Amid rising tensions in the southern Caribbean, the Confederacion de Beisbol Profesional del Caribe has remained steadfast that the 2026 Caribbean Series would be played in Caracas and La Guaira, Venezuela in late January and early February.
Now, however, the CBPC, the organization that oversees winter baseball’s biggest event, could decide on Monday, Dec. 1, whether or not to keep the event in Venezuela or move it elsewhere, potentially to Panama, according to a report from ESPN Deportes’ Enrique Rojas.
Lunes 1 de diciembre será fecha clave para conocer futuro inmediato de próxima Serie del Caribe, programada (hasta ahora) para celebrarse en Caracas, Venezuela, en febrero.
En la mesa: Ratificarla en Caracas o moverla a ¿Ciudad Panamá?
Amanecerá y veremos.— Enrique Rojas/ESPN (@Enrique_Rojas1) November 26, 2025
The Caribbean Series pits the champions of Caribbean baseball’s four major winter leagues — the Dominican Republic’s LIDOM, Venezuela’s Liga Venezolana de Beisbol Profesional, Puerto Rico’s LBPRC, and Mexico’s Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico — against each other in a tournament every winter. Teams from other leagues and countries are often invited to join the champions of the four CBPC leagues at the event.
For the second time in four years, the CBPC has planned for the event to be played at Estadio Monumental Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, and Estadio Jorge Luis García Carneiro in La Guaira, a nearby port city, with teams from the four CBPC member leagues as well as invitees from Panama and Cuba. Both ballparks hosted games during the 2023 Caribbean Series, when four invitees — teams from Cuba, Panama, Curacao, and Colombia — joined the champions of the four CBPC leagues, marking the first time that eight teams played in the Caribbean Series.
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But rising tensions between the United States and Venezuela over alleged drug trafficking, as well as rising tensions between Venezuela and other Latin American countries that viewed the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, which resulted in President Nicolas Maduro winning another six-year term, as illegitimate have increased the difficulty of holding the event in Venezuela.
Since the Caribbean Series was restarted in 1970, it has been held at a non-CBPC venue four times; three times in Miami in 1990, 1991, and 2024, and once in Panama City in 2019. In 2018, the event was moved from Barquisimeto, Venezuela, to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, with Barquisimeto being awarded the 2019 Caribbean Series. The 2019 Caribbean Series was moved from Barquisimeto to Panama City’s Estadio Rod Carew on Jan. 27, 2019, days before the series was to begin, marking the second consecutive year the event was moved from Venezuela to another venue due to the socioeconomic problems that have gripped the country for more than a decade.
At the time the CBPC voted to move the 2019 Caribbean Series, the body cited the lack of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Venezuela, a recommendation by Major League Baseball for personnel not to travel to nor stay in Venezuela, and ongoing political tension in the country as the reasons for the move.
Currently, the United States, of which Puerto Rico is a territory, does not have diplomatic relations with Venezuela, nor are their currently diplomatic relations between the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. In recent months, the United States has conducted more than 20 strikes against boats off the Venezuelan coast, alleging that the vessels were trafficking drugs to the U.S., though no evidence supporting those claims has been provided. The U.S. government has also designated the Cartel de Los Soles, a drug trafficking organization of which Maduro is allegedly the leader, as a terrorist organization.
