WBC Wraps it Up

The World Baseball Classic finished up with another victory for the Japanese team. A good sign of the success of the WBC is shown in the attendance figures. The semifinals between the US and Japan drew over 43,000 fans. The final between Japan and Korea drew over 54,000 fans. Unfortunately, attendance has dropped historically between the first and second rounds of the tournament.

I think that the venues for the tournament need to be dramatically reconsidered for future games. If you look at the US pool for the first round, the games were held in Canada. While the US v. Canada game drew around 42,000, the other games were drawing between 10-12,000.

Considerations need to be made to play games in places like Seoul, the Dominican, Cuba, and Venezuela. Some progress was made as opening round games were played in Mexico City, San Juan, and Tokyo. The realization needs to be made that, if a team is playing in its home country, fans are going to pack the stadiums. The WBC has become a huge deal in a short amount of time. TV rating showed that the US v. Japan game was the most highly-viewed sports event that week.

For future reference, more planning needs to go into where these games are being held and when, if we can get past some of the political obstacles