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Two WBC games post higher ratings than Yankees-Dodgers

J.P. HoornstraWed, March 11, 2026 at 12:36 AM UTC·2 min read

The early viewership numbers for the World Baseball Classic suggest what anyone who’s seen a regular season baseball game already guessed: the 2026 edition of Team USA is better than any collection of talent on an MLB field last year.

MORE: Mariners’ Cal Raleigh breaks silence on Randy Arozarena’s diss in WBC

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Fox’s telecasts of the Pool Play games between the U.S. and Brazil (average: 2.64 million viewers), and the U.S. and Great Britain (2.98 million viewers), would have ranked second and fourth respectively among all regular season games televised in 2025, according to Sports Media Watch.

According to SMW’s Jon Lewis, only a matchup of the Yankees and Red Sox on June 7, 2025 that averaged 3.0 million viewers performed better with viewers than the U.S.-Great Britain game. For comparison’s sake, a World Series rematch between the Yankees and Dodgers on June 1, 2025 averaged 2.7 million viewers, per Nielsen.

As Lewis notes, the first two rounds of the 2025 MLB postseason averaged 4.3 million; the ALCS and NLCS averaged 5.0 and 4.7 million, respectively. Those are numbers for the WBC to shoot for as the tournament progresses into the elimination rounds.

For now, the star power of a U.S. team led by Aaron Judge, Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal is delivering the viewership one would expect. For the WBC — and its television partners — it’s a great start.

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