The place: Hiram Bithorn Stadium
Attendance: 19,692 (Sold Out)
The teams: Puerto Rico v. Dominican Republic
The atmosphere: Electric

MLB’s grand marketing experiment, the World Baseball Classic, kicked into high gear yesterday in a couple of games. Derrick Lee slammed a game tying homer against Japan, and then A-Rod smacked a game winning single to win it (and to add to this we had Sadaharu Oh, arguing a controversial call at 3B that would have given Japan the lead). If these games aren’t different than most, then try absorbing the idea of Red Sox and Yankee players hugging each other in the dugout.

But, what was truly amazing was watching the pandemonium at Hiram Bithorn Stadium between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It looked like a Game 7 of the World Series.

Say what you will about the WBC. (It’s not needed. It puts players at risk for injury. It gets George Steinbrenner too much to gripe about.) These games make watching Spring Training games look like T-Ball.

What seems like a very real possibility is that the WBC is going to be a hit. It certainly has taken a bit of the NBA’s late season market share away, and will prime the pump for baseball fans waiting for the Championship Season to get underway in MLB.

Here’s some TV numbers to throw into the mix (source MLB):

• The World Baseball Classic telecast of Team Canada’s upset victory of Team USA on Wednesday, March 8, delivered a 1.5 cable HH rating with 1,736,000 viewers tuning in, according to Nielsen Media Research.
• The first World Baseball Classic games played in the western hemisphere netted strong ratings performances on the ESPN Networks according to Nielsen Media Research. The Tuesday, March 7 telecast of the Pool B game between Mexico and the USA delivered a 1.4 cable HH rating with 1,563,000 viewers tuning in. This marks the highest rated weekday afternoon program on ESPN2 (M-F 1-6 p.m.) since Game Three of the 2005 American League Division Series between the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox on October 7, 2005 (4.1 HH).

Yes, this is ESPN2. Is this something to jump up and down about? Depends on whether you work at League HQ or the MLBPA.

Consider this:

Through last Friday, live crowds for the WBC were “smaller than projected,” as organizers had expected a total of over 800,000 for the tournament, but after 24 of the event’s 39 games the combined gate was “just 326,629 for a per-game average of 13,609”

The Japan v. US game drew 32,896. The Korea v. Mexico tilt drew 42,979. Both of these games took place at Angel Stadium where total capacity is 45,050.

Said Commissioner Selig:

“I thought this would be good and now there is no doubt in my mind, the more I watch it,” said Selig. “There are so many subplots involved. So far, it has been better than I thought, and I went in believing it was going to be good.”A lot of players who didn’t come will now begin to hear from players who did come about how good this has been. You worry about a lot of things. It’s not perfect, certainly not the first time you do it. But we’ve had good crowds and there’s been intensity.”

What’s clear is there is considerable revenue flowing into MLB’s coffers with the WBC. If this trend continues, it may well be that MLB’s marketing experiment becomes a “Classic”. It sure beats watching Spring Training games.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 8:33 am and is filed under Baseball Insight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.