Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Shohei Ohtani #17 from Los -Angeles Dodgers worries fans, leaving the field after the MLB Tokyo opening series between Los -Andgeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs in Tokyo -Kupol on March 19, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan.
Gin van | Gets the image
In the morning of the second and latest game in Tokyo -Series Baseball Major League between Chicago Cubes and Los -Angeles Dodgers on March 19, the dust of snow fell in the capital of Japan -an extremely rare occurrence during the year, better known for flowering cherry flowers.
But this did not dissuade more than a thousand people from growing the store on 3100 square foot fanatics running in the MLB store outside Tokyo when it opened in the morning.
This is a reflection of the type of impact that Shohai Otani has on the MLB business in Japan, an impact that has only increased since the signing of 10-year sports records in the 10-year record, $ 700 million from Dodgers in December 2023, then with the first launch of the MLB home and the 50th season.
Last year, fanatics controlled by MLB in Japan increased by 170% increase in MLB goods in Japan, Nori Kawana reports, Head of East Asia fanatics. Over the past five years, the goods associated with OHTANI made 57% of all MLB Sales in the MLB Store Japan and Fanatics Japan, while Dodgers sales increased by more than 2000% compared to last year as it signed up with the team, Kavana said.
Japan has a deep baseball history and is the most popular sports in the country for both viewers and participants. MLB also had a long connection with the country, starting with the Barnstorming games that have seen players such as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, playing in Japan’s exhibition games, to a deeper relationship between MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball.
Noah Garden, Deputy Commissioner for Business and Media MLB, said Japan is by far the largest commercial market market outside the United States and Canada, which he attributes this long -term investment.
“It just doesn’t happen for the night,” Garden said. However, he added, “And then you have such a talent in life.”
Garden said that when MLB inspects the globe, “a business usually lags behind Fandi in several ticks.”
In Japan, where MLB is “just scratching on the surface,” the garden said, “exploring”.
According to MLB, the first game in the Tokyo series watched 25 million viewers in Japan, which sets a new record for the most viewed game in Japan’s country of approximately 125 million. The second game averaged over 23 million viewers.
Although this is not an accurate comparison of apples to apples, the World Dodgers-New York Yankees 2024 series averaged 15.8 million viewers in the US (and 12.1 million in Japan, where the games started in the morning).
MLB plans to feed that growing fan -baza in Japan with content. The League has long had an office in the country, and recently expanded its original and translated Japanese content for MLB and MLB.com. It also adds a newsletter and the contents center followed by Japanese players. As well as updating your MLB Gameday product, which provides tracking gaming and advanced statistics to be in Japanese.
Fans create photos before the baseball game between Los -Andgeles Dodgers and Chicago cubes in the MLB Tokyo series outside Tokyo on March 18, 2025.
Yuichi Yamazaki |
Garden said an increasing audience changed the way as the League thinks about its next media rights contract, and after the end of the 2028 season after the 2028 season. “When the next set of transactions is over, you are going to find people seeking rights all over the world, especially stretches,” Garden said. “The number of people who are engaged and watched the game internationally, I think, opened my eyes to everyone.”
For the Tokyo Game series, they were broadcast locally at NTV, as well as broadcast on Amazon Prime.
It is also transferred to sponsorship, Garden said when US companies see the opportunity to further break into the Japanese market, while Japanese companies can not only do things from MLB now locally but also reach US consumers. Over the past two years, MLB has signed 14 new sponsors in Japan, and in the Tokyo series has become the largest international sponsorship in the league, which has brought by 240% increased revenue over the Seoul Seoul, South Korea.
“We benefit from all this kind at the same time,” Garden said.
The garden said the league expects that the Tokyo series will become the most successful international game we have done financially. “
Two games between Cubs and Dodgers were instant sales except exhibition games held between MLB teams and local Japanese games. Demand was so high that the games aired in about 150 cinemas in Japan.
MLB said the Tokyo series recorded the best sales of goods at any MLB international event, and the sales of London’s 2024 series by 320%, MLB said. Sales at the store in Tokyo Dome exceeded each week MLB All-Star, selling more than half a million products. Not surprisingly, the most popular point was the Otani T -shirt with the Tokyo series.
Commissioner MLB Rob Manfred said The New York Times What he expects that the Tokyo series will set records throughout the board for a special event in the league and can bring more than $ 35 million. However, he said that the development of the common business in the league is to be a greater goal: “We believe that” B “has payments: billions,” said Manfred.
Connect Japanese fans with all MLB players, teams
Justin Turner No. 3 from Chicago Cubs poses with young fans who carry a fake beard before starting the game against Yomiuri Giants in Tokyo Dome on March 16, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan.
Kent Harad | Getty Images Sport | Gets the image
This height will continue, as otani, as well as other players born in Japan, such as Dodgers Rocky Sasaki and Yosinob Yamamota, as well as “Cubs” Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki, continue to influence the MLB. But the task of MLB and its partners in achieving this high goal is to create the rest of the league players in Japan.
David Leiner, president of the trade cards for collectible fans, where he controls the topp, stated that Fundom around baseball in Japan is indisputable, and great support not only for the Japanese MLB stars, but also for the local NPB teams.
Liner said the topps entered eight figures in the country, “from Otani, sprinkling a little accelerator.”
The company also has licenses for Japanese baseball and football leagues, as well as other entertainment properties, and Leiner said the fanatics see that the market creates nine digits.
Japanese baseball card collectors are not very different from American, Liner said, but one of the significant differences is how much they look to support players from their country. “They want Derek Jeter (card) or Mike Forel (card)? Of course, but they lean a little more to Japanese players in MLB, and there is a lot of pride,” he said.
Leiner said this leads to the faanom teams played by Japanese players, and it really adheres to – for example, there is a contingent of Seattle Marins’ supporters in Japan from the time of Ichira Suzuka with the team. But there are other examples that this is a fleeting phenomenon when Japanese fans flocked to one player and then stopped watching how this player left MLB. Now the growth of Japanese players and their impact in the league help to create a wider Fundo for MLB.
Last season, there were 10 Japanese players born in Japan on the opening day, most of all since 2013, when there were 11. While it is significantly conducting some other countries presented in the league, as the Dominican Republic and Venezuela-of which there were 108 and 58 players per day of the countries. MLB has not yet demanded the teams to finalize the 2025 opening lists, but the number of Japanese players will be expected.
Kavana, who is in Tokyo, said that while Japanese fans were historically focused on players, he now sees the team growth, especially because it became easier to follow these teams.
The presence of MLB teams on the ground also did not hurt. Until this year, it was the last time MLB played in the official games in Japan, and the garden stated that the League hoped that when it agrees to its new CBA, it will end in 2026, it will be “an even greater plan”.
This month, MLB will be held slate games in Montera, Mexico.
“Such things are years, and it takes a lot of time from participating at the level of youth to truly adults,” Garden said. “Now you see the culmination of this, and this should lead to a new era of well -being for MLB and baseball in Asia.”
