2026 wct rules

Led by a cohort of longtime tournament participants, the United Wiffle®Ball rulebook underwent a redesign in 2026 with the goals of streamlining the gameplay rules, making minor adjustment to mitigate the impact of judgment calls, and minor adjustments to make certain outcomes more intuitve. The overall gameplay style remains virtually unchanged. Whether participating in the tournament or watching it, we encourage everyone to read through the rulebook thoroughly to familiarize yourself with it before the tournament.

The following are the more significant alterations made to the gameplay rules:

• A fielder has 3 seconds from the time they make contact with the ball to complete a play.

• Bobbling the ball or leaving your feet to record an out no longer impacts how the play unfolds (e.g. a double play or a K-zone out to hold all runners can still be achieved on a play where a fielder leaves his feet and stands back up). However, the throw must be made (whether to 2nd base or the K-zone/backstop) within 3 seconds of initial contact.

• An out recorded in the 2nd base triangle always results in the runner that started at 1st base being forced out at 2nd base.

• Outfield vs. infield singles replace clean vs. dirty hits. Any ball that touches the ground on the outfield side of the singles line is considered a a regular/outfield single and all runners other than the batter advance two bases