Television ratings for the World Baseball Classic continue to increase from 2006, but the seeding system impacted attendance for last night's Japan/Korea game. Attendance at Petco Park in San Diego was below 15,000, and according to today's SportsBusiness Daily, fans in the upper deck were encouraged to move down to the lower bowl in order to make the game look better on television.

As for television...

ESPN’s World Baseball Classic coverage is demonstrating consistent audience growth across multimedia platforms. Through the second round to date, ESPN’s telecasts are averaging 1,675,000 viewers (up 53 percent), 1,264,000 household impressions (up 36 percent) and a 1.3 average rating (up 30 percent). At this time in 2006, ESPN’s telecasts were averaging 1,098,000 viewers, 930,000 households and a 1.0 rating.

The World Baseball Classic has also led to significant audience growth for additional ESPN outlets:

ESPN Deportes

• ESPN Deportes’ live World Baseball Classic telecasts are averaging a 1.9 Hispanic household rating, 82,000 Hispanic households and 115,000 Hispanic viewers;
• The United States vs. Puerto Rico game (March 14) is the network’s highest-rated World Baseball Classic telecast to date delivering a 3.4 Hispanic rating, 148,000 Hispanic households and 211,000 Hispanic viewers;
• The USA/Puerto Rico telecast is ESPN Deportes’ highest-rated, non-soccer event ever;
• World Baseball Classic telecasts account for the network’s top 13 highest-rated, non-soccer events.

ESPNdeportes.com

• The World Baseball Classic has helped ESPNdeportes.com deliver 68.8 million page views for March 2009.

ESPN.com

• There have been 3.1 million views of World Baseball Classic-related video.

Semifinals and Final Across ESPN Platforms

ESPN will showcase the World Baseball Classic semifinals (Saturday, March 21, and Sunday, March 22) – including Team USA facing the Korea/Japan winner on Sunday – and final (March 23) across the following platforms: ESPN HD, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio, ESPN360.com, ESPN Mobile TV and ESPN International. ESPN’s coverage of the semifinal and final will mark the debut of the new Sunday Night Baseball commentator team of Jon Miller, Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips. Pedro Gomez will also report during ESPN’s telecasts, along with SportsCenter. Jon Sciambi will handle the call for ESPN Radio with analyst Dave Campbell.

ESPN Deportes will include a commentator team of Ernesto Jerez (play-by-play), analysts Juan Marichal and Candy Maldonado and reporters Guillermo Celis and Carolina Guillen. Eduardo Ortega (Saturday/Monday) and Jaime Jarin (Sunday) will call the games for ESPN Deportes Radio, teaming with analyst Renato Bermudez.

ESPN International will distribute the games in Africa, Asia (via ESS), Australia, China, Europe (via ESPN America), Guam (U.S. feed), Japan, Latin America, the Middle East, New Zealand and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

ESPN’s SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight and ESPNEWS – along with ESPN.com and ESPNdeportes.com – will also provide comprehensive highlights, news and information. 

Source: ESPN

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Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He is contributor to Baseball Prospectus, and is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

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