The ACC announced on Feb. 5 that the 2025 ACC Baseball Championship will use a new format.
The newly expanded 16-team tournament will be a single-elimination championship in Durham, North Carolina at Durham Bulls Athletic Park.
First, here’s a quick look at how the new ACC tournament format will work:
- All 16 teams will compete in a single-elimination tournament, where seedings will be based on regular season standings.
- The top four seeds will receive double-byes into the quarterfinal, seeds five through eight will earn a bye into the second round (No. 5 vs. No. 12/13 winner, No. 6 vs. No. 11/14 winner, No. 7 vs. No. 10/15 winner, No. 8 vs. No. 9/16 winner) and seeds nine through 16 will compete in the four first-round games (No. 9 vs. No. 16, No. 10 vs. No. 15, No. 11 vs. No. 14, No. 12 vs. No. 13)
- The tournament will run from Tuesday, May 20 to Sunday, May 25
- In the previous format, the ACC championship has used pool play or a round-robin style tournament
Here’s a look at deeper how the ACC baseball tournament works, including its schedule and differences from past formats.
What’s the reasoning behind the format change?
Excitement, experience and fan engagement.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips mentioned that the change “will bring an improved championship experience for our student-athletes, coaches and fans alike” and will showcase all 16 teams.
Additionally, the release added that the tournament’s change was proposed by the league’s 16 head coaches and received direct support from the student-athletes.
The ACC sent eight teams to the NCAA tournament in 2024, including an NCAA-record tying four teams to the Men’s College World Series. Additionally, five teams competed in the Super Regional round with four teams earning the right to host.
This season, Stanford and Cal have joined the conference for baseball (SMU has also joined the ACC for athletics, but the Mustangs don’t have a baseball program). Stanford has reached the MCWS in three of the last four seasons, while Cal’s last tournament appearance was in 2019.
What will the ACC baseball championship look like?
Unlike previous formats, all 16 teams will play in the tournament. Seeding will be based on regular season standings.
Due to the removal of the Atlantic and Coastal divisions, the top four seeds in the championship will receive a double-bye into the quarterfinal round. Seeds five through eight will earn a bye into the second round, while seeds nine through 16 will compete in the four first-round games.
Here’s a look at the 2025 championship bracket.
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How will this be different from the tournament’s previous structures?
Prior to the upcoming season, the tournament used a pool play or round-robin style format since 2006.
The format featured 12 of the conference’s 14 teams utilizing four pools with three teams in each. The Atlantic and Coastal Division regular season champions received the top two seeds, while the remaining seeds were ordered based on win percentage.
The team with the best record in each pool advanced to the semifinals.
The tournament moved from 10 to 12 teams in 2017 after the conference expanded from 12 to 14 teams.
What will be the tournament’s new schedule?
The tournament will run from Tuesday, May 20 to Sunday, May 25.
Four games will be played per day on Tuesday and Wednesday for the first and second rounds, respectively. The quarterfinal round will be held on Thursday and Friday, with two games on each day, while Saturday will host the two semifinal matchups. The championship game will be played on Sunday.
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How does the ACC’s new format compare to other major conferences?
SEC
The SEC announced in late January that it would implement the same postseason format as the ACC. Like the ACC, the SEC expanded to 16 teams with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma. Before, only 12 of the 14 teams competed in the tournament.
Big 12
Although the Big 12 now has 16 schools, they will not pivot to a single-elimination championship format like the SEC and ACC. The top 12 teams in the regular season standings will earn a spot in the conference tournament, where the top four seeds receive a bye and the five through 12 seeds play four single-elimination games in the first round.
Previously, only 10 teams advanced to the championship bracket.
Big Ten
The Big Ten’s new format will look like the ACC’s previous one. It will host 12 teams with four groups of three teams where the winner of each pool will advance to the semifinal round. Five teams will not reach the tournament.
In past years, only eight teams reached the championship bracket. The tournament functioned as a two, four-team double-elimination bracket where the winners of each bracket played a winner-take-all final.
