2023 World Baseball Classic first round sets records in attendance, viewership and merchandise sales

According to Major League Baseball (MLB), the 2023 World Baseball Classic has driven significant fan interest and broken numerous tournament consumption records after a First Round that took place in four locations. The fifth instalment of the tournament has attracted an increasing amount of global engagement from fans around the world.

ATTENDANCE

The 2023 World Baseball Classic registered an attendance record for the First-Round drawing 1,010,999, the most attended round in the history of the tournament and a +98% increase vs. the previous record of 510,056 in 2017. The average attendance of 25,275 set another First Round record eclipsing 2017’s average of 20,402 by +24%.

Mexico’s victory over Team USA on March 12th at Chase Field drew 47,534 - a World Baseball Classic attendance record for any First Round game. Both U.S. venues set single day attendance records in the buildings’ histories during the First Round on Saturday, March 11th. LoanDepot park drew 71,289 and Chase Field had a total attendance of 68,147 both over the course of two games.

GLOBAL VIEWERSHIP

In Japan, the March 10th Japan vs. Korea game on TBS registered a 44.4 rating, making it the most-watched game in the history of the World Baseball Classic in any country until yesterday’s quarterfinal game vs. Italy registered a 48.0. Japan’s four First Round games averaged a 42.3 rating in the country.

In Taiwan, Chinese Taipei’s four First Round games averaged 1.301 million viewers on EBC News, an increase of +151% vs. the 2017 tournament. The average viewership of all four Chinese Taipei games were higher than all other sports programming in the market since September 2021.

In Korea, the four games featuring South Korea on SBS/KBS/MBC averaged 1.781 million viewers marking a +35% increase vs. the 2017 First Round average. South Korea’s match-up against Japan, which averaged 2.709 million viewers, was the most-watched World Baseball Classic game in Korea since their championship game competition against Japan in 2009.

Team USA’s first game versus Great Britain on FOX and FOX Deportes averaged 1.592 million viewers making it the most-watched First Round game in the U.S. since 2009.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Japanese star Shohei Ohtani gained the most followers of any player during the First Round with a 1.36 million increase since March 1st, which is approximate growth of +75%. In addition, there was +564% more total engagements on World Baseball Classic social media accounts during the First Round of the 2023 tournament compared to the 2017 event.

The World Baseball Classic is sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) as the sport’s official National Team World Championship.