Shohei ohtani #17 The Los Angeles Dodgers turns to the fans, while leaving the field after the opening series MLB Tokyo between Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs on March 19, 2025 in Tokio, Japan.
Gene wang | Getty pictures
On the morning of the second and last game of the Major League Baseball between the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers on March 19, snow dust fell to the Japanese capital – an extremely rare event for Cherry Blossom Blooms.
But that did not have more than a thousand people to buy in the 31,100 square meter Fanatiker-MLB shop outside the Tokyo Dome when it opened this morning.
This is a reflection of the kind of effects that Shohei Ohtani has on the business of MLB in Japan, an impact that has grown in December 2023 since it was committed by a professional sports record, 10-year contract of $ 700 million with the Dodgers.
According to Nori Kawana, Managing Director of East Asia, East Asia Managing Director for Fanatics, the MLB Merchante business in the MLB Mercules business worldwide recorded by 170% last year. In the past five years, the goods in connection with ohtani have made up 57% of all MLB sales in the MLB Store Japan and Fanatics Japan, while Dodgers' sales sales have increased by more than 2,000% since he signed the team, said Kawana.
Japan has a deep baseball story and is the most popular sport in the country for spectators and participants. MLB also had a long connection to the country and comes from Barnstorming games, in which players like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig play the now deeper relationship between MLB and Nippon Professional baseball in exhibition games in Japan.
Noah Garden, deputy business officer of MLB, said that Japan is far from the largest commercial market in the league outside of the United States and Canada, which he attributes to these long -term investments.
“It just doesn't happen overnight,” said Garden. However, he added: “And then you have this talent in a lifetime.”
Garden said that MLB looks around the globe, “the business material generally leaves the fandom for a few ticks.”
In Japan, where MLB “only scratches the surface,” said Garden, “the chances explode.”
According to the MLB, the first game of this year's Tokyo series was observed by 25 million viewers in Japan, so MLB set a new record for the most watched game of the country, the population of Japan is around 125 million. The second game achieved an average of more than 23 million viewers.
Although it is not a precise comparison of apples, the Dodgers-New York York Yorkes 2024 World Series had an average of 15.8 million viewers in the United States (and 12.1 million in Japan, where the games started in the morning).
MLB plans to feed this growing fan base in Japan. The league had long had an office in the country and recently expanded its original and translated Japanese content for the MLB -app and on MLB.com. It also adds a newsletter and a content hub that follows players born in the Japanese. In addition to updating his MLB Gameday product that offers game tracking and advanced statistics to be in Japanese.
Fans posing for photos before the baseball game between Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs in the MLB -Tokyo series outside the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo on March 18, 2025.
Yuichi Yamazaki |
Garden said that a growing audience is changing the way the league thinks about its next media law contract, with both its international and domestic business taking place after the 2028 season. “If the next offers have expired, you will find people looking for worldwide rights, especially for the streamers,” said Garden. “The number of people who deal with the game in international game is open to everyone's eyes.”
For the Tokyo series, games were streamed locally on the Over-Air -NTV and Amazon Prime.
This also transmits sponsorship, said Garden, and American companies see the opportunity to continue to enter the Japanese market, while Japanese companies are able to not only do things with MLB on site, but also to reach consumers. MLB has signed 14 new sponsors in Japan in the past two years, and the Tokyo series has been the largest international sponsorship event in the league ever and achieved an increase in sales by 240% compared to the South Korea, South Korea in 2024 SEoul series, by 240%.
“At the same time, we benefit from everything that is going together,” said Garden.
Garden said the league expected that the Tokyo series “is the most successful international game that we have made financially”.
The two games between the Cubs and Dodgers were immediate sale, in addition to the exhibition games between the MLB teams and the local Japanese games. The demand was so high that the games were broadcast in around 150 film cinemas in Japan.
The Tokyo series recorded the best goods sales of all MLB International Event, whereby the distribution made the 2024 London series by 320%in the shade, said MLB. Each MLB all-star week exceeded sales in the Tokyo Dome business and sold more than half a million products. It is not surprising that the most popular article was an ohtani jersey with the Tokyo series patch.
The MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred informed the New York Times that he would expect the Tokyo series to set up records for a league special event on the entire league and could bring in more than 35 million US dollars. However, he said that the bigger goal is to expand the entire business of the league there: “We believe that it is in the B of the B: billions,” said Manfred the Times.
Connect Japanese fans with all MLB players, teams
Justin Turner #3 of the Chicago Cubs poses with young fans who wear a false beard on March 16, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan, on March 16, 2025, Japan, before the game against Yomiuri Giants.
Kenta Harada | Getty Images Sport | Getty pictures
This growth is only continued as Ohtani, together with other players born in Japan such as the Dodgers' Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto as well as the Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki of the Cubs still have an impact on MLB. However, the challenge for MLB and his partners to achieve this high goal is to build the rest of the league players in Japan.
David Leiner, President of Trading Cards for Fanatics Collectibles, where he supervises tops, said that the fandom for baseball in Japan is undeniable, with a lot of support not only for the Japanese MLB stars, but also for the local NPB teams.
Topps has expanded his business into the country's eight figures, said Leiner: “With Ohtani, a little accelerated into growth.”
The company also holds the licenses for the Japanese baseball and football leagues as well as other entertainment plots, and Leiner said that fanatics see the potential of the market to generate over nine numbers.
Japanese card collectors do not differ very much from American, said Leiner, but one of the essential differences is how much they try to support players from their country. “Do you want the derek Jeter? [card] Or Mike Trout [card]? Of course, but they tend a little more to the Japanese players in MLB, and that's very proud of it, “he said.
Lein said that this leads to the fandom of the teams that Japanese players played, and that lasts over time – for example, there is a quota of Seattle Mariners fans in Japan in Japan, since Ichiro Suzuki has time with the team. However, there are other examples that it is a fleeting phenomenon when Japanese fans flocked to a player and then stopped as precisely when this player left MLB. Now the growth of Japanese players and their effects on the league contributes to building a wider fandom for MLB.
Last season there were 10 players born in Japan on the opening day on MLB rust, most since 2013 when there were 11. While some of the other countries represented in the league such as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, who had 108 or 58 players at the opening squad, only a few countries with the strong power can correspond to the Japanese player of the Japanese group of Japanese players. MLB has not yet obliged the teams to complete opening lists in 2025, but the number of Japanese players is expected to grow.
Kawana, who is based in Tokyo, said that Japanese fans were historically concentrated on player fandom, but now recorded the growth of the team of teams, especially since it has become easier to follow these teams.
Having MLB teams on site did not harm either. The last time ago, when MLB played official games in Japan, was in 2019, and Garden said that the league hopes that if it agreed to its new CBA, it will run in 2026 with “an even bigger one [international] plan.”
MLB will later organize a series of games in Monterrey, Mexico this month.
“These types of things have been in production, and it takes a long time for participation at the youth level to really ripe,” said Garden. “You are now seeing the climax and this should initiate a new era of prosperity for MLB and baseball in Asia.”
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