After six years, the World Baseball Classic returned, and the interest in the international baseball tournament has resulted in record viewership in addition to sellout crowds at several of the stadiums where tournament games were played.
Tuesday night’s championship game between Japan and the U.S. averaged 4.48 million viewers on FS1. That was the largest audience in the history of the tournament to tune in for a title game.
When factoring in coverage on FOX Sports Deportes, the average viewership creeps up closer to 5 million.
The championship in the last edition of the WBC averaged 3.05 million, setting a new high.
The telecast featuring Joe Davis on play-by-play and John Smoltz on color commentary ranked third overall for highest-rated programs. Only two shows on network TV drew higher numbers.
