Despite Hurdles, Classic Builds Success

As an event, the World Baseball Classic has unques-tionably been a worldwide success . . . in spite of being a relative failure in its biggest market.

- J.J. Cooper

From a broad perspective, the event immediately became the greatest international baseball tournament of all time. It has helped spread baseball around the world. Although it’s impossible to fully apportion how much credit the WBC should get for the spread of Major League Baseball internationally, there are merchandise sales, television contracts and even new baseball stadiums to prove its worldwide impact. It also helped get baseball back in the Olympics.

The event has drawn outstanding TV ratings in places as varied as South Korea and the Dominican Republic. It has proven that baseball has much more parity than suspected. In its first three iterations, eight different countries have made the semifinals.

And it has made money. The WBC has been profitable since the first tournament in 2006. It has also doled out money to baseball federations around the world. As a brand-building event around the globe, the WBC has been a winner. It’s not entirely coincidental that Korea, a semifinalist in 2006 and finalist in 2009, now has more players playing in Major League Baseball.

“The WBC from the first time was a tremendous success,” said Paul Archey, the former MLB senior vice president of international baseball operations. “(That’s) how it was pitched to owners. We didn’t create this event for the United States. It wasn’t for baseball to be more popular here. It was to give baseball a global platform. The No. 1 objective was to raise the profile of baseball around the world.”

If the goal was for the Classic to make an impact in the U.S., the event has been a failure. Television ratings in the U.S. barely make a blip. A U.S. audience hoping to see Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout hasn’t gravitated to seeing the Christian Yelich and Drew Smyly compete for the title.