The 2026 World Baseball Classic viewership numbers were already a big win for Fox and baseball, and Monday night’s USA-Mexico game took things to new heights.
Fox Sports announced on Wednesday night that the USA-Mexico WBC telecast averaged 5.02 million viewers, peaking at 5.65 million viewers from in the 9 p.m. ET quarter-hour across Fox and Fox Deportes. The game was up 215 percent from Team USA’s only pool play game in the 2003 WBC on Fox and Fox Deportes (1.59 million viewers).
Most-Watched 👏 WBC 👏 Telecast 👏 Ever
Team USA’s victory over Mexico, in Monday night’s #WorldBaseballClassic showdown, delivered a whopping 5,018,000 viewers across FOX and FOX Deportes.
Viewership peaked at 5,649,000 from 9:00-9:15 PM ET. pic.twitter.com/4yC9ae4v3D
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) March 11, 2026
That blows away Saturday’s USA-Great Britain broadcast that averaged 2.98 million viewers and had been good for the second-highest WBC viewership ever, behind only the 2023 WBC Final between the USA and Japan that averaged 4.48 million viewers.
Now, Monday night’s USA-Mexico game is king, and more than five million viewers saw Team USA come away with a 5-3 win in Houston.
It will be fascinating to see how the FS1 viewership numbers look for Italy’s stunning 8-6 win over Team USA on Tuesday night, which happened after manager Mark DeRosa falsely thought the Americans had already clinched a trip to the quarterfinals. Instead, the USA is now left depending on Wednesday night’s Mexico-Italy result in order to advance to the quarterfinals via the WBC tiebreaker scenarios.
Fox is certainly rooting hard for Team USA to advance, all the way to the championship game. A 2023 WBC rematch of Team USA vs Shohei Ohtani and Japan would be the dream for Fox.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.