MLB should take a page from NHL's 4 Nations Face-Off and replace All-Star Game with World Baseball Classic in July
Woluldn't fans enjoy the WBC midseason instead of the MLB's All-Star Game? If 4 Nations Face-Off could work for the NHL, why couldn't a midseason WBC? Credit: AP/Gabriel Christus
If the NHL 4 Nations Face-Off proved anything, it’s that the epitaph for All-Star Games or All-Star-type tournaments might have been written too early.
As the NBA, NFL and MLB struggle to get their fans interested in All-Star Games, the NHL’s inaugural 4 Nations captured the hearts, minds and eyeballs of both die-hard and casual hockey fans.
Thursday’s tournament final between the U.S. and Canada was the most-watched NHL game ever in the U.S., with 9.3 million viewers on ESPN. An average of 5.7 million and peak of 7.3 million tuned in north of the border in Canada, which won a 3-2, overtime thriller.
Can this type of phenomenon be copied in other sports? For the NFL, which has abandoned the Pro Bowl and replaced it with a skills competition and Flag Football game, the answer seems to be no. But the NFL has the Super Bowl, which this year was watched by 127.7 million people worldwide. The NFL is good.
The NBA has tinkered with its All-Star Game format so much that the event is unwatchable and even some of the players who participate despise it. This year’s festivities, which included a tournament format, were the second-least viewed ever. The NBA is going to keep tinkering, much like Nero kept fiddling while Rome burned, but fewer people care every year.
That brings us to Major League Baseball, whose All-Star Game used to be the granddaddy of them all. But that was back when your granddaddy was just a tyke and seeing the stars from one league play against one another was a unique and memorable event.
Now, with interleague play dotting the schedule every single day — the Yankees and Mets are both opening this season against opponents from the other league — the All-Star Game has been eclipsed by the Home Run Derby, which is held the night before, and is easier for today’s attention-challenged viewers to digest.
Fortunately for MLB, there is an answer right in front of them.
The World Baseball Classic.
MLB introduced the WBC in 2006. It has been held every three or four years (with the exception of 2020), and will return for its sixth go-round in March 2026.
That last sentence contains the main problem with the WBC: It is contested during spring training, when the players aren’t quite up to peak physical condition and March Madness hogs the sports spotlight.
What is MLB to do? Easy. Next season, cancel the All-Star Game and move the WBC to July.
WBC games through the years have been some of the most exciting affairs baseball fans have seen. The atmosphere inside the stadiums can be as electric as any postseason game.
Those who were at the Miami Marlins’ stadium on March 22, 2023, will never forget the sight of Shohei Ohtani striking out his then-Angels teammate Mike Trout for the final out of Japan’s 3-2 championship game victory over the U.S.
And the worldwide TV audience is growing — 42.4% of households in Japan watched that game even though it started at 8 a.m. local time. In the U.S., it was the most-watched WBC game of all-time, with an average 5.2 million viewers.
Other top WBC moments include David Wright’s turn as “Captain America” in 2006 and Marcus Stroman throwing six shutout innings in the 2017 title game against Puerto Rico as the U.S. won its first WBC crown.
Still, the WBC has not broken through the way the 4 Nations did. The best way to turn the WBC into must-see TV is to place it during the viewing desert of mid-July and promote it throughout the season like the NHL did with its tournament.
As much as with the NHL, MLB is an international sport. That it took the U.S. four tournaments to even make it to the final in 2017 shows how powerful the rosters are around the world.
Japan. Puerto Rico. The Dominican Republic. Mexico. Canada. Cuba. South Korea.
MLB should run all the participating nations’ flags up the flagpole and see who salutes.
If a little ol’ hockey tournament featuring the quartet of U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland can capture the sports zeitgeist for a week or two, why can’t a four- or six- or eight-nation baseball tournament dominate a week or two in July?
I’ll leave the logistics to greater minds. How many teams? For how long does MLB shut down its season? Who gets paid and by whom?
And, yes, the risk of injuries will be there. But they are there in the WBC as played in March, as fans of Edwin Diaz and the Mets can sadly attest, or fans of Vincent Trocheck and the Rangers.
The timing couldn’t be better to move the WBC to July. Baseball is returning to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but MLB has not said if it will allow its 40-man roster players to participate.
Some stars, such as Trout and Aaron Judge, have expressed an interest in representing their country in L.A.
So how about this: shut down the MLB season for a mid-July WBC in 2026 (or 2027 if more time is needed), allow big leaguers to play in the Los Angeles Games in 2028, and assess if that is something the public would like to see going forward.
Based on the response to the 4 Nations, it just might be.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
