{"id":553130,"date":"2026-03-20T16:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553130\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T16:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:08:11","slug":"world-baseball-classic-growth-drives-new-revenue-opportunities-for-mlb-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/553130\/","title":{"rendered":"World Baseball Classic growth drives new revenue opportunities for MLB, partners"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the World Baseball Classic has gone from \u201cglobal curiosity to big deal,\u201d the league and its various partners have \u201cstarted to see the possibilities for greater revenue opportunities ahead,\u201d according to John Ourand of PUCK. Coming on the heels of the Milan Cortina Games and recent hockey and basketball all-star formats that have \u201cshamelessly tapped into viewers\u2019 feeling of national pride, this year\u2019s WBC clicked.\u201d More than 1.6 million fans attended this year\u2019s games, a 24% jump from 2023. Attendees \u201cpacked stadiums\u201d in Miami, Houston, Tokyo and San Juan and \u201csprinkled social media with game-related content.\u201d The atmosphere even had Team USA RF Aaron Judge \u201ccomparing it to the World Series.\u201d It was also a \u201cbona fide TV draw,\u201d finishing with 10.784 million viewers<\/a>. Even \u201cmore notable: Audiences had been tuning in all along<\/a>.\u201d Media execs have \u201cdiscussed the possibility of holding the tournament more frequently — every other\u202fyear,\u201d for instance — rather than every three years. Organizers could also \u201cend up moving the tournament\u201d to the All-Star break<\/a>. There are \u201creasons for doubt, however.\u201d A two-year timeframe would place the next WBC just before the 2028 L.A. Olympics — and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has been \u201coptimistic that MLB players would participate\u201d there. Ourand wrote a midseason move seems \u201cjust as unlikely — it would take a lot for MLB to accommodate a two-week midseason break for the WBC.\u201d But the mere fact that these ideas have been floated \u201cshows how big an event the WBC has become\u201d (PUCK, 3\/19<\/a>). <\/p>\n

GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE: THE ATHLETIC\u2019s David Betancourt noted some of the \u201cmost recognizable and memorable items\u201d from this year\u2019s WBC \u201care now up for sale through MLB Auctions, including Team Italy\u2019s now-famous espresso machine.\u201d A typical Lavazza espresso machine, like the one Italy used, costs around $140-$200, but those \u201cwill not be emblazoned with the Italy and WBC logos, as well as the jersey numbers of Italy\u2019s players who homered in the tournament and a sticker that says \u2018baseball isn\u2019t boring.\u2019\u201d Bidding has \u201calready surpassed $1,000,\u201d with the auction set to end on March 23. But the \u201cmost valuable item available\u201d is shaping up to be\u201d Japan DH\/P Shohei Ohtani\u2019s game-worn Mizuno jersey from the team\u2019s 13-0 victory over Chinese Taipei. The current bid for the jersey is \u201cover $200,000,\u201d with the auction ending on March 22 (THE ATHLETIC, 3\/19<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the World Baseball Classic has gone from \u201cglobal curiosity to big deal,\u201d the league and its various…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,4034,591,85],"class_list":["post-553130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}