DAILY DIRT: World Baseball Classic will soon be gone, but hardly forgotten

Daily Dirt for Monday, March 20, 2023

By the time when the event returns in 2026, we should rename it the World Cup of Baseball. The event deserves it … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 557 of The Daily Dirt.

1. I’m going to be kind of sad when the World Baseball Classic winds up Tuesday night, and apparently I won’t be alone. 

The WBC, which will go down as one of the major sports success stories of the year, has been boffo box office, both at the gate and in TV ratings. The event is setting both attendance and viewing records around the globe.

I think one of the key reasons interest has skyrocketed — particularly in the U.S. — since the WBC last appeared in 2017 has been the way U.S. media has finally embraced it as a World Cup type of competition, which is exactly what it is. It is now important to U.S. sports fans, not just an exhibition like it seemed to be many in earlier WBC competitions.

Consider:

• Heading into the knockout rounds (quarterfinals, semifinals and finals), WBC attendance was up a whopping 98 percent. Those numbers will only be increasing once the knockout rounds are included, where most crowds have been the 40,000 range. 
• Japan vs. South Korea on March 10 set all sorts of viewing records in the Far East. The game pulled a 44.4 TV rating in baseball-crazy Japan, beating all sports competitions from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The island nation’s first four games averaged a whopping 42.3.
• The numbers for games involving Caribbean nations have increased in even more impressive fashion since the last WBC in 2017. Puerto Rico’s game against the Dominican Republic drew a massive 62 percent share of all viewers in the Caribbean.
• Games involving the U.S. team have smashed all previous viewing and attendance records. The Americans’ game with Mexico, played at Chase Field in Phoenix, drew 47,534 fans, a new WBC record for any opening-round game.
• Japanese team member Shohei Ohtaini, who plays with the Los Angeles Angels, is arguably the most popular baseball player in the world. Ohtani has gained the most new social media followers of any player, with a 1.36 million increase since March 1.
• Complete Viewing data for the knockout rounds won’t be fully available until later this week, but are expected to dwarf past WBC competitions.

This is the year the WBC officially arrived, and it is fueling the idea of MLB global expansion, which is destined to happen at some point — and now it will likely materialize much sooner than later.

The WBC will return in 2026, and I can’t wait. 

2. This week’s Daily Dirt celebrity birthday wishes go to:

• Singer Chaka Khan, who turns 70 on Thursday.
• Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon. She will be 47 on Wednesday.
• Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning will also turn 47. His celebration will be Friday.
• Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who will be 83 on Sunday.
• Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen. He will be 63 on Sunday.

3. Ever wonder what the most expensive sandwich you could buy in the U.S. might be?

Well, it’s a grilled cheese special that costs $214 … but it’s not just any grilled cheese sandwich. 

“The Quintessential Grilled Cheese is served on two pieces of French Pullman champagne bread, which is made with Dom Perignon champagne and edible gold flakes, with white truffle butter and the very rare Caciocavallo Podolico cheese. The sandwich is served with South African Lobster Tomato Bisque as a dipping sauce,” according to the Guinness Book of World Records. 

FYI, the sandwich is served at the Serendipity 3 restaurant in New York City.

Steve Thought O’ The Day — Here’s a good trivia question that should help you win a Mountain Dew from friends. Name the 14 colleges that qualified for the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, plus played in a 2022 football season bowl game. Those 14 are: UCLA, Texas, North Carolina State, USC, Duke, Maryland, Baylor, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Iowa, Alabama, Purdue, Illinois and UConn.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. He’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger on Monday.