To say this year’s Little League World Series was a hit would be both an insanely bad pun and, well, an incredible understatement.
We all already know the story of Philadelphia’s Mo’Ne Davis, the breakout star of the 2014 tournament, but thanks to their historic performance Saturday, we’re beginning to know the boys from the Chicago-based Jackie Robinson West All-Stars.
The stories of the pre-teens besting both the Chicago Cubs and White Sox on the local ratings front have been well publicized. What happened next was unprecedented.
The team beat Nevada, 7-5 on Saturday to win the United States Championship game and, in the process, delivered a 13.4 local rating (along with 623,900 viewers) for the Chicago ABC affiliate.
The crowd at Wrigley Field goes wild as #JRW wins the #LLWS2014 Championship! https://t.co/FFfoK6N6BT
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 23, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThe ratings trend would continue for Sunday’s World Championship loss to South Korea…drawing a staggering 15.0 household rating and more than 810,500 viewers. Now, by comparison, the MTV Video Music Awards, which also aired Sunday night did nearly a third of the rating (5.3) and far less than half of the viewers (307,000) in the Chicago market.
In your face, Beyonce!
Two days later, the team once again displayed its drawing power. This time…in the form of t-shirts.
Fans of the Jackie Robinson West All-Stars swarmed a local Dick’s Sporting Goods to get their hands on one of the 7000 bright yellow “National Championship” shirts that went on sale Tuesday morning.
The store was sold out in just a few hours.
“The only thing that I can compare it to would be the (Chicago) Blackhawks winning a championship,” the store’s marketing manager said.
“The inspiration these young men have showed the city of Chicago,” Michael Mucci, a Little League coach himself, added. “I just wanted to make sure I got a piece of history.”
According to Dick’s, all proceeds from sales of the $20 tee-shirts would go back to supporting the team.
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