The event began in 1979 as the
World Challenge Cup with the sponsorship of State Express. It was held at the Haden Hill Leisure Centre,
Birmingham, with six teams participating: England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Canada, Australia and Rest of the World. The teams were broken into two round-robin groups and the matches were best of 15 frames. The top teams in the groups met in the final. In 1980 the tournament moved to the
New London Theatre and the Northern Ireland team was replaced by an All-Ireland team. The event was renamed to the
World Team Classic in 1981 and moved to the
Hexagon Theatre in
Reading. The matches were reduced to best of seven and the top two teams from the groups advanced to the semi-finals. This time seven teams competed. Team Rest of the World were replaced by Team Scotland and instead of an All-Ireland team both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland fielded teams. After the 1983 event State Express ended their sponsorship of the event and the tournament's place in the snooker calendar was taken by the
Grand Prix. The World Cup was held every two years between 2015 and 2019, but has not been held since. The
2015,
2017 and
2019 World Cups were all held in
Wuxi, a Chinese city near
Shanghai. ==Winners==