The World Baseball Classic games are widely followed in Japan, where the exploits of Shohei Ohtani and his teammates capture the attention of millions.
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As some sources, including the Barstool Baseball Twitter account, reported, about 93.6% of television sets in Japanese territory on Monday showed the country’s team’s victory at the expense of Mexico in the semifinals. See the highlights in the video above.
Many observers therefore expect that Tuesday’s final against the United States will set a new national attendance mark, even if the clash is played on the hour on Wednesday morning. You can watch this game on TVA Sports 2 from 7pm.
Meanwhile, MLB.com reported a few days earlier that the first-round clash against South Korea was rated 44.4, making it the league’s most-watched game in the history of the tournament in a single country at the time.
The total viewership equates to roughly 55 million, except that the ensuing clash against Italy drew more than 62.5 million people in front of their small screens, according to some web sources, including the Baseball Insider account.
For comparison, the odds for these recent games have surpassed all competitions at the Tokyo Olympics. The average of the four matches of the preliminary round in Japan was 42.3.