The World Baseball Classic was pretty close to perfect this year. The level of intensity and competition was so high at a time we’re otherwise watching fake games in Arizona or Florida, and there was a relatively strong push for star participation. It felt buzzy and meaningful, and so many baseball fans really got into it.
So it’s no surprise, then, that the ratings for the event have been blowing out past records. For example, in today’s era, this is a MONSTER number for a baseball game:
A legendary game calls for a legendary viewership number as 10,784,000 viewers watched the #WorldBaseballClassic final on FOX and FOX Deportes – the most-watched #WBC telecast ever ? The 2026 WBC averaged 1,294,000 viewers across FOX, FS1 and FS2, making it the most-watched… pic.twitter.com/vfva4lFDRN
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) March 19, 2026To put that figure in context, the MLB All-Star Game, which is the most-watched of any of the All-Star Games, peaked at just over 8 million viewers last year. Heck, it beat the NBA Finals!
With the event having been such a success this year, it didn’t take long for the calls to have it moved to midseason. Because why just be happy with a very good thing that works?
“Obviously we have commitments to Fox in terms of the All-Star Game in the middle of the season through ’28,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday during an interview with The Associated Press, per NBC. “As the game continues to evolve, we have talked about midseason tournaments in general. And certainly if we decided to get serious about this, about a midseason tournament, this would be an ideal opportunity.”
Setting aside the fact that you would get even LESS player buy-in for a tournament taking place barely two months before the playoffs (seriously, you think teams are jumping on allowing that?), haven’t we learned our lesson from the whole “move the Draft to the All-Star week so we can own the week” thing? All that accomplished was bury the Draft, and turn it into something people ignore even more. Adding the World Baseball Classic to All-Star week wouldn’t increase the attention for any of those events – it would just take away from the special-ness of one or the other. Don’t do it.
As for the next WBC, the long-standing assumption has been that, since it comes every three years, the next would be in 2029. The rub there, however, is that you have the 2028 Summer Olympics just before, and that might actually feature MLB players for the first time. Might MLB want to space things out a little bit in that case? Bump the next WBC to 2030?
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