its free tier (men’s basketball is the one exception, requiring a Peacock Premium subscription).
How to watch the Tokyo Olympics baseball tournament from anywhere
If you aren’t able to access coverage of Olympics baseball through your TV or an available streaming service from wherever you are, have no fear, as an internet connection and a VPN can take care of that for you. VPN stands for a virtual private network, which routes the network traffic to and from your computer through a specific set of servers in a specific country, allowing for users to watch content on an encrypted feed.
