The World Baseball Classic will have a new TV home for its 2023 return.
On Friday, Fox Sports announced that the 2023 WBC would air across its various platforms.
FOX Sports becomes the exclusive home to the 2023 World Baseball Classic! 🌎
All 47 games during @MLB’s premier international tournament are set to air across the FOX Sports family of networks.
🗒️: https://t.co/jumJxPNGln pic.twitter.com/zHTDBq347y
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) October 21, 2022
In their release announcing the news, Fox notes that the 47 WBC games would air across Fox, FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes, Tubi, and the Fox Sports app.
Network assignments have only been publicly announced for a handful of games. The first game on Tuesday, March 7th between Cuba and the Netherlands will air on FS1 and Fox Deportes. The United States’ first game on Saturday, March 11th against Great Britain will air on Fox. The championship game on Tuesday, March 21st will air on FS1 and Fox Deportes.
The WBC next March will have significant competition for eyeballs from college basketball. The 2023 NCAA Tournament begins with the First Four on March 14th, with conference tournaments taking place prior to that date. Fox seems like it’ll have the opportunity for a nice doubleheader for the first US game, which will seemingly air right after the Big East tournament championship.
Fox is a new TV partner for the WBC. The first two tournaments (2006, 2009) aired on ESPN, while the last two (2013, 2017) aired on MLB Network. Earlier this summer, I floated Fox as a natural broadcast partner for the WBC, which would be true for any of MLB’s existing TV partners (aside from Warner Bros. Discovery, which has its hands full with March Madness).
