Tuesday’s World Baseball Classic championship game was a historic night for multiple reasons.
Not only did Venezuela claim its first title with a 3-2 victory over the United States, but the game was also the most-watched matchup in the 20-year history of the event.
According to Fox Sports, a record 10.784 million across Fox and Fox Deportes tuned in, with peak viewership clocking in at 12.148 million around 10:30 p.m. ET. Venezuela’s win drew more than twice the number of viewers (4.48 million) than the 2023 final between Japan and the U.S.
That game culminated with a showdown between then-Angels teammates Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Up by one run in the ninth with two outs, Ohtani struck out Trout on a full count to give Japan the title.
The Japan-U.S. final in 2023 ranks among the top six most-watched WBC games, with the other five all occurring this year.
The historic championship punctuated a WBC that overall drew record-high viewership across English-language networks. The tournament averaged 1.294 million viewers per game across several Fox channels. That was a 156 percent increase over the 2023 edition, which averaged 506,000 viewers.
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