WBC Delivers Big Ratings for Fox, but U.S. Loss Clouds Outlook

Fox Sports is off to a very strong viewership start for the World Baseball Classic, but the good times might not last if the U.S. team fails to advance in the international tournament.

The network said it averaged 2.64 million viewers for the U.S. team’s WBC opener last Friday against Brazil, representing a 78% bump from the lone U.S. pool-play game on Fox in the 2023 tournament. The second U.S. contest in pool play, a Saturday win over Great Britain, averaged 2.98 million viewers, marking the most-watched non-final WBC telecast on any network in the event’s 20-year history. 

That latter figure also more than doubled the audience for a U.S.-Great Britain game in the 2023 WBC. The audience for Saturday’s broadcast peaked at 3.74 million viewers. For both of those initial games, the top three viewing markets have included Philadelphia, Kansas City, and St. Louis.

The bullish viewership results to start the WBC were not surprising given the record 78 MLB All-Stars taking part in the sixth iteration of the event, baseball’s rising global profile, and the strong feelings that playing for one’s country has stirred among many players. 

Americans Need Help

The U.S. team, widely seen as a dominant favorite entering the WBC, now faces an uncertain road after a stunning loss Tuesday night to Italy. The upset, representing one of the most startling results in the 20-year history of the event, now leaves the U.S. with two possibilities to reach the quarterfinals:

• If Italy beats Mexico on Wednesday night in Houston, they will win Pool B, while the U.S. would also advance as the runner-up from that group. 
• If Mexico beats Italy, Pool B would end in a three-way tie involving those two teams and the U.S., each with a 3–1 record in the pool and 1–1 against each other. That would trigger a tiebreaker sequence that starts with “runs allowed divided by defensive outs recorded in the games between the three tied teams.” Within that, if Mexico beats Italy while scoring four runs or fewer in nine innings, that team and Italy would advance. If Mexico wins by scoring five runs or more, that team and the U.S. would advance. 

The complex tiebreaker rules were implemented in part to help keep tournament play moving along, and enable the entire tournament to be played in less than two weeks. The intricacy of the tiebreakers even tripped up U.S. manager Mark DeRosa, who initially claimed before the Italy game that the team’s quarterfinal berth was already “punched.” After the loss, DeRosa acknowledged that he “misspoke.”

In any scenario, though, the U.S. is not currently in control of its own destiny—a humbling scenario after developing a star-studded roster that includes the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, Pirates’ Paul Skenes, Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, and Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., among many others.

“It’s the toughest thing,” Judge said. “You always like having your destiny in your hands and we had it right in front of us and Italy came out swinging. … It’s out of our control now. We just need a little luck and we’ll see what happens.”