The College World Series is underway in Omaha, with the popular postseason event eyeing more records around both game attendance and TV viewership.

Last year, the CWS drew its highest-ever total attendance of 392,946. That represented an average of 24,559 fans per game across the 16 contests. It was the third consecutive year the CWS broke its previous spectator record.

This year, the eight-team bracket has four schools each from the ACC and SEC, whose fan bases support their baseball teams as well as, if not better, than any others in the country. All games take place at the 24,000-seat Charles Schwab Field, the $130 million ballpark that opened in 2011. 

All Eyes on Omaha

College World Series media rights are tied to ESPN through 2032, thanks to the network’s recent eight-year, $920 million extension for NCAA championships. Last year’s CWS was the most-watched ever on ESPN, with an average audience of 1.65 million viewers. That figure was up 48% from ’22.

The final eight teams enter with plenty of momentum already. Super Regional games averaged 501,000 viewers on ESPN, representing the most-watched round since 2009 and up 22% from last season. The championship series is set to get a bigger platform, too, with one of the potential three games moving from ESPN to network TV on ABC.

Sticking to Their Roots

During a recent appearance on Front Office Sports Today, College World Series executive director Amy Hornocker said that even though getting to Omaha is a “bucket list item for a lot of people,” the annual event still has roughly 3,000 season-ticket holders from all but four states.

The Nebraska city has hosted the CWS since 1950 and is under contract with the NCAA to do so until 2036. With its growing popularity, though, other cities may try to poach the championship if the NCAA were to consider creating a traveling road show like the Final Four. “I’d like to think that even when we get close to the contract that, if there’s other cities involved, that we have a fair shot,” Hornocker said.

The long and winding road toward a new Rays ballpark may at last be approaching a definitive conclusion, giving the MLB club a clear and full sense of its future for the first time in nearly two decades.

The St. Petersburg, Fla., city council on Thursday preliminarily approved by a 5–3 margin a development agreement and zoning changes relating to a new Rays stadium—marking the first time that the public body has made any sort of actual vote on the club’s proposed $1.3 billion stadium and mixed-use development.

Those preliminary decisions set the stage for larger votes on the stadium financing and overall project approval that are now scheduled for next month. The Rays’ plan for the new ballpark calls for the club paying $700 million plus cost overruns, with the public sector contributing the remaining $600 million. If approved, the stadium deal would finally end years of relocation rumors and talk centered on the team’s low attendance at Tropicana Field.

Nearly nine months after the Rays first unveiled their plans to become a centerpiece of St. Petersburg’s redevelopment of its Gas Plant District, confidence within MLB is rising that formal agreements and legislative approvals are near.

“I feel a good deal of confidence that they’re going to be able to get it done,” said league commissioner Rob Manfred to the Tampa Bay Times. He was in town meeting with Rays and Cubs players Thursday as part of an annual tour to see clubs in person but did not attend the council session. 

“We think the Tampa Bay region is really important to baseball. Getting a concrete agreement with respect to what the future of the stadium is going to be is just absolutely the top of the list for us,” Manfred said.

The Rays released updated renderings late last month on the planned stadium, and they hope to break ground early next year in advance of a 2028 facility opening. 

More Hurdles to Clear

Despite that hopeful sentiment, there are still hurdles to clear before those final approvals. A new lobbying group, No Home Run, recently formed in opposition to the public financing, a move advancing a broadly rising sentiment around the country against taxpayer support of new and renovated facilities for pro teams. The group last week released results of a new poll of local voters finding 72% of respondents in favor of renegotiating the public funding.

Some St. Petersburg council members—having already pushed for greater emphasis of the city by the Rays—are also still seeking greater disclosure around the deal.

“We are making decisions based on graphs and not final documents. I cannot emphasize that more,” said council member Lisset Hanewicz, one of the three “no” votes. “It is our duty to do our due diligence and we can only do that appropriately with final documents and not being rushed through the process.”