With the U.S. making the final for the first time, the World Baseball Classic had a record audience.
Wednesday’s United States-Puerto Rico World Baseball Classic final delivered a combined audience of 3.1 million viewers across MLB Network, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes, nearly triple the 1.1 million who watched Dominican Republic-Puerto Rico across MLB Network and ESPN Deportes in 2013 (1.1M).
The combined audience was the largest in the history of the World Baseball Classic (dates back to 2006) and topped every single regular season Major League Baseball game since the 2015 Cardinals-Cubs season opener (3.4M).
On MLB Network alone, the game scored a 1.3 final rating and 2.3 million viewers — up 160% in ratings and 172% in viewership from 2013 (0.5, 843K) and up a tick and 37% respectively from Korea-Japan on ESPN in 2009 (1.2, 1.7M). It was the second-largest audience in network history (dates back to 2009) behind Giants-Cubs in last year’s MLB Division Series (4.6M).
Keep in mind there have been larger single-network audiences for the World Baseball Classic, including 2.7 million for Japan-U.S. in 2009, 2.6 million for Venezuela-U.S. the same year, and 2.4 million for Mexico-U.S. in 2006, all on ESPN.
The MLB Network broadcast was the top program of the night on cable in adults 18-49 (0.8) and cruised past a competing NBA doubleheader on ESPN, Hawks-Wizards (0.7, 1.1M, 0.4 A18-49) and Knicks-Jazz (0.6, 903K, 0.4 A18-49).
Spanish-language coverage on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes had 761,000 viewers, up 222% from 2013 on ESPN Deportes alone (236K), and a record for a Spanish-language baseball broadcast. Most of the audience — 397,000 — watched on ESPN2.
(Wed. numbers from Major League Baseball, with additional info from Programming Insider 3.23)
