Who said baseball is a dying sports in the United States?
According to a post from famed MLB reporter Bob Nightengale, Monday evening’s contest between Team USA and Team Mexico drew over five million viewers on FOX and FOX Deportes. It marked a 215% increase from when the teams last played back in 2023.
The United States ended up winning the contest by a score of 5-3.
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The sport of baseball has long been under siege by the notion that it’s fallen behind soccer in the sporting pecking order of popularity within the United States. Some have criticized the sport for being too slow, or archaic when it came to ushering in interest from younger generations marketing-wise.
The World Baseball Classic is its own entity. Having said that, the energy and joy surrounding the tournament can be felt tangibly from the players. There’s are visible levels of pride and excitement demonstrated from the teams in the field. Rarely in your average MLB contest will you see entire dugouts flooding onto the field to celebrate with a player after hitting a homer.
The crowds for these events have also been fantastic. It’s almost akin to a World Cup atmosphere with plenty in the way of pomp and circumstance. Naturally, the rivalry between neighboring countries will inflame emotions even further. The United States and Mexico specifically are intertwined in a host of ways.
It helped to make this specific game special — and the tournament as a whole also provides somewhat of a blueprint for Major League Baseball in its continued effort to modernize and better the sport.
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