20-year-old WBC finds footing, converts
I had the opportunity to cover the semi-finals and championship of the 2026 World Baseball Classic for USA TODAY Sports. Here are my thoughts:
MIAMI Evan Grant is the longtime beat writer for The Dallas Morning News covering the Texas Rangers. He greeted his readers with this admission on March 16: “I’ve been a skeptic about the whole World Baseball Classic, but I think I’ve finally realized I was just a dour sourpuss. The tournament has been electric, filled with great moments and great upsets.”
And that reaction was based on watching it on TV.
For those attending the “knockout rounds” at LoanDepot Park in Miami, there was a tangible realization that the WBC, at age 20, had finally grown up.
Compared to the first WBC tournament in 2006, interest – particularly within the U.S. – has skyrocketed. Jeremiah Yolkut, Major League Baseball’s senior VP of global events, acknowledges that the passion of the American fanbase lagged behind Asia and Latin America in those early years. He told USA TODAY Sports before the tournament, “The WBC is only 20 years old, so it’s not surprising that more and more visibility has happened, both internationally and now certainly domestically.”
As Pool play progressed in Tokyo, San Juan, Houston and Miami, attendance grew and TV viewership set records. When the final three rounds arrived in Miami on March 15, sellouts became the norm. The championship game on the 17th drew a record crowd of 36,190 to the 36,000-seat stadium, while Fox’s telecast was the most-watched in WBC history, as more than 12 million viewers in the U.S. tuned into the final innings (per Sports Media Watch).
That’s proof that the hard-to-impress American fandom has finally been conquered.
Handling the radio play-by-play for Sirius-XM was Mike Ferrin, his second go-round in the booth for a WBC.
“I broadcast the game between Colombia and Mexico at Chase Field (in Phoenix) during the 2023 WBC,” he explains. “Even though there were only 15,000 fans there, they made it sound like 50,000. That’s when I was hooked.”
Julian Guilarte of Latino Sports was covering his first WBC. “It’s a whole new experience for me. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I hope to cover this again.”
Fans packed both the stands and the souvenir stores, undeterred by $350 upper-deck tickets, $45 t-shirts, $60 caps and $269 jersey tops.
Their investment paid off with a thrilling tournament that went down to the last strike, with the Venezuelan upstarts besting the favored U.S. team 3-2 in the championship game. It was the first title for the South American squad.
After attending a WBC contest at the Tokyo Dome earlier this month, 20-year-old Koki Abe left his home in Japan to fly 13 hours to Miami to attend the championship game. While he’d hoped that Japan would make the finals, “I’m only a little disappointed, because I’m having a great time.”
That passion is matched by the Venezuelan fans who attended the title game. Maelvy Favela of Sonora, Mexico, is covering the games for Mexican TV and radio. Long a reporter on Latin sporting events, she explained that while the Venezuelan fans aren’t quite as boisterous as the Dominican Republic partisans, “they still have so much passion.”
And perhaps additional motivation, since the tensions between their country’s government and the U.S. are at an all-time high.
Levi Weaver, author of The Athletic‘s daily MLB newsletter, feels the ceremony following the title game proved how vital this tournament has become. “As the Venezuelan national anthem played, some players belted out the lyrics over beaming smiles. Others wept. Some pointed to the sky. None seemed unmoved.
“The World Baseball Classic is here to stay.”
“With the possible exception of a few World Series … this is the best event MLB has ever put on,” Buster Olney gushed to an ESPN audience.
“It’s been crazy here,” notes Robert Palmer of the Miami Dade County Sheriff’s Department. He worked most of the games played in Miami this year. “My favorite part is seeing everyone come together. If one of the Latin teams loses, their fans just say, ‘That’s OK. We’ll just come back tomorrow and root for another Latin team.’”
And in the case of Venezuela, that Latin team grabbed the grand prize, while the dour sourpusses became believers.