Recently, although it is making world-class achievements in various sports events, the popularity of baseball is still strong even though it is Japan. Baseball is the top professional sports league in Japan, attracting many fans. Needless to say, it is a national team made up of representative players from that league.
The box office in the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC) is also smooth. Japan, the host nation of Group B and the quarterfinals, is playing in the clouds. There are several elements.
Basically, the game of the Japanese national baseball team is a card that guarantees box office success. In addition, a large number of stars with clear ticket power participated, such as Shohei Ohtani (LA Angels) and Yu Darvish (San Diego), who had not been seen playing in Korea for a while. In addition, it is interpreted that fans’ expectations have been greatly raised by the evaluation that they are candidates for the championship.
This success can be clearly seen in the viewership ratings as well. The Japanese media reported that the viewership rating for the first round against China on the 9th was 41.9% (based on Kanto region, video research survey). From the start of the first round, a huge viewership was recorded. It is evaluated that the anticipation for the team and the interest in Ohtani’s starting pitching were clearly revealed.
The highest viewer rating in Japan for all WBC tournaments was 43.4% in the final against Cuba at the time of the first tournament in 2006. The previous second place was 40.2% in the second round match against Korea in 2009, but the record for second place in history was broken. The ratings for the match against Korea and Japan have not yet been officially counted, but it is expected to be higher than the ratings for the match against China. Since ancient times, the Korea-Japan match has also been a guarantee check for box office success in Japan.
Korea also has a very high viewer rating for the Korea-Japan match. Same with baseball and soccer. An official from a broadcasting company said, “Assuming that the three public broadcasters are broadcasting at the same time, viewership ratings were in the late 10% range and close to 20% when it came out well. It is a really great figure for a single sporting event.” However, this time, it is evaluated that it did not live up to that expectation.
According to a survey by Nielsen Korea, the viewership rating for the Korea-Japan match was 11.7% in total for the three companies. It proved its basic box office power with a figure that was more than twice as high as the match against Australia on the 9th (4.8%). It is true that it has improved, but it is less than before. Considering that it was assigned at a relatively good time of 7 pm on Friday, the industry’s evaluation is that it is a bit disappointing. It should be noted that it cannot be compared with the media environment 10 years ago, but it was difficult to compare with the previous WBC Korea-Japan match figures.
In the end, as the national team failed one after another on the international stage, it proved again the theory that interest in baseball as a whole was waning.안전놀이터 The KBO League has suffered greatly in recent years due to the controversy over the decline in quality due to poor performance in international competitions and the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), which forcibly prevented fans from going out to the baseball field.
There was a desire to achieve good results in this WBC and carry that momentum into the league, but it was rather cold water. Still, Japan had the idea that if you fight hard, you can do it, but now the difference in weight class is widening in both the national team’s skills and the league’s interest.