There is staggering statistics for baseball now at the rate the recent World Baseball Classic attracted people to watch the games. Based on MLB.TV subscribers in U.S. alone, a total of 70 million minutes of live World Baseball Classic games have been consumed on TV including all supported streaming platforms all throughout the 2017 tournament, where the U.S. team emerged the champion Wednesday last week. The gross bfigure is up by 59 percent from the 2013 tournament record.
The MLB.TV's figure is higher compared to the traffic statistics on WorldBaseballClassic.com which put a 41-percent increase only from its previous record in 2013. But in terms of WBC merchandises sold, the World Baseball Classic management reported 15 percent over the previous year. The merchandise sales in the First Round in Tokyo is 25 percent higher than the previous as well as it is higher than the 20 percent (higher from the previous) in the Second Round in San Diego.
In terms of attendance, the recent World Baseball Classic recorded 1,086,720, which is 23-percent increase over the 2013 event. The First Round and Second Round attracted 206,534 and 209,072 fans, respectively. On MLB Network alone, the championship game between United States and Puerto Rico attracted 2.3 million viewers. The U.S. team won 8-0.
However, the World Baseball Softball Confederation men's baseball rankings showed different to the ranking of World Baseball Classic body. Neither the U.S. nor Puerto Rico is in the top spot. Japan remained to be the first although it only finished third place in the Classic. This is because WBSC rankings put more weights to the consistency of participation of competing teams.
The U.S. recent victory in the World Baseball Classic is another feather added to its cap for winning the 2015 and 2013 18U tournaments and the 2015 and 2013 12U tournaments. But Japan made an edge over the U.S. in winning the 2016 U23 tournament while the U.S. did not send a team to it. Japan also finished second in the 2014 U21 tournament that the U.S. did not participate in.
(Basketball Insider/YouTube)
