MLB Faces a Pivotal Crossroads After World Baseball Classic's Explosion in Popularity

The World Baseball Classic is over, and that Venezuela is the best in the world isn't the only thing it taught us.

There's also how awesome it is to be a baseball fan right now.

When Shohei Ohtani struck out Mike Trout to seal a third title for Japan, the 2023 WBC set a seemingly impossible act to follow. Yet it feels like we just witnessed the peak of the event's 20-year history. The games were great. The stars were shining. And most of all, people were into it.

There could be no better handoff to the 2026 MLB season, which will formally begin next week. The sport is effectively back in MLB's hands, and it's never felt like a more valuable commodity.

The question is this: How trustworthy is MLB's grip on it?

The 2026 WBC Was Peak Baseball

The Point: A far-fetched promise from long ago has been fulfilled.

The idea of a baseball World Cup was officially realized in December 2005, when MLB and the MLB Players Association spearheaded the creation of the World Baseball Classic. It was meant to allow fans from around the globe to "see baseball in an exciting and compelling new format," all while paying "tribute to the tremendous growth and internationalization of the game."

For the early iterations, this worked better in theory than in practice. Not every country could fill its roster with internationally recognized stars, and the USA—i.e., the tournament's tone-setter—struggled to get the best of the best to take a break from spring training for the sake of the greater good.

The 2023 WBC changed everything. The sheer bigness of Ohtani vs. Trout was undeniable even at the time, and it was crucially a moment that only the WBC could have delivered. It felt like the WBC evolving from sideshow to main event in real time.

That the 2026 WBC would be flooded with talent was simply how it had to be after that. Out of the top 40 players in MLB last year in terms of fWAR, 26 agreed to play in the WBC. Crucially, Cy Young Award winners Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal broke what had been like a boycott on the part of ace pitchers.

The tournament was defined by incredible energy, with Aaron Judge even saying it felt "bigger and better than the World Series." And that's coming from the captain of the team that treated the WBC like a funeral march. Other teams treated it like a party, complete with costumes, refreshments and competitive bat-flipping.

Not lost amid all the excitement was how good the competition was. Italy, of all teams, made it to the semifinals. Venezuela had to beat them and Japan and the USA to win its first WBC title. And somehow, some way, the much-hyped showdown between the USA and Dominican Republic lived up to its billing.

You can't throw a rock around the internet without hitting some kind of think piece about just how good the 2026 World Baseball Classic was. And while baseball has at times been guilty of hiding in its niche, that's not what happened here.

Baseball Is on a Winning Streak

The Point: These are tough days for the "Baseball is dying" crowd.

To be fair, "baseball is dying" was rightfully treated as a meme even when purportedly serious people were saying it seriously. That sentiment has roots that go back even to the early days of a sport that is now [checks notes] 150 years old in 2026.

Baseball is not dead. Better than that, it's never been more alive.

To wit, the 2026 MLB season will look to build on a 2025 season that hit these notes:

• Attendance: Grew for a third straight year for the first time since 2005-07
• Playoff Viewership: The highest pre-World Series since 2017
• World Series Viewership: The highest since 1992

Also noteworthy is that the 2025 World Series averaged over five million more viewers than the NBA Finals. There was a lot going on there, but there is something to the notion that the two leagues are trending in wildly different directions.

The pitch clock and other changes that took effect in MLB three years ago have both sped and spiced things up. There are also a ton of marketable stars out there, with more (gestures toward Cal Raleigh) coming every year. And yes, the league is only getting more international.

Those are all the ingredients you need for a WBC that people can't get enough of, and that proved to be the case this year. The 2026 tournament set viewership records for pool play, and the USA vs. Venezuela final could potentially double the 2023 USA vs. Japan final.

Baseball is big. Very big. Maybe even too big to fail.

It's therefore too bad that it could actually happen before the year is out.

MLB Can't Screw This Up

The Point: It's hard to imagine a worse time for an MLB work stoppage.

The contrast is frankly infuriating. On the field, baseball is thriving. Off the field, its center of gravity is about to explode.

MLB's collective bargaining agreement is due to expire after the season, and hope of a new one being struck before then is basically nil. There are much, much greater odds of a lockout, and one that could last a lot longer than the 99-day lockout of 2021-22.

Ostensibly, at the heart of the strife between MLB and the MLBPA is competitive balance. Realistically, it's payroll disparity. And whether or not you want to blame the Los Angeles Dodgers for it, it is a real thing.

The league's owners would have everyone believe that only a salary cap can fix things, and that talking point is powerful. Per Stephen J. Nesbitt, a survey of fans by The Athletic found that 68 percent of respondents favor an MLB with a cap and floor for payrolls.

Salary cap or no, both sides must be wary of what could be lost. Namely, the momentum that baseball sought for a long time, and now finally has.

That mainly means you, owners. You can't be crying poor while MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is gloating about how good business is. If it really is that hard to compete with the Dodgers, selling is always an option. Shoot, the San Diego Padres are expected to fetch $3 billion, according to Jeff Passan of ESPN.

From the sidelines, all any of us can do is hope that cooler heads prevail and MLB just lets baseball cook. For that, it can only help if focus was split between the present and the future. The former is obviously in good shape. And if anything is going to come from the World Baseball Classic's ascent, it's a healthy mix of new fans and an ever-deepening talent pool. Such things are good for business.

In so many words, it's a nice sport we have here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.