Venezuela’s first World Baseball Classic (WBC) crown came with the largest share of a record US$37 million prize pool, Front Office Sports reported on Wednesday.
The run to the title, earned on Tuesday night with a 3-2 win over the US in Miami, concluded a tournament that offered compensation more than double the US$15 million from the 2023 WBC.
Each of the 20 teams were guaranteed at least US$750,000, to be split evenly between each country’s baseball governing body and the players. Shares for coaches and staff came from the federation’s portion.
Photo: Reuters
The further a team advanced in the tournament, the larger the payout.
Venezuela, per the report, collected US$2.5 million for winning the championship, for a total of US$6.75 million combined with money earned from earlier rounds.
So the Venezuelan players would get half, about US$3.375 million — broken down to about US$112,500 per player, the Front Office Sports report said.
While some Venezuela players would earn at or near the MLB minimum of US$780,000 this season, as a whole, the players would earn US$187 million in this year’s campaign. That averages to more than US$6 million per player, the report said.
MLB’s tournament rights contract with Netflix in Japan, which the Front Office Sports report estimated to be worth more than US$100 million, contributed to the boost in the prize pool.
The tournament also drew a total attendance of 1.62 million, a 24 percent increase from the 2023 WBC when Japan won the title.
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