The same can be observed in the referenced "King of Kong" documentary, the "Nintendo World Championships" (organized only in NA by Nintendo of America), and the "Classic Tetris World Championship".
They should just call it for what it was: North-American records.
It seems to be a uniquely American thing, as far as I know. I've never seen any other country characterise their competitions as "World" instead of "National" competitions. (I'd be happy to be given a counterexample if one exists).
>Major League Baseball chose not to pause the season to allow its biggest stars to play in Tokyo, with the Americans made up of minor league players.
And even so, the point still stands. You can't call your national competitions "world" competitions as a country, and then send sub-par delegations and lose nationally at the world stage.
I don't want to give the impression I'm getting any glee from this. It's just to point out the whole thing sounds so silly to a non-American.
There have been several World Baseball Classics which have pitted national teams against each other and the competitive teams are mostly made up of MLB players playing for their native country.
Just because all of the games are played in USA and Canada doesn’t mean the players don’t come from all around the world.
If someone from another country plays in a national-level sporting event where all teams are domestic ones, it doesn’t become a “World Series”.
But, having said that, it also feels a bit like misdirection; I highly doubt the World Series is called the World Series because the otherwise US-owned teams involved contain international players. The implication of a 'world event' is that it consists of countries competing with each other, not US teams being open to hiring international players.
It's called the World Series because it considers itself world-class and needs not consider sub-par outliers lying outside of the US; at least I think that's how most people would interpret the phrase. Which is why acknowledging that there are competitive teams outside of the US context makes that particular phrase problematic.
Dozens? Baseball has only been in as a medal awarding non-exhibition sport in 6 Olympics (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2020).
In 1992 and 1996 it was only open to amateurs. The countries where professional baseball player is a full time job sent players from their college teams. The only big baseball country that could actually send its top players was Cuba because the players on their top teams nominally have other jobs and were technically amateurs even though they actually trained and played baseball full time.
Starting with 2000 pros were allowed, but MLB did not allow its players to go in 2000, 2004, or 2008. The US continued sending college players. The lack of the world's top players participating was a big factor in the IOC's decision to drop baseball from the 2012 and 2016 games.
It return in 2020 and MLB did allow its players to participate, but none of its top players went [1].
[1] https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/31922257/olympics-2...
So if the argument in question was "Americans claim to be the best but they suck", you'd be absolutely right and well justified in your rebuttal. But it's not, and I wouldn't make that claim anyway because I have nothing against the US or its baseball tradition.
Unfortunately the argument in question is "Can the World Series be classified as an international event, or does the name reflect nationalistic sentiment instead?"
With this in mind, if anything, this rebuttal seems to provide further evidence against the World Series being aptly named. The message seems to be that the World Series is so called because it considers itself world-class and leagues ahead of other nations (which may or may not be true), and need not attempt to prove this fact by competing in the international stage earnestly or indeed bothering to send competitive teams to world events.
So it indeed seems to be a national event which ascribes itself 'world' status out of nationalistic sentiment. Or at least, I think that's how most people (presumably including Americans) would perceive this name. I highly doubt there's a single American out there who honestly thinks that the World Series is a truly international event where teams from other countries somehow consistently fail to appear in televised finals.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=467571...
1. My apologies to the residents of the other South, Central, and North American countries that the U.S. has taken "American" to refer to ourselves.