Japan continued its high ratings throughout the WBC period. It started with over 40% from the first game against China. It started with 41.9%, and the next day in Korea, it rose to 44.4%.
The highest was in the quarterfinals against Italy. It was 48.0%. The finals and semi-finals are lower than this because they are in the morning hours on weekdays. In the final against the United States held at 8:00 in the morning, 42.4% came out. 22.2% of rebroadcasts aired at 7 p.m.
This is a figure that surpasses the soccer world cup. In the Qatar tournament last year, he scored 42.9% in the match between Japan and Costa Rica (Group E preliminary round). This is thanks to the anticipation of defeating Germany in the first match. However, in this WBC, all 7 matches exceeded 40%. Among them, three matches, including the Korea match, the Czech match (43.1%), and the Australia match (43.2%) exceeded the World Cup record.
TV Asahi, which has broadcasting rights in Japan, also announced the number of viewers. As a result of a survey of 24 branch offices affiliated with the company, 94.46 million people watched even one game out of seven. Data based on viewing for more than 1 minute by people over 4 years of age.
The population watching the final was counted as 54.64 million. This means that about 43.8% of the total population has seen it. The highest score in this category came from the Korean War. It was found that 62.34 million people watched it. This figure is close to half (49.5%) of Japan’s population.
In the United States, the method of counting is different. We pick viewer numbers, not viewer ratings. According to this, the final with Japan was revealed to be 4.48 million people on average nationwide. The WBC Organizing Committee announced that this figure doubled from 2.29 million in the finals of the last tournament (2017, USA-Puerto Rico). If you add the 660,000 viewers of the Spanish channel, the total number rises to 5.14 million. 메이저사이트
According to the media Sports Business Journal, this is similar to the first stage of the major league postseason. In other words, it is an interpretation that is slightly higher than the wild card game and equal to the division series, which is a round.
In fact, the number of viewers for the WBC Finals in the United States falls far short of major MLB events. According to data, the average number of viewers per regular season game is about 2.5 million. In the case of the All-Star game, it goes up to 7 million to 9 million.
Peak is also in the World Series. In the case of last year’s Houston-Philadelphia game, the highest was recorded in Game 5. It was 12.79 million people. The average of the entire series (games 1 to 6) is 11.76 million. In case of a matchup with high interest, a higher number appears. In 2017, Houston-LA Dodgers recorded 18.92 million, and in 2016, Chicago Cubs-Cleveland recorded 22.85 million.
To put it bluntly, it is true that this WBC final attracted only 20-40% of the attention compared to the World Series. It is not an empty word to say that ‘a lot of Americans don’t even know such a competition exists’. In Japan, of course, the opposite is true. Last year, the viewership rating for Game 7 of the Yakult-Orix Japan Series was only 13.4%. Less than 1/3 of WBC.